SUSAN FOREMAN

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

Contents

Background

Character history

Relationship to the Doctor

Appearances in other media

BBC Books

Telos Novellas

List of appearances

Television

Films

Audio dramas

Novels

Short stories

Comics

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.
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.

Character history

The Doctor and Susan have been already traveling 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 "Fear Her," the Tenth Doctor states he "was a Dad once," but does not elaborate further. In 2007's "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.
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 many other Doctor Who spin-offs, which are of unclear canonicity.

Appearances in other media

Terrance Dicks's novelisation of his serial ''The Five Doctors'' states that Susan has been taken from a point twenty years after ''The Dalek Invasion of Earth'', and that she and David have three children. A marketplace scene was considered for the broadcast version of this story, but never filmed.
On 9 July 1994, BBC Radio 4 broadcast ''Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?'', a humorous investigation into Susan's background. In this radio drama, Susan is portrayed by Jane Asher.
Ford herself reprised the role of Susan in the 1993 charity special ''Dimensions in Time'', which is not generally considered canonical. Ford also played an alternate version of Susan in the Big Finish Productions ''Doctor Who Unbound'' audio plays ''Auld Mortality'' and ''A Storm of Angels'', in which Susan has become President of Gallifrey. In the ''Doctor Who Unbound'' play ''Exile'', an alternative Doctor, whose latest regeneration was female (played by Arabella Weir), settles on Earth in 2003 using the identity and 1963 school records of Susan Foreman.
In a 1964 novelisation of the serial ''The Daleks'', written by ''Doctor Who'' script editor David Whitaker, Susan's last name is changed from "Foreman" to "English".
A version of Susan, portrayed by Roberta Tovey and much younger than her television portrayal, appears in the two ''Doctor Who'' film adaptations: ''Dr. Who and the Daleks'' and ''Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD''. The film Doctor (named "Dr Who") is a human inventor, so one may infer this Susan is also human. Rather than being her teacher, Barbara is her older sister. No last name is given for this version of the character; some movie listings infer that her name is "Susan Who".

BBC Books

The Past Doctor Adventures novel ''The Time Travellers'' by Simon Guerrier gives an explanation for why the Doctor left Susan. During the events of that novel, the Doctor becomes involved in the British Army's time travel experiments, which risk him being noticed by the Time Lords. He then resolves to begin looking for a place where Susan can be safe and content so that if he is ever apprehended by their people, she will still be free.
Susan reappears in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel ''Legacy of the Daleks'' by John Peel, which takes place after the events of ''The Dalek Invasion of Earth''. At the end of that novel, Susan comes into possession of the Master's TARDIS after he tries to capture her, and is once again able to roam time and space.
In the Eighth Doctor Adventure ''Sometime Never...'' by Justin Richards, the Eighth Doctor's adopted daughter Miranda reappears with her own daughter Zezanne. At the novel's end, Zezanne and another character, Soul (who has duplicated the Doctor's identity), escape in a time machine which lands in 1963 London, taking the form of a police box. Zezanne, her memory hazy, accepts the "Doctor" as her grandfather. Whether this is the Doctor and Susan's origin story or that Soul and Zezanne have landed in an alternate universe is uncertain, even within the continuity of the novels.

Telos Novellas

According to the Telos novella ''Frayed'' by Tara Samms (a pen name for Stephen Cole), which takes place prior to the serial ''An Unearthly Child'', Jill, a young girl in a besieged human medical facility on the planet Iwa, meets and named the Doctor's granddaughter Susan, after Jill's mother.
The Telos novella ''Time and Relative'' by Kim Newman takes place just prior to ''An Unearthly Child''. It involves Susan and several of her classmates from Coal Hill School trying to survive an alien invasion of Earth by a race of ice beings called the Cold and at the same time convince the Doctor to stop the attack. The canonicity of these stories, like all ''Doctor Who'' spin-offs, is unclear.

List of appearances

Television

;Season 1

★ ''An Unearthly Child''

★ ''The Daleks''

★ ''The Edge of Destruction''

★ ''Marco Polo''

★ ''The Keys of Marinus''

★ ''The Aztecs''

★ ''The Sensorites''

★ ''The Reign of Terror''
;Season 2

★ ''Planet of Giants''

★ ''The Dalek Invasion of Earth''
;20th anniversary special

★ ''The Five Doctors''
;30th anniversary special

★ ''Dimensions in Time''

Films

★ ''Dr. Who and the Daleks''

★ ''Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD''

Audio dramas

★ ''Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?''
;''Doctor Who Unbound'' series (outside normal ''Doctor Who'' canonicity)

★ ''Auld Mortality''

★ ''A Storm of Angels''

★ ''Deadline''

Novels

;Virgin Missing Adventures

★ ''The Sorcerer's Apprentice'' by Christopher Bulis
;Past Doctor Adventures

★ ''The Witch Hunters'' by Steve Lyons

★ ''City at World's End'' by Christopher Bulis

★ ''The Time Travellers'' by Simon Guerrier
;Eighth Doctor Adventures

★ ''Legacy of the Daleks'' by John Peel
;Telos Doctor Who novellas

★ ''Time and Relative'' by Kim Newman

★ ''Frayed'' by Tara Samms

Short stories

★ "Birth of a Renegade" by Eric Saward (''Radio Times ''Doctor Who'' 20th Anniversary Special'')

★ "Old Flames" by Paul Magrs (''Short Trips'')

★ "The Last Days" by Evan Pritchard (Rebecca Levene) (''Short Trips'')

★ "The Longest Story in the World" by Paul Magrs (''Short Trips and Sidesteps'')

★ "Nothing at the End of the Lane (3 Parts)" by Daniel O'Mahony (''Short Trips and Sidesteps'')

★ "The Exiles" by Lance Parkin ('')

★ "Ash" by Trevor Baxendale (''Short Trips: A Universe of Terrors'')

★ "The Thief of Sherwood" by Jonathan Morris ('')

★ "Bide-a-Wee" by Anthony Keetch (''Short Trips: Past Tense'')

★ "Categorical Imperative" by Simon Guerrier ('')

★ "Envy" by Tara Samms ('')

★ "The Innocents" by Marc Platt ('')

★ "The Gift" by Robert Dick (''Short Trips: The History of Christmas'')

★ "The Ruins of Time" by Philip Purser-Hallard ('')

★ "Indian Summer" by James Goss ('')

Comics

★ "Operation Proteus" by Gareth Roberts and Martin Geraghty (''Doctor Who Magazine'' 231–233)

★ "Ground Zero" by Scott Gray and Martin Geraghty (''Doctor Who Magazine'' 238–242)