Right, I was talking with a friend the other day who shall remain nameless because he's recently fled to Italy... well not fled, he lives there with his dad, and we got on to talking about Doctor Who. Oh, just off topic, really excited about the new Torchwood series. You can see clips on Freema Agyeman's website (Best companion so far!) And we were trying to work out why the Doctor is so obssessed with taking on young girls as his companions. What's the deal? At first my friend sai he was a perv but then I said maybe it has something to do with his granddaughter. We talked it out and came up with The Susan Foreman Complex, which is basically the idea that because the Doctor feels the need to protect someone he takes on the companions who make up for his granddaughter not being there.

Firstly, the Doctor's only known family was his granddaughter Susan Foreman who he had been travelling with for a long time in exile. Susan being only a little girl really was always in need of saving and was often kidnapped to get the Doctor to do what the enemy wanted. She left him to stay on Earth, quite unwillingly, as the Doctor had to lock her out of the TARDIS to stop her from coming back. He began to fear that as long as Susan was with him she wouldn't have a life of her own. So he told her stay on Earth and that he would one day return for her. Till this day he never has and with the Time War we can assume that as far as the Doctor knows Susan died in the Time War with the other Time Lords.

The Doctor's second companion after Susan was a girl called Vicki who he adopted as his granddaughter. After she left, there were others, time after time, there was new companion to replace his adopted granddaughters. The trend has never ended. Basically, the Doctor needs someone to protect because without Susan he would have been very lonely. The reason they are so young is because Susan was very young, still a child really, and needed him. The Doctor likes to show off and be needed by his companions the way Susan needed him. I suppose the reason he felt a little overwhelmed by Martha is because she didn't always need him to protect her as she could do a lot of things by herself. His love of humans comes from Susan too. Prior to meeting Ian and Barbara he hated humans or at least disliked them and Earth. He only began to like them and protect them once Susan left to live with humans. He is still protecting the thing the person he loved most held dear.

Sophie