New Times for Old

...or "new lamps for old" as Aladdin's wicked uncle Abanazer would say.

Susan didn't appear in the original tv storyline, but her appearance in the much-expanded book was a necessity. The debate over whether she is or is not the Doctor's granddaughter is an old one. In early stories, it's difficult to deny the evidence that they are related, but by the time we get to Deadly Assassin, Susan is still the only female Gallifreyan we have seen. Even in Deadly Assassin, there are no visible women and only one female computer voice. After which, Time Ladies (I hate that term!) suddenly arrive by the coach load, but they almost feel like an afterthought. I'd be the last to deny us the wonderful Romana, but when I was thinking about the ideal Gallifreyan family set-up, I tried very hard to avoid anything boringly Earth-like. This is an ancient, alien world for heaven's sake. It's not 2.4 Children. It's no place for children at all.

Robert Holmes took joyous liberties with Gallifrey. There was no point in me writing anything if I didn't do the same. Hence each family's statute quota of 45 Cousins, all born full-grown from a genetic Loom, prescribed by the need to counter the apocalyptic curse of the Pythia. Unfortunately that rather put Susan out in the cold. In Time's Crucible, Ace, who had learned a little of Gallifreyan families, was surprised to find a card in the TARDIS library that said "Happy Birthday, Grandfather." Yet if the last real Gallifreyan children were born millennia ago and Susan had a natural birth, then how could she possibly be the Doctor's descendant? And where, if she really was direct bloodline, are her parents, the Doctor's own children? Whatever the possibility, whether her lineage came direct or by the extended scenic route, Susan still knows her grandfather when she sees him.