I am wondering with the new Gender swap what will become of the Doctor's Daughter? How does Susan Foreman fit into the new series? I think that the character of Jenny would probably be the easiest to accept her father being also now her mother, since her creation basically had that aspect to it.. but on the other hand, there is Susan Foreman.. The Doctor's Grand Daughter.. so what is to be done with her? Well, glad I asked that question.. I think that with the current scenario, what's good for the hero should be good for His/Her timelord kin.. so, I think that if the Doctor can become a female, why not Susan become a male?? So, I think if you can support the gender swap in one instance, then you should be able to accept it in another... Meet Sue Foreman, the Doctor's Grand Daughter/Grand Son.. Susan Foreman regenerated into a male, and not a moment too soon! Lucas Till seems like a brilliant choice to compliment Jodie Whittaker's look. I can see him secretly working with UNIT to help the Doctor, and Jodie's Doctor gets a huge surprise at the end of the season, when her former Grand-daughter reveals she is now a he! So, if the Doctor and the Master can gender swap, why not then also Susan Foreman? Who-Knows.. LOL with the current Direction of the show, anything and everything is possible. Question: If Jodie Whittaker will ONLY take a role that allows her to air her politics, then what does that say about her taking the role of the Doctor? Politics in? hmmm..... They kinda look alike! Wow!
If Susan doesn't show up in this Christmas episode, with One on the verge of regenerating, you can pretty much forget about seeing her (or a future version of her/him) ever again.
*sigh* She doesn't...? She hasn't appeared yet, and I bet she won't ever. Sure. It's only people who threw fits that Whitaker was cast as the Doctor that would probably throw a fit about changing Susan into Steve. I can. Can you? She's the Doctor whether you like it or not.
If Susan were ever to regenerate into a male body, I hope she remembers to tell her husband, David Campbell, that it's a possibility before it happens.
If Susan was to return, they'd probably keep the audios in the backstory to a degree. In those, David had died (off screen), so a throwaway line about a dead husband would suffice. Her son, who is also dead (killed by the Daleks), would be more problematic, as Susan blames the Doctor for that. Of course, the TV show is free to ignore any of that.
That depends, though. Can everyone on Gallifrey regenerate? IIRC, not all Gallifreyans are in fact Time Lords.
Damn straight it is. Only the Time Lords can regenerate, a side effect of when they look into the Untempered Schism. Ordinary Gallifreyans can not regenerate, but still have significantly long life spans.
There's no indication of it either way. Susan came and went before the concepts of Time Lords, Gallifrey, or regeneration were thought up in the show. When she returned for "The Five Doctors", upon meeting her grandfather's subsequent incarnations she barely batted an eye at them once gramps confirmed they were going to be him at some future point. So it COULD go either way. The Doctor has acknowledged being a father in the past in a deliberately-intended acknowledgement of having reproduced in the past. However he's never firmly said "Susan is the biological daughter of my own biological offspring" leaving no room for interpretation, and likely never will, so unless she shows up at some point confirming it I highly doubt we'll ever know for sure. Mark
Not so sure he needs to, actually. If the Doctor says Susan is his granddaughter, and Susan says he's her grandfather, then why not take them at their word? And even assuming that she is exactly what she says she is, then I guess she doesn't have to be a Time Lady as such, thus she doesn't have to have the ability to regenerate (even if she knows what regeneration is). Not so sure how David would feel about having a wife whom he KNEW would outlive him, anyway... But it also begs the question, what about Andred and Leela? Andred, being a member of the Chancellery Guard, would almost certainly be a Time Lord. Has there ever been any indication that Time Lords can actively refuse to regenerate ? Do their bodies do it whether they want to or not?
