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.

Because of Time Lord interference with her life, there were at least five different versions of Peri, all existing within the universe usually inhabited by the Doctor. Three were fairly specifically described by the Time Lords to the post-trial Sixth Doctor. One was known to have been mindwiped, such that she only remembered the first adventure with the Doctor. She went back to America fairly quickly after those events and went on to have a mostly Doctor-less life. (CC: Peri and the Piscon Paradox) Another was known to to have retained her memories of travelling with the Doctor — until her death at the hand of Yrcanos on Thoros Beta. (DW: Mindwarp) A third was known to have also retained her memories of life with the Doctor, but she married and had children with Yrcanos. (DW: The Ultimate Foe, DWM: The Age of Chaos) Details about the other two confirmed versions of Peri were less clear.

All the Peris, however, shared the same life details up to the point of meeting the Fifth Doctor and Turlough in Lanzarote. (DW: Planet of Fire)

Early life
Peri Brown was born to Paul and Janine Brown. She was raised in Baltimore, Maryland, where her mother stayed until her death. However, because her parents, and even her step-father, were archaeologists, she had travelled around the globe as much as she had enjoyed a stable life in Baltimore. (PDA: Blue Box, BFA: The Reaping)

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&trade;) Her mother, Janine, re-married a man named Professor Howard Foster, who already had two children of his own. One account claimed that Foster subjected Peri to sexual abuse and that Peri never forgave him. (TN: Shell Shock)

However, this account was hard to square against others. One said that Janine and Howard later split because Howard didn't respect her professionally. (BFA: The Gathering) Had abuse of Peri been a genuine issue, it surely would have been the proximate cause of the divorce, instead. Another account did say that Peri suffered sexual abuse as a young woman, but that the "abused Peri" was a version that had been mindwiped by the Time Lords so as to remember only her first adventure with the Fifth Doctor and Turlough. This Peri returned to America and married her high school sweetheart — who brutally beat her. (CC: Peri and the Piscon Paradox) Had she been abused by Howard at an earlier point in her life, she would surely have mentioned it when giving her account of this later, similar act of violence.

First meeting with the Doctor
Peri studied botany (DW: Timelash; BFA: The Mind's Eye) and also had an interest in archaeology, fueled by her parents' own passion for the subject. (PDA: Blue Box) 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)

After Lanzarote
Peri and the Doctor then had a number of adventures on their own. Immediately after the events on Lanzarote, the Doctor took Peri to Astroville Seven, a 31st century space station where Peri could easily see lots of different alien races and thereby get a taste of what travelling in the TARDIS was like. While on the station, they got caught up in an epic quest for the legendary treasure of Rovan Cartovall. (PDA: The Ultimate Treasure) She then encountered Ice Warriors on Mars, (BFA: Red Dawn) helped a group of human colonists beset by the carnivorous Farakosh, (BFA: Exotron) and pretended to be a waitress in an alien restaurant to figure out why three different gourmets wanted to kill the Doctor. (BFA: Urban Myths) The duo also ran into the Master in 1880s California, (ST: A Town Called Eternity) met an Essex priest who was hiding radioactive alien bodies in his church crypt in 1953, (ST: The Canvey Angels) and met the Brigadier before encountering a race known as the Arix, who lived their lives in the matter of one Earth day. (ST: A Life in the Day)

With Erimem
After this period of travelling alone with the Doctor, she then encountered the ancient Egyptian princess, Erimem, who went with them in the TARDIS. (BFA: The Eye of the Scorpion) She grew exceptionally close to Erimem, even hoping that her feelings for Erimem were like those one had for a sister. (TN: Blood and Hope) After Erimem chose to remain on Peladon, she and the Doctor continued on alone. (BFA: The Bride of Peladon)

After Peladon
Soon after Erimem's departure, Peri and the Doctor went to the planet Grallista Social for a spot of relaxation, but instead found themselves in the midst of a viral decontamination effort by the Viyrans. (BFA: Mission of the Viyrans) Soon after this, Peri was intentionally separated from the Doctor on an unnamed world. During this separation, the Doctor travelled briefly with a Tracer named Amy who helped him find the Key to Time. Peri likely reunited with the Doctor soon after his second attempt at finding the Key to Time concluded. (BFA: The Judgement of Isskar, The Chaos Pool) Around this time, Peri and the Doctor went to the villaige of Sair during the Middle Ages, whereupon a young man named Tabilibik used a form of magic to get her to fall in love with him. The Doctor swifly broke his spell, though. (VD: Fascination)

With a new Doctor
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).

