10 Worst Doctor Who Companions Ever

9. Susan Foreman

Doctor Who The Long Game Adam Mitchell
BBC Studios

The unearthly child who started it all, Susan Foreman never lived up to her full potential as a character.

Her tendency to start screaming at the slightest provocation is mind-boggling when you consider that she's from an alien world and holds knowledge far beyond her years. It's almost as if the writers forget that she's the granddaughter of a mysterious alien time traveller, and instead wrote her as a whimpering teenager who's always in need of rescuing, and then eventually gets married off.

It's disappointing, particularly as the characterisation of Barbara is generally much more progressive, and even Carole Ann Ford has lamented Susan's writing in the years since, explaining that:

"It had become so repetitive. For a large part of the time, Susan was arriving somewhere with her grandfather and the other two, being told not to get into danger, having them come and get her out of danger, then flying off again."

Susan's character was so ill-defined in the 1960s that when she finally returned in The Five Doctors, she immediately twisted her ankle and had to stay in the TARDIS and watch the action unfold!

As he keeps teasing her return, let's hope RTD has a much better handle on her character than his predecessors.

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Citizen of the Universe, Film Programmer, Writer, Podcaster, Doctor Who fan and a gentleman to boot. As passionate about Chinese social-realist epics as I am about dumb popcorn movies.