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Serious spoilers for both Series 9 and Series 10 finales.

In Series 10 finale, "The Doctor Falls",

when the Doctor starts to regenerate, we see a montage of all his past companions, at least of the rebooted series: Rose, Martha, Capt. Jack, Donna, Amy, Vastra, Jenny (not his daughter/clone), River Song and Clara.

However, in the series 9 finale

The Doctor forgets about Clara, with the wiping memory thingy that was reversed or something.

What I'm trying to ask is, is The Doctor actually remembering his past companions, or is that just an out-of-universe flashback only meant for us the viewers, as dramatic effect? If the Doctor is remembering them, he would be unable to remember that particular companion, wouldn't he?

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  • I think it was the ship with god-like powers that was able to restore the memories of the doctor.
    – jman
    Commented Jul 8, 2017 at 0:53

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That particular companion is perhaps a bit of a special case: she did, after all,

leap into the Doctor’s time-stream and shatter into a million pieces, resulting in versions of her cropping up many times throughout the Doctor’s existence.

It’s possible that

the memory wipe removed the Doctor’s memory of the original Clara (and thus his memory of who she was), but didn’t touch his memories of her fragments (who were generally a bit of a mystery to him before he met original Clara), and it’s one of the fragments that he’s remembering.

(I haven’t re-checked which shot they used though, and it may well not be

a shot of a Clara-fragment.)

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    It was a clip from Last Christmas (2014 Christmas Special), long after the Impossible Girl arc had been resolved. The Doctor shouldn't remember her there.
    – tilley31
    Commented Jul 7, 2017 at 18:56
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    The Doctor met Clara after he forgot her, but he didn't say, "Weren't you a ghost that I met?" Nor did he say anything similar about any of the other fragments. I think we can safely say that his only possible memory of Clara was of her as a waitress after he forgot who she was. Unless of course his memory is coming back... Regeneration fixes a lot of things.
    – Brythan
    Commented Jul 7, 2017 at 19:27
  • @Brythan: “The Doctor met Clara after he forgot her” — very true, although the diner scene to me played as if the Doctor was feeling at least a little disoriented at the time.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Jul 8, 2017 at 21:07
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Well, it was never clear if the Doctor remembered her during that flashback, but now that he (uh...she?) has regenerated, it has been confirmed that

The Doctor now remembers Clara again, as seen in the latest Christmas special "Twice Upon a Time"

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