After the Doctor's fifth regeneration, 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 "He walked into my life one day, and right out of it. Interested in getting back in touch. Any information?" which is consistent with the account of the Doctor having returned her to Earth. (WEB: whoisdoctorwho.co.uk)'''

The Tenth Doctor probably briefly visited her in the time leading up to his regeneration, as his following incarnation said he had gone back and visited all his previous companions. (SJA: Death of the Doctor)

The Five Peris
The reason for the large number of contradictory accounts regarding Peri's life was that competing factions of Time Lords had chosen several different ways to re-write her life. This resulted in five different simultaneous versions of Peri, each with her own time-stream. This was discovered by the Sixth Doctor and a version of Peri living on Earth in 2009 during an encounter with an unidentified Time Lord. According to the Time Lord, no less than five versions of Peri are known to exist, due in part to interventions by the actions of the Celestial Intervention Agency:


 * One is killed when Sil replaces her brain with his own, as the Doctor views during his trial (Sil-in-Peri's body is subsequently killed by Yrcanos). The Time Lord encountered in 2009 likens this to an assassination, strongly implying that it was orchestrated by the Time Lord faction behind the trial, i.e. The Valeyard, as a way of removing a potential witness who could contradict the altered recordings played at the trial. It's unclear whether Sil and/or Yrcanos are knowing accomplices. (DW: Mindwarp)
 * A rival Time Lord faction, feeling the assassination unwarranted, pulls Peri out of that timestream at some point before her death and instead allows her to, as the Time Lord puts it, "live out her days" as a warrior queen alongside Yrcanos, as revealed to the Doctor at the conclusion of his trial (DW: The Ultimate Foe, and referenced in later novels such as NA: Bad Therapy). This Peri ultimately has three children.
 * An unnamed female Time Lord president (possibly Romana), feeling that forcing Peri to spend her days with Yrcanos was a fate worse than death, arranges for another permutation of Peri to be removed from the timestream and returned to Earth in the mid-1980s with all her memories of travelling with the Doctor erased, except for her first encounter (i.e. DW: Planet of Fire), similar to what occurred to Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot following the Doctor's first trial (DW: The War Games)). Although the president's intentions are good, this version of Peri experiences extreme challenges in her life over the next quarter century. After returning to America, she proceeds to marry her childhood sweetheart, who proves to be extremely abusive to her, ultimately injuring her to the point where she is no longer able to bear children and requires reconstructive surgery to her face. This Peri goes on to become a relationship counselor and, later, a popular TV talk show host in Hollywood, as well as an actress (as she carries an actors union card). In her late 40s, she reunites with the Doctor on an adventure that sees her interact with her younger self and, ultimately, learn about her other selves. Offered a chance to travel with the Doctor again, she declines and returns to her life in 2009 Hollywood.
 * The other two permutations of Peri, and the reason for their creation, are not specified, although see "Possibly apocryphal information", below. (CC: Peri and the Piscon Paradox)

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.)


 * 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 one occasion (PDA: Warmonger) and two years on another (BFA: The Kingmaker). The fact one version of Peri was returned to Earth immediately after her first encounter with the Doctor could suggest her time with the Doctor was brief enough that she didn't change physically unless the Time Lords altered her appearance (CC: Peri and the Piscon Paradox)

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. It is conceivable that the "Miss Brown" of the Stranger series could be the fifth alternate Peri mentioned in CC: Peri and the Piscon Paradox, suggesting she either coincidentally began travelling with a Doctor-like individual who happened to look exactly like the Sixth Doctor, and began affecting a British accent, or she was placed in an alternate reality.
 * 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. This idiosyncrasy of language did not end with the TV series, as it can be heard as recently as the 2011 release CC: Peri and the Piscon Paradox.
 * 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 evidence for the subterfuge can be heard on a clip from Breakfast Time broadcast the day the first episode of The Twin Dilemma aired. During the interview, the interviewer asserted that as a "little girl in America" Bryant used to watch Doctor Who and dream of being a companion. Bryant, who used only a very mild English accent during the interview, failed to correct the interviewer or to even look as though the interviewer had made an error. Near the end of the 1984 production block — which is to say after the recording of Season 22, but probably slightly before its airing — Bryant 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 three Americans to serve as a companion for the Doctor on television. The others being Grace Holloway and Jack Harkness, though Grace's position as a companion is unclear, and whether Harkness qualifies as a true American, being from another planet, is up for debate (though he is first encountered impersonating an American and his actions prior to DW: The Empty Child are unknown).
 * The idea of Howard Foster sexually abusing Peri is one never considered by the production team on Planet of Fire, and does not have resonance in audio and print literature beyond TN: Shell Shock. 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. (DCOM: Planet of Fire) However, the character of Peri (or at least one aspect of Peri) was still destined for an abusive relationship as revealed in CC: Peri and the Piscon Paradox.