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Peri Brown

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Doctor Who character

<tr> <td align="center" colspan="2">200px
Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown</td> </tr>

Peri

<tr> <th>Affiliated with</th> <td>Fifth Doctor
Sixth Doctor</td> </tr><tr> <th>Race</th> <td>Human</td> </tr><tr> <th>Home planet</th> <td>Earth</td> </tr><tr> <th>Home era</th> <td>1984</td> </tr><tr> <th>First appearance</th> <td>Planet of Fire</td> </tr><tr> <th>Last appearance</th> <td>The Trial of a Time Lord: Mindwarp</td> </tr><tr> <th>Portrayed by</th> <td>Nicola Bryant</td> </tr>

Peri Brown, full name Perpugilliam Brown, is a fictional character played by Nicola Bryant in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.

An American college student (her passport lists her residence as Pasadena, California) majoring in botany, Peri was a companion of the Fifth and Sixth Doctors and a regular in the programme from 1984 to 1986. She was the first American to travel with the Doctor, although Bryant herself is actually British, a fact that was downplayed when she joined the series. Bryant's assumed accent slips a bit on occasion and she sometimes uses British colloquialisms, such as "lift" for "elevator". A "Peri" is a fallen angel from Persian mythology.

Contents

[edit] Character history

Peri first appeared in the Fifth Doctor serial Planet of Fire, in which she encountered the Doctor and Turlough on the island of Lanzarote. After an encounter with the Master and the shapechanging android Kamelion (who had disguised himself as her step-father, Professor Howard Foster), Peri asked to join the Fifth Doctor on his travels, while Turlough departed to return to his home planet of Trion. (The identity of Peri's mother is not revealed in the televised series, but see below.)

Peri was present when the Fifth Doctor regenerated into the Sixth at the end of The Caves of Androzani and continued to travel with him, despite the fact that one of the first things the temporarily unstable Sixth Doctor tried to do was strangle her (The Twin Dilemma).

Peri was a bright, spirited young woman, who travelled with the Doctor because, like many of his companions, she wanted to see the universe. Although she shared a more abrasive relationship with the Sixth Doctor, there was an undercurrent of affection in their verbal sparring.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Peri travelled with the Doctor for an undisclosed period of time; some sources say she travelled with him for mere months, while others say years. Between the events of Revelation of the Daleks and the season-long story The Trial of a Time Lord, the character was shown to have matured somewhat (coinciding with an 18-month production break between the two stories) and her relationship with the Doctor less combative.

In the second segment of the Trial story arc, Mindwarp, Peri was abducted by a slug-like creature named Kiv, who apparently transplanted his brain into her body. Soon after, the Doctor was led to believe that Peri was dead, and was severely distressed by this. It was later revealed at the end of The Ultimate Foe (the fourth segment of the arc) that the evidence of Peri's death had been faked by the Valeyard. Peri had, in fact, survived, presumably recovered from Kiv's transplant (if it ever actually occurred), and married King Yrcanos of Thoros Alpha, a warrior king who had assisted the Doctor and Peri during the Mindwarp incident. It is not known what happened to Peri after she married Yrcanos, although the various spin-off media give different accounts of her eventual fate.

Peri was one of the more controversial companions, with some critics complaining about the motivation for adding a character who spent much of her time on screen wearing revealing outfits. Series producer John Nathan-Turner admitted that Peri was created in order to add sex appeal to the series. Similar criticisms had been levelled against the character of Leela nearly a decade earlier. Beginning with the story Timelash, and continuing through the Trial season, Peri's mode of dress became more conservative.

Nicola Bryant reprised the role of Peri in the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time.

[edit] Other appearances

The epilogue to the Target Books novelisation of Mindwarp by Philip Martin stated that Peri returned to the 20th Century with Yrcanos where the latter became a professional wrestler. This tongue-in-cheek conclusion is not reflected in any televised story, and is generally ignored by fandom.

In the Marvel Comics graphic novel The Age of Chaos, written by Colin Baker, Peri lived out her life on Krontep as Yrcanos's Queen and had at least three grandchildren, who are principal characters in the story.

The Virgin New Adventures novel Bad Therapy by Matthew Jones reveals that, although becoming Yrcanos's Queen, Peri blamed the Doctor for abandoning her. In the novel, the Seventh Doctor made peace with Peri and returned her to late-20th Century Earth.

The Telos novella Shell Shock by Simon A. Forward revealed that Peri had been sexually abused by her stepfather. This was hinted at in the Past Doctor Adventures novel Synthespians™ by Craig Hinton, which also revealed that her parents were Janine and Paul Brown, and that her father died in a boating accident when she was thirteen. She has two step-siblings from her mother's marriage to Foster.

Bryant voiced the character of Peri in several audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions, alongside both Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor and Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor. In several of these stories, the Fifth Doctor and Peri were joined by another companion, the Egyptian princess Erimem.

One audio play, The Reaping, introduces Peri's mother, Janine Foster, played by American actress Claudia Christian (although in reality, Christian is three years younger than Nicola Bryant). The play, set in 1984, confirms Peri's late father's name as Paul and mentions that Howard and Janine Foster have gone their separate ways, but does not mention Peri's step-siblings. Janine is killed at the end of the play, cutting Peri's last familial tie to Earth.

The canonicity of these other appearances, like all Doctor Who spin-off media, is unclear.

Bryant played the role of "Miss Brown" in the first three instalments of the BBV video series The Stranger, opposite Colin Baker as the Stranger; although the character was never explicitly identified as being Peri (much as the Stranger was never directly linked to the Doctor) there were nonetheless similarities in the two characters, with one major difference: Bryant uses her natural English accent for Miss Brown rather than affecting an American one as she did with Peri.

[edit] List of appearances

[edit] Television

Season 21
Season 22
Season 23
30th anniversary special

[edit] Audio dramas

BBC Radio
Big Finish Productions

[edit] Novels

Virgin Missing Adventures
Virgin New Adventures
Past Doctor Adventures
Telos Doctor Who novellas

[edit] Short stories

[edit] Comics

  • "Kane's Story" / "Abel's Story" / "The Warrior's Story" / "Frobisher's Story" by Max Stockbridge and John Ridgway (Doctor Who Magazine 104–107
  • "Exodus" / "Revelation" / "Genesis" by Alan McKenzie and John Ridgway (Doctor Who Magazine 108–110)
  • "Nature of the Beast" by Simon Furman and John Ridgway (Doctor Who Magazine 111–113)
  • "Time Bomb" by Jamie Delano and John Ridgway (Doctor Who Magazine 114–116)
  • "Salad Daze" by Simon Furman and John Ridgway (Doctor Who Magazine 117)
  • "Changes" by Grant Morrison and John Ridgway (Doctor Who Magazine" 118–119)
  • "Profits of Doom" by Mike Collins, John Ridgway and Tim Perkins (Doctor Who Magazine 120–122)
  • "The Gift" by Jamie Delano, John Ridgway and Tim Perkins (Doctor Who Magazine 123–126)
  • "The World Shapers" by Grant Morrison, John Ridgway and Tim Perkins (Doctor Who Magazine 127–129)
  • "Emperor of the Daleks" by Paul Cornell, John Freeman and John Ridgway (Doctor Who Magazine 197; cameo)
  • "The Curse of the Scarab" by Alan Barnes and Martin Geraghty (Doctor Who Magazine 228–230)
  • "Ground Zero" by Scott Gray, Martin Geraghty and Bambos Georgiou (Doctor Who Magazine 238–242)
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