19-05-2025
Desperately Seeking Susan
"In the past, right now, I live in a place called Totter's Lane. 1963, I park the TARDIS in a junkyard and live there with my granddaughter, Susan." The Doctor (2024)
It's been over 60 years since The Doctor left Susan to live her own life without him, But just like The Doctor has never forgotten her, she has remained a constant presence in the BBC Archives all that time, just waiting to be revisited. So, as Susan helps the Doctor during the events of Interstellar Song Contest, here's an insight into her earlier life.
Susan was the Doctor's original companion, already part of his life when he is first seen on screen in 1963. This extract from a document exploring the background to the series provides a little more detail about the character, but still leaves plenty of mystery as to Susan's background.
As well as that intelligence and other-worldliness, original producer Verity Lambert was also looking for something else when she cast the part of Susan, as she explained in this unedited interview from 1999.
"They had to be able to scream, because she spent a lot of time screaming."
The ability to scream would be something that many future companions would be required to bring to their role in Doctor Who as 'the young person in jeopardy'.
The role of Susan was given to Carole Ann Ford, who by 1963 had already established an acting career in film and television. She describes her excitement at getting the part in this unedited interview from 2003, and talks about her frustrations with the lack of character development.
"But you were weird!"
Despite being the prototype for later Doctor Who companions, Susan had a unique bond with the Doctor – she was his granddaughter, and she always referred to him as grandfather. The affection between the pair was obvious on screen, as can be seen in this photo of them with fellow companions Ian (William Russell) and Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) and other cast from the 1964 story Marco Polo.
"We're much too far away from home, my granddaughter and I" The Doctor (1964)
Although Carole Ann Ford disliked the lack of character development for Susan, there was an enduring mystery as to who she really was. In this unedited interview from 2003, she explores Susan's relationship with her grandfather and some of the discussions around whether or not she was a Time Lord like the Doctor.
At the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) Susan had fallen in love and was left by the Doctor, to begin a new life without him. And so the mysteries surrounding Susan were never answered. However, there was a glimpse of Susan's origins in the 1983 anniversary story The Five Doctors. An older Susan was reunited with her grandfather (now played by Richard Hurndall) and recognised that they were on Gallifrey, the Time Lord's home planet, suggesting that maybe she'd been there before.
"You're still my grandchild and always will be" The Doctor (1964)
In 2013, then Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat was asked if there would ever be a story to find out what happened to Susan. "I don't know that we're ever going to do that as a storyline" was his response.
Fourteen years later and Susan finally reappears back in the TARDIS. But the mysteries around her and what her life has been like without the Doctor remain questions still to be answered.
