Y’know, Clara Oswald’s appeared in nine episodes now, but Rory’s ninth episode was The Impossible Astronaut, and at that point we knew much, much less about him than we know about Clara now. We’d only seen him at work once, we hadn’t even met his dad yet, and he barely passed a reverse Bechdel test: virtually all his conversations were about Amy.
And I love Rory. I love him to pieces. But guess how many people I saw calling him ‘boring’ or ‘bland’ or ‘barely even a character’ back then? If you guessed zero, you’re absolutely right.