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Who Is Susan Foreman?

I always assumed The Doctor "kidnapped" Susan before she was taken into the academy, and that this may have been what started him running in the first place.

Obviously, The Doctor had at least one son or daughter (Susan's parent). I imagine that The Doctor's son/daughter may have been taken from him when they turned eight, and returned from the academy a very different person.

Oooooooooooooooooooooh!! That's g-o-o-d! That's really, really good. Probably the best scenario I've heard around Susan. Seriously. It's simple enough to work, but at the same time really defines and fits with The Doctor that we know, and his feelings about Time Lord society, their refusal to get involved with the universe, etc. Very nice, dude! :techman: I'm totally stealing it and am going to work it in as my own idea the next time I'm talking Who with some fellow nerds... :angel: :lol:

It would be an interesting retcon if they made that parent the Master.

Say that the Doctor, while around 50 and in the academy, fell in love, married and had a son. His son enters the academy eight years later, while the Doctor is still attending and preserving the "attending the academy at the same time" story point. And that the Doctor formally disowned him when he saw what he had become. It would also go a long way to explaining their unending rivalry, as well as the Doctor's actions regarding him in the Master's last appearance. Not to mention the Master's feeling of entitlement to the Doctor's regenerations prior to the Time War when he got a new set of them, and his need to one up the Doctor at every turn.
 
I always assumed The Doctor "kidnapped" Susan before she was taken into the academy, and that this may have been what started him running in the first place.

Obviously, The Doctor had at least one son or daughter (Susan's parent). I imagine that The Doctor's son/daughter may have been taken from him when they turned eight, and returned from the academy a very different person.

Oooooooooooooooooooooh!! That's g-o-o-d! That's really, really good. Probably the best scenario I've heard around Susan. Seriously. It's simple enough to work, but at the same time really defines and fits with The Doctor that we know, and his feelings about Time Lord society, their refusal to get involved with the universe, etc. Very nice, dude! :techman: I'm totally stealing it and am going to work it in as my own idea the next time I'm talking Who with some fellow nerds... :angel: :lol:

It would be an interesting retcon if they made that parent the Master.

Say that the Doctor, while around 50 and in the academy, fell in love, married and had a son. His son enters the academy eight years later, while the Doctor is still attending and preserving the "attending the academy at the same time" story point. And that the Doctor formally disowned him when he saw what he had become. It would also go a long way to explaining their unending rivalry, as well as the Doctor's actions regarding him in the Master's last appearance. Not to mention the Master's feeling of entitlement to the Doctor's regenerations prior to the Time War when he got a new set of them, and his need to one up the Doctor at every turn.


I TOTALLY thought the same thing! It could very well work.

BUT, it's almost too important to just retcon into the series, you know? Also, it would make his origin kind of fanwanky, in a way. Still, if done right, I'd probably buy it... ;) :techman:
 
She is totally alive and acting, last I read. I think she just did a Big Finish audio adventure as Susan, if I'm remembering correctly.

CarolAnnFord.jpg

Is it just me, or does she bare a familial resemblance to David Tennant? :lol:
 
Oooooooooooooooooooooh!! That's g-o-o-d! That's really, really good. Probably the best scenario I've heard around Susan. Seriously. It's simple enough to work, but at the same time really defines and fits with The Doctor that we know, and his feelings about Time Lord society, their refusal to get involved with the universe, etc. Very nice, dude! :techman: I'm totally stealing it and am going to work it in as my own idea the next time I'm talking Who with some fellow nerds... :angel: :lol:

It would be an interesting retcon if they made that parent the Master.

Say that the Doctor, while around 50 and in the academy, fell in love, married and had a son. His son enters the academy eight years later, while the Doctor is still attending and preserving the "attending the academy at the same time" story point. And that the Doctor formally disowned him when he saw what he had become. It would also go a long way to explaining their unending rivalry, as well as the Doctor's actions regarding him in the Master's last appearance. Not to mention the Master's feeling of entitlement to the Doctor's regenerations prior to the Time War when he got a new set of them, and his need to one up the Doctor at every turn.


I TOTALLY thought the same thing! It could very well work.

BUT, it's almost too important to just retcon into the series, you know? Also, it would make his origin kind of fanwanky, in a way. Still, if done right, I'd probably buy it... ;) :techman:

Thinking about that even more...

It could explain the schizm between the Doctor and the Time Lords. He telling them that something was terribly wrong with his son, with them not recognizing anything wrong (until it was too late of course), and holding them responsible for his losing his son.

The Doctor never really wanting the Master dead because he was still his son, even though he had disowned him.

The Doctor seeing similarities in his young son to Susan, so he kidnaps her prior to her eighth birthday to save her from what he saw as the same fate.

Even the Doctor's desire to right wrongs stemming from wanting to right the wrong done to his son, and that desire to fix things led to him being called the Doctor.

It is an answer that fits so many unanswered questions.
 
If only the powers that be created a long term plan for The Doctor. I would definitely love to see this play out. I would really like to see the timelords return, the timelords that the second Doctor was in fear of.
 
I hope that we get to see Susan in the new series, played by the same actress. How cool would that be? A grandaughter played by an actress old enough to be her grandfathers grandmother?! Great twist.

Is the actress still alive? Make it happen TPTB! :D

[fangirl moment] In my mind, it's already happening. Matt Smith and Carol Ann Ford are there in the console room... it's all looking good, by the way! :) She's calling him grandfather, he's all protective, or irritated, depending on how Matt Smith's playing 11... It has to happen! [/fangirl moment]
 
Well the Master was definitely older than the Doctor in terms of regenerations...so maybe he's the Doctor's father?!!!

