Last of the Time Lords?

[Lord Shiva]

In the recent Doctor Who series, there is a very moving scene in the episode featuring the return of the Daleks (the "last of the Daleks") where Doctor Who says he is the last of the Time Lords.

Well, I question this - in the original run of the show, the first Incarnation of the Doctor, the one who steals the TARDIS to travel across Time and Space, takes along his granddaughter, Susan Foreman (I love how the Doctor earns his name... the school professor calls him "Doctor Foreman" and his reply "Doctor who?" and thus a name and a show was born *grin*

Anyway, if Susan is Doctor Who's granddaughter, and from what I've heard, she's alive and well somewhere in time, then isn't *she* also a Time Lord?

[Easter Lily]

Based on what you're saying, it's not just Susan either... there's Romana as well...
But I think that a case can be made for a broader use of the word "last"... it can also be used to refer to the remnant of a culture/ethnic group.

[Willow'sCat]

I am the last person to answer this * I know so little about canon* but I always assumed Susan was not his "real" Grand daughter, don't know why but I have always thought she just called him Grand father because he looked old.

Also didn't the TV movie in 1996 say The Doctor was part human? Did I dream that? It is all too confusing for me and it gets worse if you use the Audio/books/fanfic as reference.

All I know is he has said in the new series he is the last. The rest got killed in the Time-Wars which I assume includes Romana and The Master.

[IMForeman]

In the recent Doctor Who series, there is a very moving scene in the episode featuring the return of the Daleks (the "last of the Daleks") where Doctor Who says he is the last of the Time Lords.

Well, I question this - in the original run of the show, the first Incarnation of the Doctor, the one who steals the TARDIS to travel across Time and Space, takes along his granddaughter, Susan Foreman (I love how the Doctor earns his name... the school professor calls him "Doctor Foreman" and his reply "Doctor who?" and thus a name and a show was born *grin*

Anyway, if Susan is Doctor Who's granddaughter, and from what I've heard, she's alive and well somewhere in time, then isn't *she* also a Time Lord?

From The Empty Child:

Doctor Constantine: Before this war began I was a father and a grandfather... now I am neither. But, I am still a Doctor.
The Doctor: Yeah... I know the feeling.


Face it. Susan is toast. And it was unknown if she was actually a Time Lord or just a run of the mill Gallifreyan. Also, Romana was Lord President of Gallifrey when the Time War began... so she's toast as well, presumably.

More on the Time War from Russell T. Davies himself as published in the 2006 Doctor Who Annual:

"There had been a war, the Great Time War, between the Daleks and the Time Lords. There had been two Time Wars before this - the skirmish between the Halldons and the Eternals, and then the brutal slaughter of the Omnicraven Uprising - and on both occasions, the Doctor's people had stepped in to settle the matter.The Time Lords had a policy of non-intervention in the affairs of the universe, but on a higher level, in the affairs of the Time Vortex, they had assumed discreetly the role of protectors. They were the self-appointed keepers of the peace. Until forced to fight.
Now, the story of the Great (and final) Time War is hard to piece together, because so little survived. Certainly, both superpowers had been testing each others' strength for many, many years. The Daleks had threatened the Time Lord High Council before, by trying to replace its members with Dalek duplicates. And one of the Dalek Puppet Emperors had openly declared his hostility. Though perhaps the Daleks' wrath was justifiable - they had been provoked! At one point in their history, the Time Lords had actually sent the Doctor back in time to prevent the creation of the Daleks. An act of genocide! The Time Lords fired the first shot - though in their defence, they took this course of action because they had foreseen a time when the Daleks would overrun all civilised life and become the dominant life-form in the universe.
Some tried to find a peaceful solution. While it's hard to find precise records of these events, it's said that under the Act of Master Restitution, President Romana opened a peace treaty with the Daleks. Others claim that the Etra Prime incident began the escalation of events. But whatever the cause - and it's almost certain that the full story has yet to be uncovered - the terrible Time War began. The Time Lords reached back into their own history, to assemble a fleet of Bowships, Black Hole Carriers and N-Forms; the Daleks unleashed the full might of the Deathsmiths of Goth, and launched an awesome fleet into the Vortex, led by the Emperor himself. The War raged, but for most species in the universe, life continued as normal. The War was fought in the Vortex, and beyond that, in the Ultimate Void, beyond the eyes and ears of ordinary creatures.
The lesser species lived in ignorance. If a planet found it's history subtly changing - perhaps distorting and rewriting itself under the pressures of the rupturing Vortex - then its people were part of that change, and perceived nothing to be wrong. Only the Higher Species - those further up the evolutionary ladder - saw what was happening.
The Forest of Cheem gazed upon the bloodshed, and wept. The Nestene Consciousness lost all of its planets, and found itself mutating under temporal stress. The Greater Animus perished and its Carsenome Walls fell into dust. And it is said that the Eternals themselves watched, and despaired of this reality, and fled their hallowed halls, never to be seen again...
Years passed, as the mighty armies clashed. And then, silence. No one knows what happened in the final battle. And no one knows how it came to an end. All that is known is that one man strode from the wreckage, one man walked free from the ruins of Gallifrey and Skaro. The Time Lord called the Doctor. And his hearts were heavy as he boarded his ship once more, and took to the skies, to escape everything he had just seen; everything he had just done..."

