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Peri BrownNicola Bryant |
A Review by Michael D. Herman 11/6/98
In Doctor Who you have a wide variety of characters, and within those characters you have a wide variety of characteristics. Peri is one of the many characters who is sometimes hard to evaluate because she has less depth than say Ace, Leela, or Sarah Jane. However in my opinion Peri's most positive traight is her "down-to Earth" attitude and personality. I always found myself feeling sorry for her because she had to put up with so much, but she screamed when she was supposed to scream, she whined when she was supposed to whine, and she cared when she was supposed to care.
Her whining however did not appeal to me as a fan, not nearly as much as her looks! And I think that is the one thing that hooked me into her character. I also believe this is why Nicola Bryant was picked for the part. I think she played it well, and convinced me that she was Peri.
The two flaws that stood out most in my mind were:
A) Nicola's struggles
with the American accent, and
B) Making her into yet another screaming
helpless companion that only really needed to be there for the Doctor's
explanations.
Finally on a very positive note, Peri's tiumphs come from her heart, and total loyalty to the Doctor; no matter what mood he was in, she knew she had to stick by his side. I think this matched Colin Baker's sense of justice and making bad situations right. My favorite moment with Peri was in the Trial of a Time Lord where she talks about love, and missing her home. This was touching, and worked perfectly with her character. Peri may not be my most famous companion, but she is definately for me a more memorable one. Plus, I'll follow her into the TARDIS any day!
Peri by Mike Morris 15/2/00
Things to know about Peri;
Thus, it seems, goes conventional wisdom. And, as is so often the case, conventional wisdom is pretty much correct. Peri was, in many senses, a promising companion, and she only occasionally reached any great heights. JNT didn't really seem to know much about who she was, and Eric Saward thought she was a waste of space. The writers gave her pretty rubbish material. It was Nicola Bryant's first job. Hardly a promising environment.
But...
But I liked Peri. Really. I liked her for many reasons; I liked her because she was ordinary, and got scared quite a lot, and she was essentially a compassionate personality lurking between veneer of spoiled-American-brat (there were two other reasons as well, but I don't wish to lower the tone of this article). And she was tougher - sometimes - than she looked.
Ace, I'm sure, would have hated Peri. She's everything Ace isn't; she's from a pretty sheltered, comfortable background, she's shallow, she's more interested in Elton John than alien artefacts. The first time we meet Peri, she's sneering about octogenarians from Miami Beach, and she's bored on Lanzarote (Lanzarote, for Christ's sake! I'd give my right arm to go to bloody Lanzarote!). After Part One of Planet of Fire, I hated Peri, swimsuit scene or not.
Do things get better? Well, on the surface, not really. Peri doesn't reveal inner depths of courage, or save the day, or shout "Who are you calling small?" at a Dalek before trashing it with a baseball bat. In fact, she doesn't really do anything extraordinary at all. Why? Because she isn't an extraordinary person. Simple as that.
But Peri does improve. Her one triumph is the stripping away of her snide, spoiled superiority, and exposing what's underneath; a good-natured, compassionate person who pleads with Kamelion to show his true self, who goes gathering herbs to make a sleeping draft for someone she's never met before in her life, who can't cope with the reality of having killed someone in Revelation of the Daleks (in my opinion, the best scene from the Sixth Doctor's era by some distance, and one that's frequently overlooked). She was far more suited to the amiable Fifth Doctor than the Sixth personality-wise, but having said that the Sixth Doctor needed her much more than the Fifth did, to remind him the value of compassion. And as a pair they were perfectly complemented as far as storytelling goes; an average, caring person and an extraordinary, unfeeling one. Sadly, this wasn't really exploited in the series with a couple of exceptions. An example is the (otherwise awful) murder of Oscar in The Two Doctors - while the Doctors indulge in a petty squabble it's Peri who comforts Oscar as he dies, who consoles Anita, and who shows her disgust with the pair of them ("will you two stop squabbling?"). This was an infantile theme that was more fully exploited in the Seventh Doctor - Ace relationship, that of the Doctor exposing his friend to things that are impossible to cope with.
Peri wasn't suited to travelling in the TARDIS, not really. But, on occasion, this worked. We got to see the horror of things that are so often overlooked as cliches in Doctor Who; the horror of being lost on an alien planet, the horror of awaiting execution in a prison cell, the horror of seeing innocent people die and of discovering the reality of the future. This isn't, as Eric Saward said, creating a weak female character, it's creating a believable, plausible character. If I had an hour to live, and my companion was wondering what something called Spectrox is, I'd be terrified too. Peri's not interested in uncovering the plot, or fighting evil; as she says simply in Caves, she just doesn't want to be shot. What's easier to relate to than that?
