TV Club has reached Susan’s final TV story The Dalek Invasion of Earth and now seems a good time to share the ups and downs of the Doctor Who’s first ever companion.
What are her best and worst stories?
How well was the character of Susan written for and performed?
What was her best costume? 
Best stories: The Sensorites, The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Worst story: The Reign of Terror
I love her SO much and I get why people don’t, and indeed the Susan that lives in my mind isn’t exactly the one we always see on TV, but fundamentally I imprinted on her being a weird teenager as a weird teenager so she is special to me forever for that. And when she gets the chance to sparkle, she really does. Sensorites is great for her, and of course Invasion, though I adore her in An Unearthly Child as well
I mentioned it in the DIoE thread - the writer’s didn’t seem particularly joined up on who Susan was. Some definitely wrote her as a normal Earth teenager and only some of them got the memo that she was an alien of some sort. I honestly believe Peter R Newman did it the best (and John Lucarotti did it the worst although Dennis Spooner wrote her whole character badly in The Reign of Terror).
The Sirens of Audio podcast has done a recent interview with Carole Ann Ford:
A video version is available on Youtube:
They didn’t seem particularly joined up about who Susan was but they really hadn’t got the faintest clue who Dodo was! 
Now I’m interested. My only experience with Dodo was The Celestial Toymaker and since three episodes are loat so it’s mostly animation. It’d be so much fun when I get to her! 
I think Susan falls into a weird spot, mostly not of the actor’s making.
She is a one-to-many companion, so she tends to get relegated to crappy storylines. When she is given the chance to shine, she pulls it off great, The Sensorites and Dalek Invasion being examples.
Also the original intent of having a character be very young, to be the young viewer analog, leads to them not being ‘adult’ enough to actually do anything of substance. This also leads to poor storylines and the stigma of screaming “Grandfather!” in a shrill tone.
The actor does a great job with what she was given, which wasn’t much for the most part. If she was portrayed as being late teens, early twenties, it would have been a lot better. As we see with the next ‘young’ companion, Vicki 
, those couple of extra years really help.
That’s my ramble. I enjoy Susan for what she is, but poor base character design and writing make me happy when she is out of the story.
I wish she had her original accent. It’s a real shame they got rid of it after her initial end-of-episode appearance.
Which she certainly did a lot…
This is it, in a nutshell. Carole Ann Ford was fantastic casting and really portrayed the slightly off-kilter girl out-out-of-time but was seldom written with that in mind. The character was much more than we often got on screen. Ford’s portrayal, with so little to go on much of the time, is a big reason Susan is still fondly remembered.
Quite so. Though, as this is a Susan thread, I shall resist the temptation to derail and start a Dodo conversation. It is worth noting, though, that much as Carole Ann Ford was given little to work with, Susan DID have an identity that was well established in An Unearthly Child. Poor Jackie Lane never even had that!
Surprised The Daleks hasn’t been given a shout so far. The best is very much yet to come for her but it’s an early success, I like that she’s the one tasked with getting the anti-radiation gloves- drugs. Her and the Doctor in the scene where they sabotage the city in episode six is peak grandfather/granddaughter dynamic too, something I feel they don’t really get the most out of until Vicki.
Susan’s best outfit is in Planet of Giants, by the way.
I love that little scene so much! Susan is great in it and Hartnell displays such joy at his “superior mind”. 
I’ve never been a Susan fan. I’ve watched her stories multiple times, but I’ve never warmed up to her. Mostly, it’s the inconsistent writing style and lack of character development; however, her intended role as a teenage alien girl in a 1960s TV show could potentially explain this.
I have nothing against Carole Ann Ford, though. I haven’t seen her in anything else, but she does a decent job with what she’s given.
I agree that The Sensorites and Dalek Invasion are her best performances. The rest are kind of naff. In the EU, I thoroughly enjoyed her role in After the Daleks, a fantastic sequel to Dalek Invasion.
I like Susan, but her tv stories really do not have a consistent characterization. Carole Ann Ford really does her best though and given that Susan’s return is still speculated on and waited for sixty years years later, clearly something was done right. I adore the version of her that we see right at the beginning of the show and wish we could see more of her time with the doctor on earth (though maybe that does exist, there’s so much doctor who stuff out there after all)
Here’s video all about Susan from youtuber Clever Dick Films:
Oh, lovely, I was searching exactly for a thread like that!
As already pointed out in her TV Tenure especially, the writers didn’t seem to be quite sure how she was or for that matter how close is to a regular human teenager (I mean it’s probably its own topic if Susan is a Teenager by Human years or more so one when viewed through her Gallifreyan Roots, which obviously weren’t even properly thought in those early Hartnell Years)
That being said… I think Susan is one of my favorite Companions, easily. Yes I’d agree that she really did got a poor hand with her televised run, but despite that I think even there are a lot of great bits, even if the “Grandfather” Scream can be a lot and yes has been overused in her TV Tenure.
That all being said, looking at all her TV Stories:
An Unearthly Child basically has Susan as its main focus in Episode 1, she is the big Mystery. And she gets easily some of her best moments here, you really get the feeling of watching somebody being a weird teenager, as @sircarolyn pointed out. For the rest of the Story she gets fine enough, but definitely is the least focused upon out of the main four leads.
The Daleks continues the streak of some great Character Bits with her. Her being the one to do that one task is a great Moment, and I absolutely adore the little Moment of her writing that letter and giggling at the Daleks for not getting names. It’s such a sweet moment.
With the Edge of Destruction, I think we just continue some rather out of this world portrayals of her. She is great in it and I do know Ian acts a bit strangely here too, but I think Carol Ann really went all out with a more alien Portrayal for her.
I am not going into the pure Historicals one by one, since I think those all suffer similarly from the lack of Susan and when she is there, she is just kinda there. Reign of Terror is the worst offender, some great Moments at the beginning, besides that? No. Similarly, as much as I do adore both Aztecs and Marco Polo, really you don’t get much out of those two, with the latter having a sweet friendship for Susan, but that’s about it.
Meanwhile, all if not most of the Sci-Fi Stories do her pretty much justice with a lot of great bits. The Sensorites and Dalek Invasion being pointed out makes sense, since those are easily the ones where she has the most focus given. Especially her relationship with the Sensorites, her making her own decisions here, how she talks about her home are all lovely Moments. Similarly, the Dalek Invasion has some great Moments with her.
While yes I do totally get why a lot of People have their troubles with her, many aspects of her don’t work too well in the televised run, there was often a big back and forth with how she should be portrayed due the fact, that it’s obvious that the People behind it didn’t know if the Doctor was from the future or was more of an alien. And I think Susan does suffer from it quite a bit, which is a shame, since I think Carol Ann is such a great Performer and does remarkable work with the Stuff she has been given to.
So I am really glad that she returned from BF and of course her Character being featured in other forms of Media. She is always a delight and I really adore how much energy she puts in those Companion Chronicles, giving just the right feel of Hartnell in them. (A bit off-topic I know, but I really wanted to mention it).
If we are also taking Expanded Media into account (like I did) Stories such as her Arc with 8 or Domain of the Voords are a great showcase for her and use her really well for the most part.
I am probably in a similar field as @sircarolyn, where my Idea of that Character isn’t exactly the one which was always portrayed on TV. But I overall really think she is a great Character and while yes you can’t really talk about her getting a proper arc in the show, there was often this feeling of finding a place for her to settle (especially enhance to some of her Audio Adventures), which is a nice theme for her to have.
In short: Big Fan, would love a return for her on TV someday!