Well, you COULD argue that the Master refused to regenerate at the end of "Last of the TIme Lords". He obviously had a plan up his sleeve to get out of it, but the Doctor fell for it, suggesting that it was in fact possible. Similarly, the current Doctor was doing everything he could to NOT regenerate and he may even have been succeeding when his originator showed up... I think the forthcoming episode will give us something to munch on in this respect. As for Susan, I also believe the simplest answer that she's his biological granddaughter, but there's fifty-plus years of people thinking she MIGHT instead be adopted / cloned / loomed / whatever instead. Such is the nature of sci-fi nerds. I would like to think that Susan has the ability to regenerate, and that the Doctor's iconic farewell speech to her is indeed meant to say that they will see each other again, LITERALLY in some way, shape or form; just not the last ones we saw them in. Mark
I have a question about regeneration that people who have watched even the older era of the show might can answer? Is their limits to what a Time Lord can regenerate into? For example why couldn't a Time Lord go from looking like a 60 year woman to a 8 year old boy? Why do they always take human looking form? Could they look like a animal that evolved on their planet or some kind of caveman version of their species that use to exist before they evolved into what they became, asuming they were a product of evoultion? If they have any choice could they look like a alien if they wanted? Maybe like those blue aliens just to list one example. Jason
IIRC, Time Lords don't have any control over what their regenerated forms will look like. That thing with Romana in "Destiny of the Daleks" notwithstanding.
Didn't Peter Capaldi's version talk about how he took his face because of the Roman father he saved once in the Pompei episode? Jason
^ There were rumors that the show would actually explain why the 12th Doc looks like Frobisher/Caecilius but I don't know if they ever actually DID explain it.
If I recall correctly I think it might have been for him to remind himself to help people by being able to see someone he once helped. I think it might have more to do with the actor having played both characters/ Jason
I took it as simply a part of Gallifreyan biology, that all of them can regenerate. "Untempered Schism"... is that a nuWho thing? At some point in time, at some place in the universe, Susan shows up, knocks on the TARDIS door, and says, "Grandfather, have you fixed my other shoe yet? It's been very inconvenient, having only one shoe all these centuries!" Your post above is self-contradictory. Romana had exquisitely precise control over her regenerated form. She wanted to look like Princess Astra from "The Armageddon Factor" (last story of the Key to Time story arc), and that's what she got. The Doctor doesn't have such precise control, so he has to take pot luck. This shows that Romana was the first we know of to regenerate into someone else's form. The next was the Sixth Doctor taking the form of Commander Maxil (pompous Gallifreyan guard who shoots the Fifth Doctor), and then the Twelfth Doctor taking the form of the Roman man.
There was also The War Games where the Time Lord tribunal were going to give the Doctor the choice over what his next form would look like, but he took too long so they made the choice for him. Some think one of the options resembles Peter Davison. The first episode with Ashildr in season 9 rather awkwardly hamfists in the explanation that the Peter Capaldi form comes from the Doctor subconsciously remembering Fires of Pompeii during his regeneration, complete with a five minute clip from Fires of Pompeii with Donna pleading to the Doctor to save someone and the Doctor ultimately going back to save Capaldi's character and his family. Apparently, taking on a form similar to the man he saved is supposed to motivate the Doctor to save people wherever possible. Like I said, awkward and hamfisted. Yes.
Well, that's the thing isn't it. There are so many threads to Susan and Jenny yet unexplored. I kinda would like to see more of that family connection come back. It was there in the beginning, and with Gallifrey ressurected, it could be thrown back into the series once more. Yet, the newer stories always had the doctor with a surrogate family, and not being with his kin. It seems like there is just so much more that could be done with those characters, and yet it still is just sitting there unused and leaving huge plot holes that have great story value behind. The changing of Susan to a male is a good way to be fair about "change" but I doubt We will get as much as the focus seems to be solely in one direction. So I don't hold hope that a Susan/Sue/ Steve can become a member of the team anytime soon. Also, why call him Steve? If Susan regenerated into a male, then why not call him Sue? I mean, you've got Rey in Star wars, that's a male name. Whether spelled that way or not. Same with Star trek, the title character is called Michael. It should be okay if female names are appropriated by males if the same is true in the opposite direction. I think Sue is fine for a regenerated male Susan. Its kinda Asian sounding which is cool. Or just have it spelled Su.