What's more, it makes Peri's minor feats of bravery all the more impressive. Standing up to the Master in Planet of Fire. Standing up to the Doctor in The Twin Dilemma ("Look at you now!"). Pulling him away from Lytton's body in Attack of the Cybermen. Extraordinary? No. Admirable? Yes.
Another, final point. Peri was, with the exception of Ian and Barbara, the worst example of "companion-choosing" the Doctor ever did. He plucked a relatively happy young woman from a relatively happy life for no real reason (OK, she kind of forced herself on him, but she didn't really know what she was getting into) and, ultimately, got her killed (sort of. Bloody cop-out ending of The Trial of a Time Lord messes this theory up a bit). It was an irresponsible move, and the Doctor's guilt in this department was never really addressed as it should have been in the televised stories.
And really, that's the story of Peri; wasted opportunities. No, she wasn't a great companion, just a companion with great potential. But there were times when she touched greatness, and that's worth remembering.
The Unfinished Companion by Rob Matthews 10/5/02
Post-pub, I was mentioning to a not-a-fan-but-grew-up-with-the-show friend recently that Peri wasn't a very popular companion with fans. He was quite surprised by this, and reasoned in her defence that she went around in lycra a lot.
Quite an achievment for Nichola Bryant to look back on, eh?
Not that I'm frowning on a bit of adolescent lust, mind you, but it annoys me when people confuse contours with content. It's like all the blokes who imagine they like that hideous Holly Valance song just because she appears in the video dressed in a vaseline bikini. Please, just be honest and watch the video with the sound off.
Actually, I'm being unfair. My friend's not interested in the show so naturally he'd not going to look beyond the surface. If what's on the surface is a man in a garish coat and a pair of wabs in pink lycra, that's what he sees. I think what bothered me was the assumption that there isn't anything more to the Doctor's companions than this, and by extension that there isn't that much to the show, that in the absence of content us fans must rate our favourite characters based on how much we want to boink them. By those kind of standards, my favourite television programme would be Home & Away.
So, just as a non-fan - or an asinine cretin like Michael Grade - would assume the show is rubbish because its special effect aren't that good, so a casual observer would assume, for example, that Ace isn't a very good companion because by comparison with Peri she's a bit on the hefty side.
Or perhaps it's that the comment hit a raw nerve. Female companions who were strongly written and interesting in their own right were pretty rare throughout the TV series. They were generally seen - and are typically remembered - as something nice for the lads to look at. Ace was maybe the best-realised female companion, but it was twenty-five years before she turned up. Romana was a success, but that was at least partly because she was a female version of the Doctor. That is, she wasn't a true original like a Benny or a Roz, two book characters who far surpass any of the TV companions. Sarah Jane? Passive, victimised. Hypnotised, blinded, dropped off scaffoldings and transmatted about the place week in week out. Jo Grant? Best known for posing naked with a Dalek. Liz Shaw? Dropped for being intelligent. Nyssa? Impossible to dislike her, and yet she barely featured in the scripts at all. And then of course there's the first companion, Susan, a woman so utterly hapless and helpless she could twist an ankle tying her shoelaces. So maybe I'm a bit embarrassed about liking a show with such a long-running sexist streak.
There's really no doubting that Nichola Bryant was cast as eye candy, and while there's nothing especially wrong with that, there's nothing especially commendable about it either. Obviously this is a standard thing that TV shows do - to too great an extent now I think, though at least the sexes are objectified equally these days. But it probably wouldn't have seemed so obviously cynical if she'd had a more fully written and developed character.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Peri hater. I actually like her. Occasional difficulties with the accent and the more extreme moments of whining aside, I enjoy Nichola Bryant's performance. I think she and Colin Baker had a good rapport which transcended the bickering imposed on them by the scripts.
And even on a script-by-script basis I don't think she was badly written as such. She wasn't incoherent, she was just a bit of cipher. If there was too little to her then there was surely too little to Nyssa also. Yet the doe-eyed Trakenite has never been singled out for criticism. Maybe that's simply because she didn't go around complaining (in fact, she veritably skipped out of the TARDIS just a few minutes after watching the destruction of her home planet!). You could argue - and what the hell, I think I will - that Peri's arguments with the Sixth Doctor actually showed a healthy disregard for his conceitedness. The problem was that these squabbles were too often portrayed in irrelevant and protracted scenes which usually took place before the stories had properly started - hence we saw them as actively obstructing the drama rather than contributing to it. Unlike, say, the competitive streak in the Doctor and Romana's relationship, which appeared naturally in the course of their stories - for example, when Romana whipped out her very own sonic screwdriver during The Horns of Nimon. If that had happened in a season 22-type story it would have taken place in a console room scene at the beginning of the story; her saying "Look what I've built", the Doctor getting all huffy etc, and then the collision with the spaceship. Peri's "Watch it, porky!" line in Revelation worked precisely because it was a natural part of the scene.
