Susan Foreman - Appearances in Other Media

Appearances in Other Media

Terrance Dicks' novelisation of his serial The Five Doctors states that Susan has been taken from a point twenty years after The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and that she and David have three children. A marketplace scene was considered for the broadcast version of this story, but never filmed.

In 1983, Doctor Who's then-script editor Eric Saward wrote a short story dealing with the Doctor's departure from Gallifrey for the Radio Times Doctor Who 20th Anniversary Special. This story, "Birth of a Renegade", depicts Susan as a descendant of Time Lord founder Rassilon and the last surviving member of Gallifrey's royal family, unrelated to the Doctor. Later Doctor Who spin-offs have generally ignored this account, though the story depicts Susan collapsing the Master's TARDIS around him with his own tissue compression eliminator, leaving him in a state very similar to the one in which he is found in his next televised appearance, Planet of Fire (albeit with a throw-away line giving a different explanation of it).

A later script editor, Andrew Cartmel, had another explanation of Susan's origins. This account, part of the "Cartmel Masterplan", was not used in the programme, but was used as background for several of the Virgin New Adventures novels, most notably Lungbarrow by Marc Platt. In this version, Susan is the granddaughter of the mysterious Gallifreyan founder known as the Other, who may have been reincarnated as the Doctor. The Doctor had travelled back to the dawn of Time Lord civilisation and rescued Susan, who recognised him as her grandfather. The Doctor did not initially recognise her, but knew that this was somehow true. This version of Susan's origins is reflected in many other Doctor Who spin-offs.

On 9 July 1994, BBC Radio 4 broadcast Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?, a humorous investigation into Susan's background. In this radio drama, Susan is portrayed by Jane Asher.

Ford herself reprised the role of Susan in the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time. Ford also played an alternate version of Susan in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who Unbound audio plays Auld Mortality and A Storm of Angels, in which Susan has become President of Gallifrey. In the Doctor Who Unbound play Exile, an alternative Doctor, whose latest regeneration was female (played by Arabella Weir), settles on Earth in 2003 using the identity and 1963 school records of Susan Foreman.

In a 1964 novelisation of the serial The Daleks, written by Doctor Who script editor David Whitaker, Susan's last name is changed from "Foreman" to "English".

A version of Susan, portrayed by Roberta Tovey and much younger than her television portrayal, appears in the two Doctor Who film adaptations: Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD. The film Doctor (named "Dr Who") is a human inventor, so one may infer this Susan is also human. Rather than being her teacher, Barbara is her older sister. Ian Chesterton is portrayed as Barbara's somewhat comically inept boyfriend, and also not a teacher. No last name is given for this version of the character; some movie listings imply that her name is "Susan Who".

Big Finish Productions released an audio drama in December 2009 titled An Earthly Child, that featured Susan (played by Ford) reuniting with her grandfather, in the form of Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor; also appearing is Jake McGann as Susan's son, Alex.

Susan appears twice during the course of IDW Comics' "Doctor Who: The Forgotten" series, first in a flashback to the First Doctor's lifetime, then at the end, as the TARDIS' matrix takes her form at The Doctor's request.