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Who Is Susan Foreman?

FalTorPan

Vice Admiral
Admiral
Will we ever learn more about Susan Foreman? I've been watching a few Hartnell-era stories, and I'm discovering two things: (1) the first Doctor has far more comedic moments than he's given credit for, and (2) Susan Foreman fascinates me.

As a native of the Doctor's homeworld -- and perhaps also as a Time Lady -- Susan is clearly more intelligent than Ian Chesteron and Barbara Wright. On the other hand, on many occasions she behaves with a level of maturity comparable to, and perhaps often less than, that of a human girl of her age of 15.

By the time they meet Ian and Barbara, Susan and the Doctor have already experienced many adventures in time and space. Despite this Susan is often more easily frightened than Ian and Barbara.

In "Tomb of the Cybermen," the second Doctor states that he is about 450 years old. It's probably fair to speculate that the Doctor is some 350 to 400 years old as of "An Unearthly Child," when Susan is 15.

At 140, Romana has nearly graduated from the Time Lord Academy, which suggests that Susan has minimal education by Time Lord standards.

From the new TV program, we know that children of Gallifrey are taken from their families at the age of 8 and admitted into the Academy. By the time of "An Unearthly Child," Susan could have had no more than seven years of Academy education, and given her history of traveling with the Doctor, she probably has far less than seven years -- perhaps none at all. Despite this, Susan is familiar with the Death Zone on Gallifrey.

So... who is Susan Foreman? Is Susan an assumed name, or is it a shortening of a longer, Gallifreyan name, just as Romana is a shortening of Romanadvoratrelundar?

Perhaps we'll never learn much about her, because her origins might shed light on the origins of the Doctor.

(Yes, I know that elements of Susan's back story have been revealed to some extent in tie-in fiction, but we can speculate whatever we wish!)
 
Actually given that Susan was last seen on the post Dalek Apocolyptic Earth one has to wonder how she ended up dying with the rest of the Timelords during the war. Did she receive a summons? (odd since she was an exile and seemed quite happy on Earth) or was it more insidious. Did the Daleks have the ability to track down and exterminate those Timelords not afforded the safety of being on/behind the Timelord battle lines?
 
Other important clues about Susan's past are that, as of "An Unearthly Child," Susan's recent five months in 1960s' England constituted the best time of her life. By "The Dalek Invasion of Earth," Susan believed that she never really had a home.
 
Actually given that Susan was last seen on the post Dalek Apocolyptic Earth one has to wonder how she ended up dying with the rest of the Timelords during the war. Did she receive a summons? (odd since she was an exile and seemed quite happy on Earth) or was it more insidious. Did the Daleks have the ability to track down and exterminate those Timelords not afforded the safety of being on/behind the Timelord battle lines?

She did get called back to Gallifrey in The Five Doctors, her final appearance. True, the various Doctors returned with their companions to their appropriate times at the end of that story. But the Time Lord Council may have noted where she was and at some point transported her through time and space without a TARDIS (like they did the Doctor in Genesis Of The Daleks) if they needed her at some point. Although, what they would need an untrained Gallifreyian for is a matter of speculation. Perhaps as a way to enlist the Doctor himself for the Time War?
 
Actually given that Susan was last seen on the post Dalek Apocolyptic Earth one has to wonder how she ended up dying with the rest of the Timelords during the war. Did she receive a summons? (odd since she was an exile and seemed quite happy on Earth) or was it more insidious. Did the Daleks have the ability to track down and exterminate those Timelords not afforded the safety of being on/behind the Timelord battle lines?

She did get called back to Gallifrey in The Five Doctors, her final appearance. True, the various Doctors returned with their companions to their appropriate times at the end of that story. But the Time Lord Council may have noted where she was and at some point transported her through time and space without a TARDIS (like they did the Doctor in Genesis Of The Daleks) if they needed her at some point. Although, what they would need an untrained Gallifreyian for is a matter of speculation. Perhaps as a way to enlist the Doctor himself for the Time War?

Good points, but you'd think if anything the Doctor would want her out of the battle, although maybe Gallifrey was the safest place.
 
The Doctor has stated on numerous times in the revival that his family are all dead, so from that it can probably be surmised that Susan was lost in the Time War. That said, the Second Doctor declared his family all dead as early as Tomb of the Cybermen in 1967, so how accurate his memories are is unclear.

