Just in time for the real-life Eurovision Song Contest, the TARDIS takes a detour to the 2925 version of the annual song and dance jamboree. In “Doctor Who” season 2 episode 6, “The Interstellar Song Contest”, the Doctor and Belinda land in the vast Harmony Arena, where the biggest music show in the galaxy is about to get hijacked.
There are cameos for real-life BBC Eurovision hosts Rylan Clark and Graham Norton, and villains who almost share the names of James Bond assassins Mr Wint and Mr Kidd. “Who” fans will also note that singer Cora Saint Bavier (Miriam-Teak Lee) is representing Trion, the homeworld of Fifth Doctor companion Vislor Turlough.
But by far the biggest talking point from “The Interstellar Song Contest” is the Doctor’s repeated visions of a face we haven’t seen in decades. Here’s everything you need to know about that mysterious woman in the TARDIS, and why she’s integral to “Doctor Who” history.
SPOILER WARNING! Stop reading now if you’re yet to watch “Doctor Who” season 2 episode 6, “The Interstellar Song Contest”.
Who is the woman in the Doctor’s visions?
That’s Susan Foreman, the Doctor’s granddaughter. She’s played by Carole Ann Ford, who first portrayed Susan in the first-ever “Doctor Who” serial, “An Unearthly Child”, way back in November 1963.
Susan was impersonating an ordinary teen at Coal Hill School in London, when her prodigious intelligence attracted the attention of teachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill). After following Susan back to the TARDIS (at the time parked in a junk yard at 76 Totter’s Lane), Ian and Barbara became the first time-travelling companions of the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and his granddaughter. Susan’s adventures in the TARDIS ended with 1964’s “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”, when the Doctor abandoned her, reasoning that living a normal life with freedom fighter David Campbell (Peter Fraser) would be better for her than hanging out with a “silly old buffer” like him.
The Doctor’s visions in “The Interstellar Song Contest” show Susan as an older woman. She’s on board a TARDIS, wearing a white dress and a chain that look like they could be formal Gallifreyan clothing.
While the Doctor is floating frozen in the vacuum of space, Susan says, “Grandfather, go back!”, giving him the jolt he needs to return to the Harmony arena. A bit later, she instructs him to “Find me”, and — when it looks like the Doctor’s anger might get the better of him while apprehending Kid (Freddie Fox) — acts as his conscience, telling him to “Stop!” Whether these are memories, dreams, or communications from the actual Susan remains to be seen. While the Doctor currently believes he’s the last of the Time Lords, he’s been wrong about this before — rumours of the Master’s demise proved to be greatly exaggerated — so Susan may still be out there, lost in time and space.
Has Susan appeared in “Doctor Who” since she left the TARDIS in 1964?
The Doctor promised he’d “come back” at the end of “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” but, as is so often the case with former companions, he seemingly never did.
That said, a Time Scoop reunited Susan with five incarnations of her time-travelling grandfather in 20th anniversary special “The Five Doctors”. She’s also turned up in various (non-canonical) books, comics and audio dramas, while Ford appeared in Fifth Doctor Peter Davison’s 50th anniversary comedy “The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot”.
While Susan hasn’t appeared on screen since 1983, she’s been referenced directly and indirectly on several occasions. The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) alluded to a lost family, while the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) admitted to companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) that “I’ve been a father before”. The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) recalled visiting the bazaar at the Rings of Akhaten with his granddaughter, while a flashback to Gallifrey “a very long time ago…” in “The Name of the Doctor” showed the Doctor and Susan stealing a TARDIS.
The Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) has a photo of Susan on his desk while he’s masquerading as a university lecturer in “The Pilot”, and there’s even room for a mention of a certain S. Foreman on the Role of Honour at Coal Hill Academy in “Who” spin-off “Class”.
What about Susan in the Fifteenth Doctor era?
Ncuti Gatwa’s first season in the TARDIS seemed intent on making Susan more prominent than she’d been in years. When the Doctor and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) visited 1963 London in “The Devil’s Chord“, the Doctor pointed to the old junkyard in Shoreditch where he used to live with Susan.
When a surprised Ruby asked, “You’ve got children?”, he replied: “I did have, I will have. Time Lords get a bit… complicated.” He also admitted that he has no idea where she is, and — alluding to the massacre of his people — explained that, “The Time Lords were murdered. The genocide rolled across time and space like a great big cellular explosion. Maybe it killed her too.”
Is Susan Triad the Doctor’s granddaughter?
Throughout season 1 the Doctor met numerous incarnations of the same woman, all played by Susan Twist. In “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” we learned that she was actually 21st century tech pioneer Susan Triad. The fact that S. Triad is a very solvable anagram of TARDIS — coupled with the name Susan — made the Doctor believe he may have finally found his long-lost granddaughter.
The wordplay ultimately turned out to be a trap set by god of death Sutekh, who was using Ms Triad as his emissary on Earth. With an entire universe to save, the Doctor’s hunt for his Susan went on the backburner.
Does Susan have any connection with Mrs Flood?
Nosy neighbor Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson) has been paying much closer attention to the Doctor this season and seems delighted when he gets his Vindicator working at the Interstellar Song Contest: “Thank you, Doctor. That’s the final link.”
Then, the end credits sequence explains why Mrs Flood is so au fait with the ways of the Time Lords, after Gary (Charlie Condou) and Mike (Kadiff Kirwan) pull the last survivor from mavity well stasis. An agitated Mrs Flood asks if the Doctor has gone, and decides it’s now “safe.”
“I’m afraid my double brain stem froze — lethal for a Time Lady — but I’ve got my own knack for survival. I suppose I should think of some famous last words. How about, ‘Let battle begin’.”
As a familiar cloud of regeneration energy appears around her head, she “bigenerates” — as the Fourteenth Doctor did when the Fifteenth Doctor first appeared — and splits into two separate people. The new version (played by “The Good Wife”‘s Archie Panjabi) is clearly in charge, and confirms the duo’s identity: “Our name is the Rani. Although she’s become a Rani, while I’m the Rani. The definite article, so to speak.”
It’s nearly four decades since the Rani appeared in “Doctor Who.” A renegade Time Lord in the same tradition as the Master, she appeared opposite the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) in “The Mark of the Rani” and the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) in “Time and the Rani.” Back then she was played by the late Kate O’Mara.
This new Rani promises to bring the Doctor “absolute terror,” suggesting she has some role to play in the Earth being “disintegrated into rock and dush and ashes” on Saturday, May 24, 2025. Presumably, the virtual assistant Graham Norton didn’t see this one coming…
Unrelated, but why does everyone keep talking about mavity rather than gravity?
Mavity has been the accepted terminology in the Whoniverse ever since the Fourteenth Doctor (y’know, the one who’s the spitting image of the Tenth Doctor) bumped into Sir Isaac Newton in “Wild Blue Yonder”.
The duo inadvertently changed the course of history in the most seemingly minor way possible, changing the word gravity into mavity. This seems to just be a running gag through the last couple of seasons, but who knows, we might get a payoff for it down the line.
New episodes of “Doctor Who” stream on BBC iPlayer in the UK and Disney+ in the US every Saturday. Selected “Doctor Who” episodes featuring Susan are also available on BBC iPlayer in the UK.
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