Peri Brown
- For the mythological fairy, see Peri (mythological creature).
Perpugilliam Brown, known simply as Peri, was an American college student turned companion of the Doctor during his fifth and sixth incarnations.
Biography
Early life
Peri Brown was born to Paul and Janine Brown. (BFA: The Reaping) According to her passport, her birthday is November 15 (DW: Planet of Fire).
The Doctor once pointed out that in Persian mythology, a peri was also the name of a kind of fairy which started off evil before turning good. (DW: The Twin Dilemma) As a girl, Peri used to read the comic book Swamp Thing. (PDA: Players).
When Peri was 13, her father Paul died in a boating accident. (PDA: Synthespians™) Her mother, Janine, re-married a man named Professor Howard Foster, who already had two children of his own. Foster subjected Peri to sexual abuse. Peri never forgave him. (TN: Shell Shock)
- This "sexual abuse" angle is one never considered by the production team on Planet of Fire, and does not have much resonance in audio and print literature beyond Shell Shock. In the DVD commentary, Nicola Bryant says that the idea, as envisioned by her, Fiona Cumming and Dallas Adams, was to suggest that she and her stepfather had an appropriate, friendly relationship. Indeed, according to Bryant, Peri much preferred the company of Howard to that of her mother. The Reaping suggests that Janine and Howard later split because Howard didn't respect her professionally; had abuse of Peri been a genuine issue, it surely would have been cited instead. However, one piece of evidence in favor occurs in Planet of Fire when Peri, as she regains consciousness, can be heard fearfully exhorting her father to not turn out the lights.
Travels with the Doctor
First meeting with the Doctor
Peri studied botany (DW: Timelash) and also had an interest in archaeology, and according to her passport lived in Pasadena, California. (DW: Planet of Fire) Circa 1984, she encountered the Doctor and Turlough on Lanzarote. The shape-shifting android Kamelion, controlled by the Master at the time, assumed the form of Peri's step-father, Professor Howard Foster, and later that of the Master himself, before seizing control of the TARDIS to take her to the planet Sarn to meet the real Master. After the destruction of Kamelion and the defeat of the Master, Turlough decided to return to his homeworld, Trion, and Peri joined the Doctor on his travels. (DW: Planet of Fire)
Further adventures
After a number of adventures, the Doctor and Peri met the ancient Egyptian princess Erimem, who went with them in the TARDIS. (BFA: The Eye of the Scorpion) After Erimem chose to remain on Peladon, she and the Doctor continued on alone. (BFA: The Bride of Peladon)
After contracting spectrox toxaemia,and then getting accidentally involved in local politics on the twin planets of Androzani Major and Minor, Peri first got abducted by Sharaz Jek, and, upon her escape, began to die from the disease. The Doctor saved her but, not having enough bat's milk (which acted as an antidote) to save himself, regenerated into a very different new and unstable persona (DW: The Caves of Androzani). At the peak of his madness, the Doctor attempted to throttle Peri to death - Peri is the only companion known to have suffered a physical assault at the hands of the Doctor. Still, he managed to regain his wits enough that Peri accepted the change enough to continue to travel with him together. (DW: The Twin Dilemma) Perhaps due to the assault, Peri continued to appear ill at ease with the Doctor from time to time (DW: Attack of the Cybermen, Timelash) although their relationship became more comfortable as time went on (DW: The Mysterious Planet).
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 Doctor, there was an undercurrent of affection in their verbal sparring. Peri alternated time traveling in the TARDIS with the Doctor, with time spent in the company of a second companion, Frobisher (a Whifferdill in the shape of a penguin) and occasional sabbaticals on Earth. During the first of these sabbaticals she lived in New York City in 1985, though she grew frustrated at her (undisclosed) job there and quit soon before gratefully rejoining the Doctor and Frobisher. (DWM: Kane's Story)
Peri would encounter Sil, one of a race of capitalist despots known as the Mentors (DW: Vengeance on Varos). She met the Master a second time, now with an accomplice, the Rani (DW: The Mark of the Rani), and made the acquaintance of the Doctor's former companion Jamie McCrimmon at an earlier stage of his life (DW: The Two Doctors) and later as a much older man (DWM: The World Shapers). She also encountered the Doctor's greatest enemies, the Daleks. (DW: Revelation of the Daleks) Over time, Peri matured somewhat and her relationship with the Doctor became less combative.
Leaving the Doctor
- The authenticity of some following events remains uncertain, as we only have a distorted account presented by the Doctor's enemy, the Valeyard.
In the year 2379, on the planet Thoros Beta, home of the despotic capitalists known as the Mentors, Peri was separated from the Doctor. She met the warrior king Yrcanos from the primitive planet Krontep, who took a liking to her. Kiv, a Mentor, had Peri abducted and taken to his laboratory. The Doctor and the TARDIS were removed from Thoros Beta thanks to the telepathic summons to the Space Station Zenobia, the High Council of Time Lords, so that he could not interfere. As the Doctor watched from Zenobia, Kiv transplanted his consciousness into Peri's body, whereupon Yrcanos burst in and destroyed her body as a form of mercy-killing. (DW: Mindwarp). Despite the Doctor's horror at learning this, the destruction of Peri's mind and her death had never actually happened. After the defeat of the Valeyard, The Inquisitor revealed that Peri and Yrcanos fell in love and she decided to spend the rest of her life with him. (DW: The Ultimate Foe).