As noted, we did get to see an older Susan in the Five Doctors and I think the novelisation filled in a few blanks regarding her activities in the 22nd century. But in terms of present-day Susan, the Doctor seems to believe she's dead.

As far as who Susan really was, well obviously the name Susan was adopted (just as the Doctor's birth name certainly wasn't "The Doctor"). The name Foreman came from the junkyard (the novelisation of the first Daleks story suggests she also used the name Susan English). Whether she was truly the Doctor's granddaughter depends on whether you take the novels as being full canon (things got REALLY messy near the end of the Virgin New Adventures series as the so-called "Cartmel Masterplan" came to a head. Looms, anyone?). On TV there was nothing to say one way or the other.

The problem with revisiting the issue in the new series is that since it came back in 2005 the writers have tried to keep the show from getting too backstory-heavy. They got away with the occasional throwaway line and bringing back Sarah Jane and K9 (The Master was easy - he was a villain, full stop), but especially with the job now of transitioning to Matt Smith, I highly doubt we'll be seeing too much "looking back" in the near future.

Alex
 
On TV there was nothing to say one way or the other.

I don't know exactly how you could say that.

Since she always called him "Grandfather" and referred to him always as "her Grandfather", ALWAYS, I would say that there's much, much more onscreen evidence "for" than "against".
 
Here's an interesting thing that I noticed about Susan. In terms of the Hartnell era, the time that she actually appeared on the show, there really wasn't a mystery about her. She was simply the Doctor's granddaughter and she traveled with him. That's what they said and that's how it was played. At that point in time, it wasn't surprising that the Doctor had a family and there was none of the Time Lord baggage to make you wonder about her.

Fast forward to later days, and suddenly you have more questions. The Time Lord baggage, how does she fit in with the Doctor's departure from Gallifrey, is she really his Granddaugher, etc? Questions that have arisen over time as the series developed in certain ways.

Mr Awe
 
This is only an issue because of the idiot known as Terrance Dicks. He pushed for Susan to be some girl the Doctor kidnapped. In his novelization of the Five Doctors, for example, he pushed that nonsense.

Well, this is the same idiot who tried to say there were pre-Hartnell Doctors. Not happening.

Susan IS the Doctor's biological grand-daughter, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
 
Can we even be sure that Susan was indeed 15 years old at her first appearance or did she simply appear to be and neither she nor the Doctor bothered to correct the mistaken assumptions of Ian and Barbara? The Doctor never stated his 300-450 year age to either of them so it would make sense that he might be trying to keep the longevity of his species a bit secret (he's later able to open up about his true age a bit more to companions who know that he can regenerate).

The growth rate of Gallifreyans hasn't really been addressed... Romana seems to be at undergraduate level (akin to a human of 18-21) in terms of both her Academy training and also the level of world-experience she possessed, and is 150 years old. The Master was actually eight years old (and looked eight years old) when he went mad gazing into the Untempered Schism... but the Doctor was still referring to himself as "just a kid" at the age of 90... I think we might reasonably assume that Susan is a tad older than 15 in chronological years (say 50?), but her level of maturity may seem lower because she's lead a pretty sheltered life up until that point.
 
The Doctor has stated on numerous times in the revival that his family are all dead, so from that it can probably be surmised that Susan was lost in the Time War. That said, the Second Doctor declared his family all dead as early as Tomb of the Cybermen in 1967, so how accurate his memories are is unclear.

The Doctor has also said that he was the last of the Time Lords -- until the Master showed up, and in "The Tomb of the Cybermen," the second Doctor referred to his family in the past tense.
 
Since she always called him "Grandfather" and referred to him always as "her Grandfather", ALWAYS, I would say that there's much, much more onscreen evidence "for" than "against".

Is there any onscreen evidence to say Susan is not the Doctor's granddaughter? I've never understood why someone would want to think she's not.

That said, the Second Doctor declared his family all dead as early as Tomb of the Cybermen in 1967, so how accurate his memories are is unclear.

The Doctor never said his family was dead in Tomb of the Cybermen. Victoria asks the Doctor if he misses his family, and he says they sleep in his mind. That's all. One might infer they're dead since the conversation begins by discussing Victoria's dead father, but the Doctor never actually says what happened to his family.
 
