Susan Foreman
- This article is about granddaughter of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. You may be looking for the Susan of the 1960s Dalek movies, or for any one of a number of other Susans.
Susan Foreman (later Susan Campbell) was the granddaughter of the Doctor and travelled with him during his first life.
Biography
Early life
On her home planet of Gallifrey, the future Susan Foreman did not originally go by that name.
Two different accounts exist to explain how the Doctor and Susan came to travel together. One, related by the Master, described Susan as Lady Larna, a contemporary of the Doctor whom he rescued from civil strife on Gallifrey. (RT: Birth of a Renegade) In another account, the Doctor first met Susan during a visit to the Dark Times of ancient Gallifrey; she recognised him as her grandfather who had come to rescue her from the breakdown of society. She appeared to have been one of the last children born on Gallifrey before Pythia's Curse and to have been grand-daughter of the Other. (NA: Lungbarrow) Both of these accounts may be contradicted by statements by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors that the Doctor had been married and had a family on Gallifrey, making it entirely possible that Susan was in fact his actual granddaughter.
The Doctor and Susan left Gallifrey together in the Doctor's TARDIS. (NA: Nightshade, DWM: Time & Time Again)
Travels
On the planet Iwa, a Human colonist, Jill, bestowed upon her the name Susan, after Jill's mother. (TN: Frayed)
Susan and the Doctor eventually came to 1963 London. The Doctor enrolled Susan at Coal Hill School in Shoreditch, where Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright worked as teachers; Susan adopted the last name "Foreman" from the name of the junkyard where the Doctor had chosen to hide his TARDIS. Like all teenagers, Susan loved pop groups such as John Smith and the Common Men, but despite passing as an ordinary teenage girl, she had astonishing knowledge of advanced physics theory beyond the abilities of her teachers, yet did not know how many shillings made a pound. Susan called her five months on Earth "the happiest of (her) life". When her two teachers, Ian and Barbara, followed her home one night to find out more of her mysterious home life they found the TARDIS.
The Doctor kidnapped Ian and Barbara and took a reluctant Susan too. (DW: An Unearthly Child) Susan acted as an intermediary between her teachers and the Doctor who did not trust each other at first. After a detour they landed on Skaro where they met the Daleks. (DW: The Daleks) In 1289 Asia she met Ping-Cho, a Chinese girl her own age. (DW: Marco Polo)
In a London devastated by the 22nd century Dalek invasion, Susan fell in love with the freedom fighter David Campbell. The Doctor realised that Susan would never leave him of her own free will as she believed that he was dependent on her. Rather than let Susan make up her mind to stay with him or with David, he forced her hand and locked her out of the Tardis, bidding her farewell and saying that one day he would return. Meanwhile she had a place where she could belong, and the home which she confided to David she had never really had.(DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
Adult life
Life in the 22nd century with David
Around 20 years after being left on Earth, Borusa captured Susan using a Time Scoop and placed her with the Doctor in the Death Zone on Gallifrey. She met her grandfather in his fifth incarnation (and, briefly, his second and third incarnations). She accompanied the Doctor back their time streams. (DW: The Five Doctors)
- Based upon later references, it would appear the Doctor returned Susan to 22nd Century Earth after the Borusa incident, rather than returning her to Gallifrey or resuming their travels together. This may be due to her having family. commitments back on Earth as detailed below.
While on Earth, Susan and David adopted three Dalek war orphans and named them Ian, Barbara and David Campbell Junior. Susan was not able to become pregnant with David. She later worked as a Peace Officer who made Dalek artifacts safe. The years she spent on Earth caused problems for herself and David as (being a Gallifreyan) she did not age at the same rate as regular humans and was forced to disguise herself to give the appearance of being 30 years older. (EDA: Legacy of the Daleks) In 2199 she encountered the Master whilst investigating a Dalek artifact, and was eventually taken and captured by the Master. Susan was taken in his TARDIS to the planet Tersurus where she believed she killed him. Afterwards she took his TARDIS. (EDA: Legacy of the Daleks) The Doctor, whilst present on Earth at the time of these events, was not aware of much of Susan's part in the events. (EDA: Legacy of the Daleks)
A conflicting account shows that Susan was able to have a child with David, the child was named Alex Campbell who maintained Susan's Time Lord features (two hearts). After David's death, Susan became one of the leaders of the Earth council to help with the recovery of the planet after the Dalek Invasion, she met up with the Doctor again and helped stop a seemingly peaceful race from enslaving the Humans. (BFA: An Earthly Child)
Ultimate Fate
Susan's ultimate fate is not known. Repeated references by the ninth incarnations and tenth incarnations of the Doctor to his family all being killed in the Last Great Time War suggests Susan may now be deceased (DW: The Doctor's Daughter, et al); oddly, however, the Second Doctor, in discussing his family with Victoria Waterfield early in his incarnation, strongly implied that his family was already dead by the time of their conversation. (DW: The Tomb of the Cybermen) Additionally, whilst in his tenth incarnation, he remarked that (in relation to being a father) he "lost all that a long time ago". (DW: The Doctor's Daughter) However the Doctor told Martha Jones that he left Susan on a future Earth with a freedom fighter with whom she had fallen in love and is unsure if she is alive as he simply hadn't checked. (IDW:The Forgotten)
Relatives
The identity of Susan's biological parents is ambiguous, though she may be related to the Other (biologically or not). (NA: Lungbarrow) Jenny, an artificially created offspring of the Doctor's tenth incarnation, is technically Susan's aunt, if Susan is in fact the Doctor's biological grand-daughter. (DW: The Doctor's Daughter) The Doctor has also made occasional references to other family members, including a brother (DW: Smith and Jones) and children. (DW: The Doctor's Daughter, The Empty Child, The Tomb of the Cybermen, et al) Assuming a true biological link exists between her and the Doctor, this makes these individuals her relations, too.
- There is speculation (fuelled by production team comments and The Writer's Tale but not confirmed by on-screen evidence) that the unidentified woman in DW: The End of Time is the Doctor's mother. If this is the case, then Susan would be her great-granddaughter.
Aliases
- For reasons unknown, some written accounts suggest Susan might at one point have used the name Susan English. (DWN: Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks; CP: Campaign)
Quotes
See also
- John and Gillian, the Doctor's other grandchildren.
Behind the scenes
- No televised episode has ever explored Susan's origins. The unbroadcast pilot episode features a line of dialogue in which Susan states she is from the 49th century. However, the final televised version broadcast as part 1 of An Unearthly Child contains no such reference.
- It's unclear why David Whitaker chose to change the character's name to Susan English for his novelisations. The later unofficial novel Campaign reinstated this use in tribute, but all other novelisations and original novels have retained the Susan Foreman name.
- The contradicting stories regarding Susan's origins predate the current series of Doctor Who. The series establishes the fact that the Doctor had a family on Gallifrey and that Susan was in all likelihood his biological granddaughter. As of 2010 there has never been an indication given in any TV episode to suggest otherwise.
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