The Doctor was somewhat younger back then, the 2nd Doctor once gave his age at 450.

Susan seemed to be the age she appeared they were on Earth so that she could attend school for a while.

If she was a 100+ year old Time Lord she certainly did not act like it.

If Susan really was only 16 or so I wonder how long they had been travelling for?

Maybe (bringing in a new series revelation) something happened when she went to look into the Vortex when she was 8 and the Doctor was forced to take her away.


Didn't I.M Foreman appear in the books as some sort of god like being?

I reckon the original Doctor was about the age he appeared to be i.e. 80s or so. Maybe as much as 200. Which of course is *very* young for a Timelord!

I love how the grouchiness of the 1st and some of the other early doctors was explained in the CiN special. "I used to act so old and grumpy and important... as you do when you're young"

Funny to think really, in the very early days (I watched some of the "beginnings" DVDs) the Doctor wasn't a very nice man at all. Aside from being a cantankerous old goat, he gained his first 2 companions (apart from Susan) by kidnapping them in retaliation for them "breaking in" to the TARDIS and refused to take them home, then at one point shortly afterwards he very nearly betrayed them in cold blood, leaving them to die to save his own skin (I think he was interrupted, or maybe conscience got the better of him, I can't remember)

Actually I think a better interpretation of 'I.M. Foreman' would be "I am for Man", as in the Doctor always being a supporter of the human race.

Watch the episode Girl in the fireplace where pompadour reads his mind.

"There must be a dreadful secret behind it" (says wikipedia)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_in_the_Fireplace

I think he is also a famous villian like a Jekyll/Hyde personality. I mean, he is a doctor....he's "Doctor Jekyll"

Of course, the real truth to all this is myuch more prosaic.

When DW started in 1963 the world (and the BBC) was a very different place. Much of the mythology was made up as they went along.

At first the doctor was just a traveller in time and space (all the time lords/Gallifrey stuff was a later invention - presumably to get over the regeneration they cooked up to keep the show going with a new lead actor).

I very much doubt anyone ever built in mythology to the doctors name. Susan Foreman was just the name his granddaughter used to attend school and so the doctor acted surprised when someone assumed he was also called Foreman.

She was made into his grand daughter almost certainly to avoid what in 1963 would have been enough to get DW taken off air amidst a scandal - the doctor picking up an earthly school kid to take back to his Tardis for a jolly jaunt.

I suspect nobody considered the implications of his family relationships and this was an expediency to make them acceptable as a 'couple'.

Probably also why the first companions in that series were a male and female teacher who never did anything remotely intimate but were subtly implied to fancy one another leaving there no question of the doctor being viewed as a dirty old man.

If you wanted to call him something it would be John Smith. The 3rd Doctor used this name during his tenure at UNIT and the 10th seems to have adopted it as well.

This is quite clearly not his real name any more than Susan was his grandaughters real name.

Time Lords do have names though, and generally pronouncable. The reason the Doctor hides his name is unclear, at first it would seem sensible given he was on the run from his own people, but later in the series (7th Doctor) it seems to be hinted that his identity needs to be hidden to avoid association with events during the dark times of Galifrey.