Doctor Who: Susan’s War: 2. Family Ties & 3. Grandfather Time from Big Finish Review

Carole Ann Ford in the TV series as Susan received a rather raw deal with her character. Susan Foreman wasn’t given the opportunity to show much as a bona fide alien besides some telepathy skills, or given many situations to highlight her importance as the Doctor’s granddaughter. The specification in 1963 asked for a recognisable young person for the children among the adult characters. Susan was written as a young, rather emotional teenager with a penchant for twisting her ankle.

So I welcomed the opportunity to see how Big Finish have explored her older self. Susan’s War Family Ties was released in August 2024, and Susan’s War Grandfather Time in March 2025. Both follow Susan, who has become involved in the Time War and is employed by Cardinal Rasmus, played by Damian Lynch, on diplomatic missions for Gallifrey to gain allies across the war.

2. Susan’s War: Family Ties

2.1 The Lost Son by Sarah Cassidy

The first story of Family Ties is a strong start. Carole Ann Ford takes centre stage in a story that has many beats. I liked the beginning as Susan is playing a 1960s song and humming along, remembering maybe simpler times as a teenager, to the very serious matters of the Time War. Susan has always been an emotional teenager, and this has grown into empathy as she works as a diplomat. I instantly liked Susan’s relationship with Commander Veklin, a Time Lord commander soldier, at once her friend but also a pragmatist who travels with her. It’s a good performance from Beth Chalmers and a great pairing. Together, it’s a needed contrast and balance as Susan admits she is led by her heart at times, and Veklin is a far more cynical character due to her experience and also handy with a weapon.

Still reeling from meeting her Grandfather back on Earth, Susan is assigned to assist a mother in search of her son. Priestess Vesselina is the new ruler of her world, and someone Gallifrey is keen to recruit as an ally.But strange forces are at work on Materos, and Susan’s empathy becomes a weapon to be used against her…

I’ve always loved the world-building that sci-fi can create, so the political and personal machinations of Materos as Chief Shethan (played by Rosalyn Landor) arguing with the leader Priestess Vesselina (played by Heather Bleasdale) about her motives for inviting the Gallifreyians. It creates some interesting questions about how rulers should rule and gives solid reasons for the unfolding of events where Susan is manipulated, being invited to find the young heir of Materos.

Susan is as she describes herself, is “complicated “, and I liked that Susan was allowed to pick up on others’ emotions, joy, pain and anger. That the people of the Mulmeer have some kind of telepathic powers creates an unexpected opportunity to explore her inner turmoil and grief for her son Alex Campbell, who was killed by the Daleks. Priestess Vesselina grieves for her missing son, but he may be found. Susan saw her son die. The story felt rather feminine, and maybe that’s a strength of the story in that it does examine the maternal feelings for a planet, a people, but also lost children. It felt very moving at times, hearing Susan’s anguished voice.

2.2 The Golden Child by Peter Anghelides

Susan always manages to surprise me because I never know how Carole Ann is going to play her. I rather enjoyed Susan’s spirit of adventure as she and her friend, the archivist, Andolar, set out to go back in time to discover why a politician called Maxor has disappeared and only Andolar remembers him. Posing as politicians, they slip in to see Maxor at his inauguration, assassinated, and it’s a shock to both of them. In a twist, the War Doctor has been jolted back through the Time War and has ended up there at an earlier point than he exists. It confuses Susan because he is an older version than she recognises, but surprisingly, as a device, it works for me, although in my head, I apply the older John Hurt version

The battle-hardened War Doctor, played by Jonathan Carley, feels secretive because he knows the future and can’t reveal what he knows about Maxor. It means when Susan and Andolar try to go back and prevent the assassination from happening, they are working without any knowledge from the War Doctor. In some ways, this makes Susan more determined to succeed and sets them on opposite sides. It’s an interesting dynamic we have not seen as Susan has always had faith in her grandfather, but this idea that she is uncertain, or he seems unreliable, or disappears, is new.

It feels like a betrayal to her from her as the War Doctor and Susan admit they love each other, but she says she can’t trust the War Doctor. I’m not sure I believe it entirely, although Susan acknowledges they have taken different paths in life as she stayed on Earth to repair the damage inflicted by the Daleks.

A key ally to Gallifrey has winked out of existence. When Susan investigates the disappearance of this gifted politician and strategist, she finds someone else is also interested in the changed timeline.The interloper is her grandfather. But this version of the Doctor is from the future of the Time War, and he’s not the man Susan remembers…

The story uses the interesting idea of trying to go back and prevent something bad from happening, but also to then try and mould Maxor into the stuff of legend. It’s a strange situation as Susan is aware they shouldn’t change “not one line”, and yet they persevere. The politician Maxor that Susan sees isn’t the version that Andolar knows of the legends, and it was hard to like him as a human being. One of the characters described Maxor as self-serving, and there was a part of me that thought the good intentions of decent people were wasted on him.

That was probably a deliberate reaction we were provoked to have. Nurture can’t always counteract nature, as Susan and Andolar went back further to when Maxor was a child after failing a second attempt. I should have seen the resolution coming as to how Maxor becomes the noble and courageous politician, and Andolar saw. It is obvious, really, with the unique abilities of the Timelords, but I felt a slight cheat in the end.

