Carole Ann Ford has revealed details of the original ending of The Reality War, the latest Doctor Who finale, which would’ve welcomed back her character, Susan.

Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter, appeared briefly in The Interstellar Song Contest, but after reshoots for the Series 15 finale, her scene wasn’t followed up. Now, Ford has explained:

“You didn’t see the episode which was to sort of introduce my coming back, where I was holding hands with a little — beautiful little tiny black child, three years old. And we were watching through the window somewhere where the audience wasn’t supposed to know where we supposed to be. And we were watching by newly-embodied grandfather, who was now Ncuti [Gatwa, the Fifteenth Doctor], and watching him have a wonderful time singing and dancing in a party in a shop opposite where we were.

“And obviously, I — my character, Susan — was longing to just go there and fling her arms around her grandfather and say, ‘Grandfather, how lovely to see you after all this time and how did you survive your floating about in space [in The Interstellar Song Contest]… and why have you changed?’

“Anyway, that was unfortunately not to be — for reasons I know and will not disclose.”

From this, we can infer that Poppy, the child from Space Babies who came back again in The Reality War, was supposed to be related to the Doctor.

But things seemingly changed when Ncuti Gatwa wanted to leave the series. Instead, Poppy became the child of companion, Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), and the ending became rather muddled.

Nonetheless, we might’ve dodged a bullet somewhat. Although it would’ve been nice to get more scenes with Susan again. And who knows, maybe this thread will be picked up again at some point?