Susan

Susan Foreman

Affiliated with the First Doctor

Race: Time Lady

Home planet: Gallifrey

Home era: Rassilon Era

First appearance: An Unearthly Child

Last appearance: The Dalek Invasion of Earth (regular)

The Five Doctors (guest)

Portrayed by: Carole Ann Ford

Roberta Tovey (film Susan)

Jane Asher (audio play)

Susan Foreman is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. She is played by actress Carole Ann Ford.

Background

Susan is the granddaughter and a companion of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. Her last name of Foreman is an alias taken from the junkyard, owned by an "I. M. Foreman", at 76 Totter's Lane where she and the Doctor lived during their time in London in 1963. The original outline for the series did not intend for the pair to be related, but writer Anthony Coburn created the family tie as he was disturbed by the possible sexual connotations of an old man travelling alone with a teenage girl.

The Doctor explains in "An Unearthly Child" (the very first episode of Doctor Who and a title often used for the first four-part serial) that he and Susan are exiles from their own people. Susan adds, "I was born in another time, on another world" (presumably Gallifrey). Susan claims to have coined the name for the TARDIS, the Doctor's time machine, though later episodes seemed to indicate that it was a widely used term among Time Lords. (The unbroadcast pilot version of "An Unearthly Child" contained different dialogue, including a statement that Susan was born in the 49th century.) It is not known if Susan is the character's real name, or another alias to make her appear more human. The 2007 episode "The Sound of Drums" implies that Time Lords choose their own name, making it possible for Susan to have chosen that name as her real name.

Susan's age is given as 15, although given the longevity of Time Lords, it is also not known if this is her actual age. In The Sensorites (1964), the Doctor, when encountering an unconscious young human woman, remarks that "she's only a few years older than Susan," suggesting that Susan is the age of a normal secondary school student. In "The Sound of Drums", the Tenth Doctor remarks that Gallifreyan children are sent to the Academy at the young age of eight, making Susan's age of fifteen perfectly possible.

Character history

The Doctor and Susan have been already travelling for a time before they decide to settle in London to make repairs on the TARDIS; evidently this has taken longer than expected, as Susan states that she and her grandfather have been in London for five months. Susan begins to attend the Coal Hill School in Shoreditch, where her advanced knowledge of history and science attract the attention of schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. Attempting to solve the mystery of the "unearthly child," Chesterton and Wright follow Susan back to the junkyard, where they hear her voice coming from what appears to be a police box. When they investigate further, they discover that the police box exterior hides the much larger interior of the TARDIS, and are whisked away on an adventure in time and space with the Doctor and Susan.

Susan continues to travel with the Doctor and her two teachers until the 1964 serial, The Dalek Invasion of Earth. During the events of that story, Susan falls in love with David Campbell, a freedom fighter in the 22nd century. However, Susan feels that she has to stay with and take care of her grandfather. The Doctor, realising that Susan is now a grown woman and deserves a future away from him, locks her out of the TARDIS and leaves after a tearful farewell. Carole Ann Ford had expressed a desire to leave the series as she felt the character of Susan was too limiting. Ford reprised the role of Susan on television in the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors (1983), but no mention of David, or what became of him, was made.

In The Curse of Fenric (1989), the Seventh Doctor states that he does not know if he has any family, which may indicate uncertainty of Susan's whereabouts. In 2005's "The End of the World" the Ninth Doctor states that his home world has been destroyed and that he is the last of the Time Lords. Although Susan is not mentioned by name, the Doctor says in "Father's Day" that his "whole family" died, and in "The Empty Child" some dialogue implies that he is no longer a father or grandfather. In "The Age of Steel", Mrs Moore asks the Doctor if he has any family, to which he replies "Who needs family? I've got the whole world on my shoulders." In "Fear Her," the Tenth Doctor states he "was a Dad once," but does not elaborate further. In "The Sound of Drums", the Tenth Doctor discusses with the Master the fact that they each chose their own names. It is not known whether Susan chose her own name, or what other Time Lord designation she may have.

Relationship to the Doctor

Susan and the Doctor regularly refer to each other as "grandfather" and "granddaughter", and it is clear that the original programme-makers' intent was that the two were biologically related. However, some later fans of Doctor Who, uncomfortable with the implications that the Doctor was sexually active at one point, have suggested otherwise. As neither the Doctor or Susan mention her parents, the true nature of their relationship was left to conjecture until the 2006 episode "Fear Her" when the Doctor tells Rose that he was a dad once, thus making a biological connection with Susan probable. In the 2007 episode "Blink", the Doctor tells Sally Sparrow that he's "rubbish at weddings, especially my own", adding further credence to the notion that the Doctor was once a family man. The First Doctor is accidentally betrothed to the lady Cameca by making her a cup of cocoa in story The Aztecs. In "The Family of Blood", the Doctor as John Smith foresees an alternate future as a human where he has a successful marriage and raises a family.

Whether biologically related or not, Susan is generally assumed to be Gallifreyan like the Doctor. Her description of her home planet in The Sensorites (1964) matches the Tenth Doctor's much later descriptions of Gallifrey, and she is fully familiar with the history and landscape of Gallifrey's Time Lord society when she and the First Doctor are transported to "the Death Zone" in The Five Doctors. Although it has never been explicitly established whether she can regenerate, she does display telepathic ability on one occasion (The Sensorites).

In the commentary to the BBC's DVD release of An Unearthly Child, actress Carole Ann Ford points out that these suggestions that Susan was not the Doctor's biological granddaughter were only first put forward in the 1990s. She reveals that little background information on Susan's character or past history was provided to her by the production team, and so to inform her performance, she would often discuss and invent ideas about Susan with co-star William Hartnell.

In 1983, Doctor Who's then-script editor Eric Saward wrote a short story dealing with the Doctor's departure from Gallifrey for the Radio Times Doctor Who 20th Anniversary Special. This story, "Birth of a Renegade", depicts Susan as a descendant of Time Lord founder Rassilon, unrelated to the Doctor. Later Doctor Who spin-offs have generally ignored this account.

A later script editor, Andrew Cartmel, had another explanation of Susan's origins. This account, part of the "Cartmel Masterplan", was not used in the programme, but was used as background for several of the Virgin New Adventures novels, most notably Lungbarrow by Marc Platt. In this version, Susan is the granddaughter of the mysterious Gallifreyan founder known as the Other, who may have been reincarnated as the Doctor. The Doctor had travelled back to the dawn of Time Lord civilisation and rescued Susan, who recognised him as her grandfather. The Doctor did not initially recognise her, but knew that this was somehow true. This version of Susan's origins is reflected in ma