But then again it might just be down to him being evil and not very careful around heavy machinery ;)

I love the idea of 11 meeting Susan played by Carole Anne Ford.

Amy: "She's bossy, who is she your mum?"

Doctor: "Actually no...right lines...wrong direction."
 
I wouldn't mind seeing Susan back and her backstory given more detail. But only if she no longer screams "Grandfather!" and has her little hissy fits. I love the Hartnell era but Susan is painful to watch sometimes.
 
I'm not a big fan of Susan herself, but I've always been interested in the relationship she had with The Doctor. Add me to the list of people who would love to see Carole Ann Ford reprise her role as Susan along side Matt Smith's Doctor.
 
Well, this is the same idiot who tried to say there were pre-Hartnell Doctors. Not happening.

Don't see why not. There's very little in the series to contradict the notion.

More like there's very little in the series to support the notion. The only thing in its favor is what is implied but never stated in The Brain of Morbius. Against it, we have explicit dialogue in The Three Doctors, Mawdryn Undead and The Five Doctors, plus implication by the absence of any pre-Hartnell Doctors in Human Nature and The Next Doctor.
 
Well the Master was definitely older than the Doctor in terms of regenerations...

How do we know this? We know that the shriveled husk from "The Deadly Assassin" was his final form (the "13th Master"), having used up all his regenerations, but I don't recall anything that said (for example) which version Roger Delgado was playing. He could have been the first, or the 12th, or any in between.
 
Well, this is the same idiot who tried to say there were pre-Hartnell Doctors. Not happening.
Don't see why not. There's very little in the series to contradict the notion.

More like there's very little in the series to support the notion. The only thing in its favor is what is implied but never stated in The Brain of Morbius. Against it, we have explicit dialogue in The Three Doctors, Mawdryn Undead and The Five Doctors, plus implication by the absence of any pre-Hartnell Doctors in Human Nature and The Next Doctor.

So three stories out of 200 odd, that's not very good odds. When put against all those stories when they don't say anything about it one way or the other. I just don't believe the Doctor Who continuity is as set in stone as some others seem to. What if there's some sort of block on memories of the Doctor prior to the Hartnell incarnation, which only got broken through in the exceptional case of The Brain of Morbius. Just a thought...
 
Well the Master was definitely older than the Doctor in terms of regenerations...

How do we know this? We know that the shriveled husk from "The Deadly Assassin" was his final form (the "13th Master"), having used up all his regenerations, but I don't recall anything that said (for example) which version Roger Delgado was playing. He could have been the first, or the 12th, or any in between.

A Time Lord could go through all of his/her regenerations by merely having a bad couple of weeks. So calculating ages by counting regenerations really doesn't work.

And yes, I get that the Doctor and Master went to the academy together and that there is some underlying context to their relationship that is akin to familial in nature. But the thing is is that what that relationship is has never been defined.

Now in my prior post I posed that the Doctor and his unknown mate had the Master when the Doctor was around 50. That age, for a Time Lord, is quite young. And there are likely siblings of some Time Lord families born that far apart, or even greater for that matter. And given the nature of the Doctor, I could see him falling in love quite young and while still in the academy.

And, given how long it takes to go through academy training (judging by how old Romana was when she graduated), the Doctor and Master would still have attended the academy at the same time. The Doctor would just have been the Master's upperclassman. And for the Master to be Susan's father, he would have had to have mated pretty young himself.

But what could have forced the Doctor to disown his own son as he became the Master, as well as making the Doctor swear off of loving a woman enough to marry or even having a sexual relationship again? What if the Master killed his own mother, the Doctor's wife, as well as his own who was Susan's mother? Possibly in his first tests of his Tissue Compression Eliminator. I believe that would do it.

However, this is all speculation. An attempt to fill in the gaps. I doubt that their underlying relationship will ever be revealed. While it might make for a good story when it is told, it would forever taint any future encounters the two may have. It could easily devolve into fanwank as The stated. And it would be a shame to waste an antagonist as good as the Master. Better to leave it all as an undefined and unspoken subtext.

Still, it makes me think and keeps me looking forward to this Christmas.
 
I have always viewed the other faces seen in Brain of Morbius as being other incarnations of Morbius, not the Doctor.
 
Actually given that Susan was last seen on the post Dalek Apocolyptic Earth one has to wonder how she ended up dying with the rest of the Timelords during the war. Did she receive a summons? (odd since she was an exile and seemed quite happy on Earth) or was it more insidious. Did the Daleks have the ability to track down and exterminate those Timelords not afforded the safety of being on/behind the Timelord battle lines?


Susan was actually last seen in THE FIVE DOCTORS, as a woman much older than when we saw her on the "post Dalek Apocolyptic Earth".

She was wearing a trenchcoat and if memory serves carrying a purse. She'd been snatched out of time as had the various versions of the Doctor, as well as the Brigadier, but we don't know when or where she came from.

I also seem to recall that at the end of THE FIVE DOCTORS she left Gallifrey with her grandfather (now played by an actor other than Hartnell). He may have simply returned her to Gallifrey but at a different point in time, if she told him she was tired of life on Earth, her Earth husband was gone, whatever.

There's far too much about Susan's life we don't know, but we know enough to open the door to her possibly being on Gallifrey at the time of the Time War, unfortunately.
 
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