The fact that Peri was a botany student was mentioned in at least half of the stories in season 22. That's not bad - considering that Sarah Jane's being a journalist got less and less mention after her introductory season - yet it's another thing about her that's come in for criticism. In Timelash in particular it's typically seen as lip service to a character brief; the criticism, I suppose, being that instead of expanding the character such treatment reduces her to a set of outlines. Ace's pyromania revealed something about her character, whereas Peri being a botanist seems arbitrary (although I guess you could say that the arbitrariness of her choosing this field of study demonstrates disaffectedness - even the whiny Tegan had a drooling passion for something - bizarre as it seemed for her to be so obsessed with aeroplanes...)
So far as the Fifth Doctor era goes, Peri was as important a character as Adric (and much as we don't like him he was important to the development of that era). I've gone over this before in a review of season 21 so, attemping to be brief, I think she symbolised everyone the Fifth Doctor had failed - Adric, Tegan, and himself. She was yet another companion he'd obliviously gotten into mortal danger and in rescuing her he was rescuing himself.
Which makes me think that if the show had had the guts to stick with the fate of Peri as depicted in Mindwarp her tenure would have been a lot more satisfying dramatically. I saw Mindwarp again quite recently and it struck me that it plays sort of like a bad dream version of Caves of Androzani - the Doctor arrives on one of a twin set of planets, takes an unwilling Peri into a system of caves and accidentally gets her into mortal peril. Only this time he's unable to save her and she dies.
That would make it the ultimate in dark Doctor Who stories of course, because it would retroactively violate Caves and necessitate a moodier portrayal of the Doctor from there on in - and this at a time when the show was under fire for being too dark. Certainly had we went from Peri's death to the camp jollity of McCoy's debut season it would have ruined her spectacular death scene just as surely as the 'she married Yrcanos' thing. If her death was going to be immediately forgotten there'd be no reason to include it at all.
And as things stand it was not only forgotten - surely the Valeyard should have taunted the Doctor with it towards the end of TOATL? -, it was retracted. Colin Baker's performance after her death scene is so heartbreaking that I can't help feeling happy for him when he finds out she's still alive, but that's just me being sentimental - if it didn't happen what was the point of showing it? Symptomatic of the show's behind the scenes troubles I suppose.
And so off walked Peri, from unconvincing accent to unconvincing fate in eleven stories. But I appreciate the effort she put in and think it's a shame she's remembered only as the one with the tits. On paper there's nothing to her at all, but I can't be the only one who thinks she rose above the limitations of her written character. Can I?
"All these corridors look the same to me!" by Joe Ford 14/9/02
What a whinger! What a moaner! What a terrible false accent! What nerve to put the eternal arguer next to some one with an equally bombastic nature! How could you have them arguing in long, long, LONG TARDIS scenes when the plot is waiting to kick start!... These are some comments I've heard thrown at Peri in the past and to some extent they are true but I think people forget some the GREAT moments she had in the series. It is no co-incidence that two of my favourite Peter Davison stories are the two he shares with Peri. I think Peri has the ability to be more potent than her surrounding companions because nobody expects much from her so when she does have an excellent scene its more special. Personally (chronologically) she is my favourite companion since Romana II (that's five back) and easily my favourite until Evelyn (in the audios) and Fitz and Anji (in the books). And of course, Benny.
Go back and watch these moments and remember how well tuned the writers, directors and actors could be in the mid eighties.
Planet of Fire: Peri is pretty much ace in her entire first story reminding me very strongly of Sarah-Jane's intro in that she is just thrown at you with no apology or excuse. Bossy, bolshie and rude she lights up this drab tale of religious politics considerably. It is damn hysterical when she is stranded on the boat by her step-father and she starts screaming at him like a big kid! "Of all the low down, cheap, rotten, sneaky...! You won't get away with this Howard! You hear me!"
Caves of Androzani: Peri is vital to the plot, being the only reason the Doctor is so desperate to survive the story. Although she spends a lot of the story unconscious or sick her scenes with the deranged Sharaz Jek wouldn't have half their power if it wasn't for Peri's horrified reactions. Her first few scenes with Davison's Doctor "So you got a merit badge for tracking... I'm suitably impressed!" are a joy, both so relaxed around each other.
