Whatever Happened to Susan?

There are a number of ways of looking at this question. Let's start with perhaps the most literal.

Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?
Back on 9th July 1994, Radio 4 broadcast a half-hour spoof documentary with this title, purporting to examine the disappearance of a schoolgirl and two of her teachers in 1963. Thanks to the Dalek Invasion of Earth DVD, I got to hear it in 2006 - and again just now. I could also have got it on a CD, Doctor Who at the BBC vol. 3, or caught one of its radio repeats.

This sort of thing is often done by people who judge a subject though the filter of common knowledge (which would have been largely negative at the time, when a more commonly-asked question might have been "whatever happened to Doctor Who?") but here the writer, Adrian Mourby, obviously knows his subject (mention of Zarbi notwithstanding) and seems to have a fondness for it too. I say "seems to" because it is fairly brutal in its parody - but its targets are mostly those that fans themselves skewer, like the Doctor abandoning Susan with a bloke she's only just met. The program is quite an odd beast, fairly evenly divided between targeting the more ludicrous aspects of the show and of modern life. The central conceit of looking at the events of the program from the parents' nightmare perspective of possible child abduction works surprisingly well, but this premise isn't enough to fill half an hour. The main cast - Jane Asher as Susan, James Grout (of Morse fame; I recognised his voice straight away) as Ian and Someone Else as the interviewer - play it mostly straight-faced, and this helps to keep things grounded; but this is undercut by the aliens working for the E.U. in Brussels.

It's hard to judge how to rate this, because it's only a Who story in the broadest sense; so I'll pluck a very off-the-cuff 3/10 from the ether and move on to my next version of the question.

Whatever Happened to Carole Ann Ford?
I remember Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, but only vaguely - except for the theme song, which is as clear as anything. I may cover it in more detail in a later story - possibly during the fifth Doctor's era - but for now I only bring it up because of the title, and the fact that Ford appeared in an episode. Which was one of only a handful of TV and film appearances after her time on Who, partly because she kept being typecast as a teenager; and Ford concentrated on theatre work until 1977, when she suffered a back injury and reacted badly to the medication given. Since her second daughter (Tara-Louise, who appears in Quinnis) was born the same year, she decided to retire (for the most part) from acting and focus on her family. She has since become a voice and presentation coach, though she is still involved in Who on audio.

Whatever Happened to the Unearthly Child?
Now, this is a more retrospective question; and one we've tackled several times before, most notably here and here. I don't want to go over too much old ground, so I'll briefly pass the baton to Isaac for the ten-year-old viewpoint:

Isaac's Corner
Carole Ann Ford did a very good job of playing Susan, acting her as she was told to even though it wasn't what she expected it to be like. Susan mostly seemed to be there to hurt herself (e.g., twisting her ankle) so that she had to be rescued. I liked the bit in The Sensorites when she finally got to be what she was supposed to, and that's probably the best story for her although that's not the best story she was in (which was either The Daleks or The Keys of Marinus).

OK, back with Isaac's dad again, and that prompts me to take a brief look at some of the high points of her (fictional) journey so far. On TV, she started really well with my only 10/10 episode so far, An Unearthly Child, and to be honest I can't think of an episode that is better for her - close behind would be The Edge of Destruction, and although I agree with Isaac that Susan's exploits in The Sensorites were a highlight, they were spread too thinly to counter the generally poorer quality of the episodes overall.

In books, my favourite was (obviously) The Time Travellers - but the best part for Susan has to be in Time and Relative. There's not much choice for short stories as most of them focus so heavily on other characters, so I'll go with The Exiles; and there are no comics that I would consider. Her best audio has to be Quinnis.

It's obvious in all this that the latest story in her timeline among these picks is An Unearthly Child! If I disallowed the pre-season-1 stories, I could still happily pick The Sorcerer's Apprentice in books and Here There Be Monsters in audio, but I'll lose the short story category.

Whatever Happened to Susan Campbell?
Of course, Susan's fictional journey doesn't end here, either. She makes some minor appearances over the years - the highest profile being in The Five Doctors - before she catches up with her grandfather more properly in the eighth Doctor's era. With some companions I may cover their future lives at their departure point, but this time I don't feel the need. If this marathon lasts long enough we'll see her again...

Next Time:
Something completely different; but if it takes too long there'll be a half-term holiday break.