Our fourth entry.
No-one is indispensable. Anyone can leave, and the show will carry on - at least as far as the companions are concerned. What makes Susan's departure more notable, beyond being the first, is that she isn't some temporary wayfarer, picked up a few stories ago. She is the Doctor's granddaughter - the only blood relative we have ever seen. What makes the scene particularly special is William Hartnell's iconic speech, whilst Ian and Barbara simply stand in the background - supportive, but knowing that this is something which they can't intrude upon. This is between the Doctor and Susan.
The almost non-reaction towards each other in The Five Doctors has led some to doubt that she really was his actual granddaughter. It was simply a turn of phrase, in the same way that family friends were often "aunts" and "uncles" when you were a child.
However, we know she definitely came from Gallifrey, as her description of home in The Sensorites matched almost word for word the Doctor's in Gridlock; he singled her out as "his" Susan in The Massacre; and she was the only person other than his wife to have a photo in pride of place on his university desk in The Pilot. More generally he has spoken about being a parent (Fear Her), so is just as likely to also be a grandparent.
The decision to make her the Doctor's granddaughter instead of an alien princess came late in the day, courtesy of writer Anthony Coburn, who was concerned about the proprieties of a young girl travelling around unchaperoned with a much older man. Sydney Newman would have preferred her to be a Coal Hill schoolgirl for audience identification purposes. Once she became his granddaughter, that was how Carole Ann Ford and William Hartnell played it - so who are we to disagree?
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