The Twin Dilemma: Wow... three stories in a row when a companion is vital! Bloody hell, maybe we did have a point when we said there were too many companions in the TARDIS for the last three seasons, ay Eric? The cliffhanger to episode two is not only great but it's vital... it's the first real time we see Peri express affection for this new, unlikable Doctor. The follow up scene ("You cared?" says Doc Colin when he realises Peri cried over his apparant death) is nicely played by both Colin and Nicola and you know this is going to be an interesting relationship to watch. Even better is the final scene where Peri shouts at him for being rude leading to the immortal line "I am the Doctor... whether you like it or not!" Peri's little smile of approval speaks wonders.
Attack of the Cybermen: More fireworks with the Doctor and Peri with a wonderful scene between them near the begining where the Doctor proclaims "This is as stable as you will ever see me!" and Peri's face is priceless. His "I won't hurt you... I promise" with the little tap on the nose is beautiful. Also worthy of note is Peri's resourcefulnes in over powering the policeman and stealing his gun ("Even I couldn't miss at this range!") and the shocking scene where the Doctor orders Peri to shoot Russell and she looks for all intents and purposes like she will proves we're not in Kansas anymore folks!
Vengeance on Varos: Like I said in my review for this episode the scenes between Peri and The Governor are just fantastic in their restraint. Peri's "You did it! You KILLED him!" as she hurls herself at the Governor is shocking and easily the most violent a companion has ever been about the great man's apparant death. The TARDIS scenes are really funny too "Since we left Telos..." Also funny is the "Hello" "Hi!" they say as they pop their heads around the corner and confront the guard over Jondar's excution. As you may have gathered I really like this story... and Peri is one of the main reasons why.
The Mark of the Rani: The two Bakers (Pip'n'Jane) seem convinced that Peri is really stupid when it comes to danger and she does some damn clutzy things in this story (like pushing the Doctor down a hill in a trolley!). What I REALLY appreciate is the many mentions of her botany, something which seemed to have been forgottern completely. Her "Some species of butterfly are almost extinct" is quite lovely and the fact that she plunges herself in the action later with the idea of the sleeping draft is great. She has more great moment with Colin... "Is he always this eccentric?" "I'm afraid so" "Eccentric, me? Preposterous!"
The Two Doctors: Just for the bit where Peri and Doc 2 grab hands and try to run away... just like he used to with Victoria. That bit makes me glow whenever I see it. Her reaction to the end of the Universe is brilliant "Centuries! If its going to take that long I'm going to see if Jamie's all right!" Everyone just seems to be having a ball in this one and Nicola Bryant looks as though shes loving every second from diverting Chessene and Shockeye to chastising the squabbling Doctors... "This way!" "NO THIS WAY!" "NOW LOOK YOU GOT ME INTO THIS MESS!" Peri: "Will you two please stop squabbling! We'll go this way!"
Timelash: Everybody is made to look like a right ass in this one, including Peri. There is one shining moment where Peri refuses to leave the TARDIS when the Doctor is going to pilot it into the path of some missiles which is quite well played but most of this story is just pants.
Revelation of the Daleks: Just too much to say. The climbing over the wall scene which is easily the rudest Doc/companion scene ever. The scene where Jobel tries to snog her. The scenes with the DJ which turn out to be in turns surprising, heartwarming and dramatic. The final scene is brilliant... you get a real sense that these two oddballs have grown very fond of each other despite their problems and are really starting to enjoy their life together.
The Mysterious Planet: Wow, what a difference a year makes. The Doc/Peri scenes in this are just phenomenal, gentle, touching and exciting. If they could have ran with a season like this | would have been so happy. Peri's discovery that the Earth has been devasted is very touching and several of her lines really hit the right notes (Niccy Bryant just tops the line "I'll wait outside... where they used to sell candy bars and newspapers"). Her adventures in Katryca's camp are fab especially having to cope with Glitz and Dibber and it is just wonderful to see her and Colin working together in the last episode to save the day. Colin, Nicola, Mr Homes... god bless ya... this is great stuff!
Mindwarp: Peri is the only thing that makes this bearable. Everything she does, from her banter with the Doc ("Beams that kill weren't the only thing he was thinking about! Dirty old Warlord! I'm glad we left that place when we did!") to her struggling to cope with the almighty Brian Blessed and then her shockingly dramatic exit from the show. There is one scene in particular that just goes to prove how much Peri grew during her travels (comparing it to her ravings in Planet of Fire) and that is her discussion on love. Every cheesy SF show has had a "What is this thing called love?" scene but this is just phenomenal partly because of the excellent dialouge and partly because of Nicola Bryant's outstanding performance. "I just want to be back in my own time with people I love!" "Well what is that... love?" "It's difficult to explain... its when you care you care for someone more than yourself I guess" "More than yourself?" "Well I know it sounds crazy but sometimes more than life" Its just a lovely moment, so gentle and so rare in the eighties and that it follows with Peri's apparant death just makes it more poignant.