3. Susan’s War: Grandfather Time

3.1 The Last of the Kaleds by David Llewellyn

The War Doctor. Rasmus and Susan are on a mission to Kaledon, a colony of Kaleds who escaped Skaro to build alliances again. Based on an artificial satellite, Kaledon is accessed through a temporal breach. There is a power struggle between Grand Duke Cosimus ( played by Steven Elder ), The Mechanic and Countess Freya, played by Charlotte Strevens, as Cosimus and the Mechanic are wary of the Gallifreyian visitors.

With a society which has unarmed “decoys” who look and sound like Daleks I was reminded of the 7th Doctor story the Victory of the Daleks as a listener you are waiting for the inevitable turn of the “decoys” and it happens slowly and surely as the Mechanic who has never been seen by anyone slowly destroys the duke Cosimus. Countess Freya, I liked immensely. It’s not a large part, but I enjoyed her wise lady after three husbands with her robot nuns. Yes, there are robot nuns, “The sisters” with full armaments who kill Daleks and decoys alike. It’s quite fun to hear them defeat the decoys.

Using his deniable asset, Rasmus takes Susan along with the War Doctor to a mysterious enclave to seek an alliance. As Susan comes to terms with her grandfather’s future persona, they uncover plots and counter-plots. Kaledon is a splinter of Skaro’s own distant timeline – but some histories are inevitable.

The most interesting aspect of this story was how Susan and the War Doctor started to work together investigating the “decoys”. Carole Ann Ford has developed Susan into quite a skilled diplomat who isn’t a naive schoolgirl. Jonathan Carley’s War Doctor forgets this sometimes, but grows to understand her independence and bravery. She deplores the way planets and societies are dragged into the Time War, and she tries to save as many people as she can on the missions she takes. I loved her compassion and the way she still opens herself to listen to her grandfather. The War Doctor is a different man from the Doctor by the choices he’s had to make, but Susan isn’t that dissimilar to the Doctor.

3.2 The Voord Alliance by Andrew Smith

This story is written by the writer for the Tom Baker serial “Full Circle”, another mission, but this time it is unsanctioned, and a personal mission requested by Rasmus. His daughter is missing, and he needs the help of the War Doctor. The War Doctor objects to being used with his granddaughter to find her and her team before the planet is time locked. The Daleks are also there doing time experiments. The political plans and machinations of Gallifrey are to time lock the planet and prevent what are known as temporal voids, causing instability due to the experiments. The urgency to find Karita creates a clever tension.

When a Time Lord operation goes wrong, Cardinal Rasmus sends in Susan and the War Doctor. The mission’s leader was his daughter, and he needs to know if she survived.On the ocean moon of Sarros Minor, they find unlikely allies against the Daleks. But how far can Susan really trust the Voord?

This story is very much about the mission, and from the beginning, I loved the various action sequences, whether it’s Rasmus’s daughter Karita plunging into the water in a Dalek attack, the War Doctor and Susan running through the lush jungle environment or going underwater to enter the Dalek saucer hidden in the ocean. The convergence of time events aboard the Dalek saucer allows Susan and the War Doctor to confront the Daleks. They.

Susan has had previous experience with the Voord, but I was so intrigued to understand more about them as well. It’s established that the Voord have invaded the moon and harvested the local population to convert to Voords or die. Karita is there and determined to stay and help the Voords. They form an unlikely alliance as the mission becomes to close the voids before the Gallifrey eradicator squads arrive by destroying the Dalek time experiments.

I did enjoy the plot to reset time back to normal by shutting down the chronon field the Daleks created, and how the story looped around to resolve the War Doctor being in the past. However, opening the opportunity to return him to the correct point in time, the weakness of the final story was that there wasn’t a lot of emotional groundwork in preparation. I expected a bit more in the script to explore their relationship and bond, but as the War Doctor and Susan parted again, it was all dealt with rather quickly.

I don’t follow all the history of the Time War, but I did enjoy these two box sets overall. Generally, I think it’s a shame that the Time War involves the Daleks because I honestly find them dull as ditchwater on audio as an enemy. They sound so stereotypical, mechanical and lacking any nuance, but it makes sense with Susan’s history with the Daleks to use them.

The success of these box sets is because of Carole Ann Ford. She gives 110% in every story as Susan and was far superior to the material at times. Even if the main drive is for Susan mainly to build alliances as a diplomat, the world-building of each story felt relatively tight and interesting, although the flying nun’s concept in The Last of the Kaleds does make me chuckle.

Jonathan Carley was excellent as the War Doctor, but having Susan centre stage is wonderful. Susan is independent and wilful, much like her grandfather, so she isn’t a passive character. Her compassion and hope lend maturity. With the War Doctor in three of the four stories, there is an additional richness; however, I wanted more exploration about their relationship, but it seems there will always be an aura of mystique or a veil over any deep revelations. With each box set around 150 minutes, I found that length was more than enough for what are loosely connected stories to also cover the appearance of the War Doctor.

You can buy Susan’s War Family Ties Big Finish and Grandfather Time -Big Finish from £14.99