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Doctor Who: A Beginner's Primer for Susan, The Doctor's Granddaughter

Here's a beginner's primer on the first Doctor Who companion, Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), who happens to be The Doctor's granddaughter.

The two major surprises in Doctor Who: The Interstellar Song Contest were the return of The Rani (Anita Dobson and Archie Punjabi) and the return of Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), the Doctor's granddaughter and first companion from the show's debut in 1963. Susan's sudden appearance in a telepathic call to The Doctor was utterly out of the blue and shocked fans into tears and joy. For newer fans and viewers who never saw the classic series or kept up with the lore, they had no idea who that was popping up out of nowhere and just felt baffled. Well, here's a primer for who Susan is and why she matters.

Susan was a teenager when she fled Gallifrey with The Doctor (William Hartnell) before the series even premiered in 1963. They settled in 1963 London, where The Doctor parked the TARDIS in a South London junkyard. When Ian and Barbara, her teachers from school, show up for a home visit, it sets the whole series in motion when The Doctor kidnaps them and takes them all through Space and Time.

In those days, Susan was in a somewhat thankless role, despite being very clever and a genius. She was often relegated to the role of damsel in distress because male writers dominated the industry and always wrote female characters as love interests and/or damsels in distress. In the show's second series in 1964, Susan falls in love with an earnest young freedom fighter named David Campbell (Simon Fraser) in a 22nd-century Earth devastated by the Daleks, and The Doctor decides to leave her there so she can pursue her own life as an adult.

"One day I shall come back," said The Doctor. "Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine." (Arrested Development narrator's voice: "He never went back.") Somehow, nobody ever commented that The Doctor left his granddaughter in a world that was a devastated hellhole, but hey, true love will hopefully conquer all. Maybe. Wonder what happened to dear old David. Especially when she can regenerate and he can't.

Nevertheless, despite often being underwritten, Susan has fans, and they've wanted her to return to the show and resolve the question of what happened to her after she was left on the future Earth. She appeared in 1984's 20th anniversary special "The Five Doctors," but she was just there to play a companion again. She showed up in 1993's abominable Children in Need special "Dimensions in Time" when Doctor Who had a crossover with EastEnders as timelines went wonky and several Doctors and companions kept criss-crossing in Albert Square, where the East End soap opera is set. Kate O'Mara also appeared in that special for the final time as The Rani. What happened to Susan since 1964 has been a mystery, and anything could have happened. Big Finish recently produced audio drama stories where Susan was called back to Gallifrey to fight the Time War and met the War Doctor. That plays off the Ninth Doctor's (Christopher Eccleston) assertion in 2005 that his whole family died in the war.

As an actress, the highly trained Carole Ann Ford never got her due. Hopefully, Russell T Davies will continue his mission to redress the neglect of past companions with her, as the series has been doing since 2006. It looks like Susan will show up in season two's finale, and questions will be answered.

Doctor Who is on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in the UK, and on Disney+ outside the UK.

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