Doctor Who’s Surprise TARDIS Cameo Explained

Warning: contains spoilers for Doctor Who episode “The Interstellar Song Contest.”

Surprise! Carole Ann Ford is back on Doctor Who as the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan. In a vision experienced by the Doctor while unconscious and floating in space in new episode “The Interstellar Song Contest”, Susan appears inside the current TARDIS, calls Fifteen “Grandfather” and repeatedly tells him to “go back” and find her.

Is it a surprise? Last year on Doctor Who, all we seemed to hear was the name “Susan”. In the run-up to series 14’s two-part finale, speculation abounded that the mysterious, multi-character entity Susan Triad, played by actor Susan Twist (a fortuitous cast name), would turn out to be a regeneration of that other Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter.

That all turned out to be misdirection, a trap set by God of Death Sutekh and showrunner Russell T Davies to lure in the Doctor and the fans both. Despite the hints, Susan Triad was not the Doctor’s granddaughter, and Ford’s classic Who character did not make her long-awaited return to the show. Until now.

So, who is Susan? Simply put, she’s the Doctor’s first companion, played by Ford in two seasons between 1963-4. She travelled with the First Doctor, played by William Hartnell, until she was left behind on Earth to marry a dishy freedom fighter named David. Since then, she popped back up in 20^th anniversary special “The Five Doctors”, in Children in Need comedy EastEnders crossover “Dimensions in Time,” and in a great many prose and audio adventures. Read more about all of those here.

New Doctor Who fans were primed for Susan’s existence in 2024 episodes “The Devil’s Chord,” and “The Legend of Ruby Sunday.” In the former, the Doctor takes Ruby to a 1960s London rooftop and points in the direction of Shoreditch, saying:

“In the past, right now, I live in a place called Totter’s Lane. 1963, I parked the TARDIS in a junkyard and I lived there with my granddaughter Susan. […] We could go and have a look but you know, timelines [makes explosion sound]”.

The Totter’s Lane junkyard is where Doctor Who began, when Susan was followed home by Barbara and Ian (Jacqueline Hill and William Russell), two teachers at her school – specifically Coal Hill School, where Clara Oswald and Danny Pink later taught, and the setting for short-lived spinoff Class – and all four of them became travelling companions in time and space.

In “The Devil’s Chord,” when Ruby asked where his granddaughter was now, Fifteen told her he didn’t know. “Time Lords were murdered. Genocide rolled across time and space like a great big cellular explosion, maybe killed her too.”

Apparently not – if this latest vision is bonafide Susan and not, say, another trap set for the Doctor by a trickster god. According to what the Doctor saw in his mind, Susan is alive and in his TARDIS and calling him to go back and find her. Go back where? To their home planet of Gallifrey, which was destroyed in The Time War when the Time Lords were exterminated? That would be a finale-appropriate development.

In “The Interstellar Song Contest”, the Doctor’s vision of Susan recurs to him when he’s telling Belinda about Gallifrey, as a reason for having tortured Hellion terrorist Kid (played by Freddie Fox), who planned to commit mass murder on a gargantuan scale:

“The death of three trillion people triggered me. It made me think of my home planet. ‘Cause they all died. In a single second. Every last Time Lord. But I got this image… [of Susan in the TARDIS].”

To any new fans still pondering the biological nature of the Doctor’s grandfatherly relationship to Susan, keep going because there isn’t yet a real answer. In “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” UNIT boss Kate Lethbridge-Steward suggests that Susan’s existence presupposes the existence of the Doctor’s child or children, to which he responds: “Well, not quite – not yet.” Kate asks, “You can have a granddaughter before a daughter?” to which the Doctor replies, “Life of a Time Lord.”

Speaking to Radio Times about her Susan’s War audio drama series in 2024, Ford teased a potential meeting between Susan and the Fifteenth Doctor, saying: “The mind boggles with all the many ways Susan could come back, where and when. But I think she would love reuniting with her grandfather in his new form.”

Now, it seems as though Ford’s wish is coming true.

Doctor Who airs on Saturdays on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in the UK, and on Disney+ around the world.