Life on Krontep
Several contradictory accounts exist regarding Peri's future life on Krontep. According to one, Peri lived out the rest of her life there and had at least three grandchildren, a few of whom would meet the Doctor and Frobisher (though Peri had never been seen on-screen to interact with Frobisher). (DWM: The Age of Chaos) Supporting this another account shows the Doctor (in an unknown incarnation) visiting Peri in her early forties, by which time, still bitterly unhappy with the Doctor, she felt resigned to her fate. (DWM: Reunion)
Another revealed that, although she did become Yrcanos' queen, Peri blamed the Doctor for abandoning her. Following another one of his regenerations, the Doctor and Peri made peace with each other. The Doctor returned Peri to late 20th century Earth. (NA: Bad Therapy)
In another account, in early 2005 she commented on whoisdoctorwho.co.uk saying she was interested in getting back in touch with the Doctor and asked for information about him, which is consistent with the account of the Doctor having returned her to Earth. (WEB: whoisdoctorwho.co.uk)
Possibly apocryphal information
Another account says that, while Peri and Yrcanos stayed together, Yrcanos made a career for himself in the late 20th century in the field of professional wrestling. (DWN: Doctor Who — Mindwarp)
Supposedly, Peri was also among the Doctor's companions drawn into a temporal trap set by the Rani. (DW: Dimensions in Time)
Mysteries and discrepancies
- During the Doctor's fifth incarnation, Peri spent a year of her life as a guerrilla fighter while separated from the Doctor, who meanwhile headed a military organisation known as the Alliance (PDA: Warmonger) (Where this falls in terms of Peri's personal timeline remains unknown.)
- As stated above, we do not know the exact circumstances of Peri finally leaving the Doctor and whether she chose to live out the rest of her life on Krontep.
- The length of time Peri spent with the Doctor is unclear. Some accounts suggest her travels with the Doctor occurred over the space of months, however at least "a couple of years" passed (for her, anyway) between her first encounter with Jamie McCrimmon (DW: The Two Doctors) and the second (DWM: The World Shapers). And as noted above, she was also separated from the Doctor for as long as a year. (PDA: Warmonger)
Behind the scenes
- Using her real English accent Nicola Bryant played "Miss Brown", an obvious analogue to Peri in three BBV Productions videos in the Stranger, Summoned by Shadows, More Than a Messiah and In Memory Alone. Later videos in the series would make clear that the Stranger series did not take place in the Doctor Who Universe and that Peri and Miss Brown had no connection with each other. Bryant also played Elenya "Ellie" Brown, the girlfriend of Colin Baker's character, in another BBV production, the non-Doctor Who The Airzone Solution.
- Counting audio and televised adventures together, Peri effectively shares the longest-serving companion title — both in terms of number of stories and recorded time — with Ace. As they are tied, the title essentially alternates as new stories are released. Her nearest rivals are Jamie McCrimmon, Charley Pollard and Nyssa. Of these, only Nyssa appears to be in active use past 2010, and so she represents the only potential threat to Peri and Ace's record-breaking number of appearances. While she clearly eclipses the amount of time Sarah Jane Smith has been seen or heard as a companion, Peri is easily outpaced by the character of Sarah, due to Sarah's latter-day appearances as a solo character.
- While Peri is supposed to be an American, her English accent often slips through, and her American accent wanders between different regional accents. She sometimes uses phrases and pronunciations that Americans would not use, such as "lift" instead of the American "elevator". Indeed, the Attack of the Cybermen DVD commentary maintained that it was mandated that Peri only use British slang so as to not confuse the audience. This may have worked for the British audience, but, as Peter Davison pointed on on the DVD commentary for Planet of Fire, it had the opposite effect on American viewers. They could spot Bryant's fake American accent — or, really, any British actor's attempt at American — with ease. This was one of the principal reasons that Davison fought hard against adding an American companion to the show.
- According to Nicola Bryant on the DVD commentary for Planet of Fire, there was an active effort to cover up the fact that she was not, in fact, American. She recounted there how John Nathan-Turner insisted she use her American accent when making public appearances, or appearances that could have been monitored by the press. At least during the recording of her earliest serials, like Fire, she was even required to use the American accent when she broke character between takes. It's unclear how long this obfuscation lasted, but there is evidence of her using her British accent publicly after about the first year of her employment. Near the end of the 1984 production block — which is to say after the recording of Season 22, but probably slightly before its airing — she gave a radio interview in which she used her natural British accent. (BBCR: Doctor Who at the BBC Volume 3)
- Peri is one of only two Americans to serve as companion for the Doctor, the other being Grace Holloway in the 1996 TV movie, although Grace's status as a companion is debated.
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