[Willow'sCat]

Face it. Susan is toast. And it was unknown if she was actually a Time Lord or just a run of the mill Gallifreyan. Also, Romana was Lord President of Gallifrey when the Time War began... so she's toast as well, presumably.

More on the Time War from Russell T. Davies himself as published in the 2006 Doctor Who Annual:

So even though we don't get to see it, we just have to accept it. I hate that, I think canon should be the show and nothing else, but I think I am alone in that.

Yeah they are all toast. I want to see The Master again.

[creed462]

Nothing is ever certain in Science Fiction We might find out more later Also Susan was on earth when all that happened

[Reefgirl]

Susan left the Tardis to stay on earth with her boyfriend

[creed462]

So she is probly still around, but I don't think she's a timelord.

[Reefgirl]

I remember seeing somewhere that she was half human, but I can't remember where

[creed462]

That would be neat to find

[Metarock Sam]

Perhaps Timelords fell throught time like the Dalek and as a result suffer tremendous Post Regeneration trauma perhasp unwillingly masking their own ablilities and therefore beleiving themselves to be human or a lesser species. That would make a great Doctor Who story.

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

Susan's story is so confusing and contradictory.

Is she the Doctor's granddaughter? Well, isn't the Doctor sterile like all the other Gallifreyans? Or did this half-human origin mitigate that?

Is she a Time Lord? I think she was too young to pass the exams necessary to confer the status of Time Lord.

Is she Gallifreyan? She's certainly not a modern Gallifrey, which are loomed into existence as adults. The Gallifreyan race is sterile. Either she is an outsider or she is an ancient Gallifreyan. There are suggestions that the Doctor spent time on ancient Gallifrey.

[Lord Shiva]

I dunno... from watching An Unearthly Child, Susan is his granddaughter,and they stole the Tardis because the other Time Lords would sit around on their butts and not do anything (almost like Q/Ascended), and he wanted to explore Time and Space.

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

I dunno... from watching An Unearthly Child, Susan is his granddaughter,and they stole the Tardis because the other Time Lords would sit around on their butts and not do anything (almost like Q/Ascended), and he wanted to explore Time and Space.

True, but the show evolved and it became increasingly difficult to confront the complex issue of family for a race that can alter their appearances and live for hundreds of years.

Then, because they had ignored Susan's existence for so long, when the show discussed the Doctor's past or explored Gallifrey, contradictions started to crop up to the point where it was obvious Susan wasn't familar with modern Gallifrey...and yet she knew about ancient Gallifreyan history. To the point, where it didn't even make sense that Susan could be the Doctor's biological granddaughter.

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

The novels make many suggestions as to Susan's origins.

Spoiler:

There are also suggestions that Susan was the granddaughter of the Doctor before he became a Time Lord...which somehow took place on ancient Gallifrey, before the Doctor had even been born and before the Time Lords had time travel.

Another suggestion was that she was heir to a kingdom, her mother Miranda was the Doctor's daughter, and her name was Zuzan or some other phoenic variation that I can't recall.