This is only an issue because of the idiot known as Terrance Dicks.

Christ, you've got a real downer on Terrance Dicks. In so many ways, he's the man who taught me to love books and reading. He's an important and influential figure in Who.

He pushed for Susan to be some girl the Doctor kidnapped. In his novelization of the Five Doctors, for example, he pushed that nonsense.

I don't recall him "pushing" that particularly. You got a page reference for that? In any case, rightly or wrongly, this was very much the prevailing attitude in Who fandom at the time. The idea that Susan was the Doctor's actual biological granddaughter was very unpopular at the time, and there were lots of theories and ideas proposed to explain it away. As has been said, a lot of this is the accumulated baggage of continuity that had built up around the show. Nathan-Turner, Saward and Levine were more to blame than Dicks. Nathan-Turner wanted Susan to call the Doctor "Doctor" in The Five Doctors, and just avoid the whole grandfather issue - but Carole Ann Ford insisted that she had to call him "grandfather". Good for her. Around the same time, Saward wrote a story which explained away Susan's true origins. This was published in an official BBC publication, and obviously endorsed by Nathan-Turner, so was as close to official as could be then. No one raised much of a stink about it then. Of course, hardly anyone in 80s fandom had seen the Hartnell stories (or not recently) and it was easier to believe the current thinking. These days, more sensible heads have prevailed, and most people believe that Susan is the Doctor's real granddaughter again. The novels have gone with that too.

Well, this is the same idiot who tried to say there were pre-Hartnell Doctors. Not happening.

Don't see why not. There's very little in the series to contradict the notion. Who continuity is a pretty fluid and changeable thing after all... And leave it out with the idiot thing again. If you're talking about Brain of Morbius, it seems likely that Holmes and Hinchcliffe were more responsible for that anyway.

Susan IS the Doctor's biological grand-daughter, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Um... yes. Obviously.
 
I always assumed The Doctor "kidnapped" Susan before she was taken into the academy, and that this may have been what started him running in the first place.

Obviously, The Doctor had at least one son or daughter (Susan's parent). I imagine that The Doctor's son/daughter may have been taken from him when they turned eight, and returned from the academy a very different person.
 
As noted, we did get to see an older Susan in the Five Doctors and I think the novelisation filled in a few blanks regarding her activities in the 22nd century. But in terms of present-day Susan, the Doctor seems to believe she's dead.

In one of John Peel's Dalek novels, Susan is caught by the Master but she gets away with his TARDIS. I don't think she ever appeared after that (in any form). So we can assume she's still out there somewhere.

Also, since she is the Doctor's granddaughter, I assume she will regenerate just like he does. So what happens when her husband (Dalek Invasion of Earth) gets too old for her? ;)

Edit: I found the novel. It's War of the Daleks. Leads directly into "The Deadly Assassin".
 
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I hope that we get to see Susan in the new series, played by the same actress. How cool would that be? A grandaughter played by an actress old enough to be her grandfathers grandmother?! Great twist.

Is the actress still alive? Make it happen TPTB! :D
 
I always assumed The Doctor "kidnapped" Susan before she was taken into the academy, and that this may have been what started him running in the first place.

Obviously, The Doctor had at least one son or daughter (Susan's parent). I imagine that The Doctor's son/daughter may have been taken from him when they turned eight, and returned from the academy a very different person.

Oooooooooooooooooooooh!! That's g-o-o-d! That's really, really good. Probably the best scenario I've heard around Susan. Seriously. It's simple enough to work, but at the same time really defines and fits with The Doctor that we know, and his feelings about Time Lord society, their refusal to get involved with the universe, etc. Very nice, dude! :techman: I'm totally stealing it and am going to work it in as my own idea the next time I'm talking Who with some fellow nerds... :angel: :lol:

I hope that we get to see Susan in the new series, played by the same actress. How cool would that be? A grandaughter played by an actress old enough to be her grandfathers grandmother?! Great twist.

Is the actress still alive? Make it happen TPTB! :D

She is totally alive and acting, last I read. I think she just did a Big Finish audio adventure as Susan, if I'm remembering correctly.

CarolAnnFord.jpg
 
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