The Doctor Is Finally Reuniting With His Granddaughter on Doctor Who — After 61 Years
The Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) is on the brink of an eagerly awaited family reunion in Doctor Who — and it’s been a long time coming.
In a surprising reveal halfway through Season 2’s “The Interstellar Song Contest,” the Doctor starts having visions of someone quite familiar: Susan, his enigmatic granddaughter and the very first companion aboard the TARDIS alongside the First Doctor (William Hartnell). Susan is reprised by Carole Ann Ford, who first portrayed the character in 1963.
Now at the age of 84, Ford is the sole surviving member of Doctor Who’s original TARDIS crew. Susan was the titular “Unearthly Child” in the show’s inaugural episode, which premiered on November 23, 1963. After a brief return in the 1983 special “The Five Doctors,” Susan hasn’t appeared on screen since her character became the first companion to exit the TARDIS in 1964. That exit occurred at the conclusion of “The Dalek Invasion of Earth,” where the Doctor locked her out of the TARDIS so she could start a new life with her human love, David. He left her with a heartfelt vow: “One day, I shall come back.”
Spoiler: He never did — until now.
A Nod to the Past
Susan was initially introduced as a student at Coal Hill School, prompting her teachers Ian (William Russell, who passed away in 2024) and Barbara (Jacqueline Hill, who died in 1993) to investigate her peculiar behavior — which led them into the TARDIS. Similar to the Doctor’s current companion Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), they were effectively pulled into a life of time travel.
Behind the scenes, Ford felt creatively restricted. Despite Susan’s compelling backstory as the Doctor’s granddaughter, her character was frequently limited to screaming and fainting. Her departure in 1964 was a mutually agreed decision. Although she made a brief return in “The Five Doctors,” that narrative technically occurred before her exit, making her recent reappearance the first canonical sighting of Susan in 61 years.
The Return Begins
Hints regarding Susan’s return have been scattered throughout Gatwa’s first season. In Episode 2, “The Devil’s Chord,” the Doctor and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) travel to 1963 London to meet the Beatles. The Doctor casually notes that his earlier self is residing in a junkyard across town with his granddaughter Susan.
Showrunner Russell T Davies disclosed that this line was a purposeful test. “She hasn’t been mentioned in the show since 1964, so I wondered how my superiors at the BBC would react,” he told Mashable. “But everyone loved it.”
This test set the stage for a larger revelation in the penultimate episode of Season 1, “The Legend of Ruby Sunday.” The Doctor speculates that the repeated appearances of actress Susan Twist could imply that his granddaughter survived the Time Lords’ genocide and regenerated. In the same episode, he reveals more about his family than he has in the past. When Kate Lethbridge-Stewart inquires whether having a granddaughter means he has children, the Doctor responds enigmatically: “Not quite, not yet. Life of a Time Lord.”
Though Twist’s characters were ultimately disclosed to be creations of the villainous Sutekh, the reference to Susan was not merely a distraction. As we noted at the time, “Could there be one final Susan twist at the end?” The answer seems to be affirmative.
A Vision of Susan
In “The Interstellar Song Contest,” the Doctor reveals he’s been seeing visions of Susan since Gallifrey’s destruction. As he teeters on the brink of death in space, viewers finally witness what he sees: Susan, standing in a TARDIS-like setting, calling out to him. “Grandfather,” she states. “Come find me.”
It’s uncertain how much Ford’s involvement will be. Given her age, it’s possible the series may introduce a regenerated version of Susan. However, if scenes have already been filmed on the TARDIS set with Ford, it’s likely she’ll reappear in the concluding episodes of Season 2, “Wish World” and “The Reality War.”
Ford herself has conveyed both excitement and anxiety about her return. At Luton Comic-Con in 2024, she stated, “I don’t know if I could withstand the excitement. It would be intense beyond all intensity.”
Doctor Who Season 2 premiered on April 12 on Disney+ and BBC. New episodes air each Saturday at 3 a.m. ET.