Maybe that's all her time on the show was to me... moments but by god they were pretty fab moments. It's not like Ace where she was so anti-establishment where you expected moments that shock you or Mel who you expected to embarass you Peri was just a fun character who provided an excellent spark to the show and the Doctor. People say they wish there had been someone else against Colin's Doctor but I think that's nonsense, they made an excellent spiky team. They seemed to spend all their time bitchin' around the universe but by god it was a laugh!
So there you are that's my Peri for you. And before I go I think I should point (without sounding too politically correct!) out that despite Nicola Bryants marvellous figure I actually enjoy watching the actress for her ability to act! She is a talented performer and she is grossly underused. I am a homosexual and would never be tempted to watch any programme because an actor/ress is deliciously attractive. But by god she's got great tits.
A Review by Ronald Mallett 25/3/03
Perpugilliam Brown or Peri for short, was an American botany student who crossed paths with The 5th Doctor shortly before his regeneration. The matching of Peri with the Doctor marked a return to the more basic formula for the series wherein the Doctor is accompanied by one (mostly female) companion. Peri was young and a little naive but fiercely loyal to the Doctor and stuck with him despite the initially erratic nature of his regeneration. Peri did her fair share of whinging and screaming but also displayed on many occasions that she had a brain and wasn't afraid to use it. She stands up to the Master in Planet of Fire and the Doctor knows she will reason out the situation on Ravalox at the beginning of The Mysterious Planet.
While her costumes were often physically revealing, Nicola Bryant's performance imbued her with a dignity that allowed her to transcend the obvious sexual stereotyping that was often a hallmark of the series. There was a certain chemistry between Colin and Nicola during their time together on-screen and this also tended to surmount the limitations placed upon them by the production team (i.e. mediocre scripts, continual arguments etc.). Still, like all companions prior to Ace, Peri was ultimately a narrative device.
"Watch it, Porky!" by Terrence Keenan 30/11/03
In the year 1983, it was written that Producer John Nathan-Turner spake thusly: "Thou shall make the new companion an American girl." And Writer Peter Grimwade, an acolyte of John Nathan-Turner and his minion Eric Saward did create said companion and spake: "Her name shall be Perpugilliam Brown, Peri for short." And the creative team saw this and thought it good.
I'll be up front and say that I have a real soft spot for Peri. She's a spoiled little rich girl, alleged botanist, who got caught up with the Doctor purely by accident and wanted to stay along for a while, out of boredom and because she thought the Doc was a hottie. And then the cute blonde Doctor she signed up with was replaced by loudmouthed, far more alien version of the person she one knew. They bickered, fought, argued, misunderstood each other, and then just as things started to look up, she had her head shaved and was killed in mind by Crozier and in body by a Time Lord assassin.
Peri was created from pure cardboard. There wasn't much on the page to begin with. Somehow, though she managed to show determination and courage way beyond the call of duty. Peri was always compassionate, and far more a human being than Tegan was allowed to be before, or Ace afterwards.
She was an innocent, more or less. Lusted after by anything remotely male, thrust into violent situations with a person she barely knew, especially after his regeneration. And Peri handled events as best she could, which is why that copout ending where she married Yrcanos at the end of Trial of a Time Lord is wrong. I have the feeling that if Eric Saward hadn't quit, she might have stayed dead, instead of being brought back to life in the worst of cheeseball, feel-good ways.
There's something else that bugs the crap out of me -- 5th Doctor/Peri adventures being set between Planet of Fire and Caves of Androzani. I won't read/hear them. Why? Part of the deeper emotional and thematic levels of The Caves of Androzani (and season 21) is that Peri has only started her travels with the Doctor and that this Doctor is willing to give up his life for a girl he barely knows. You know, I'm not a strong believer in a strict Who continuity, but I feel duty bound to ignore 5th Doc/Peri stories in order to save one of the strengths of Caves.
I've talked enough about Peri as plot function. What about Peri as character? We don't know much abut Peri, except she's a college student, studying botany, and has rich parents. There's a serious attempt by the creative team to try and show character through her interaction with the Sixth Doctor though their bitch sessions. It sort of works. Peri does bring out some of the Sixth Doc's more human qualities as her stories go along. And Peri was fairly writer proof, which leads to some consistency of character. And one annoying recurring story line......
Peri, Object Du Lust. The only time it worked was in Revelation of the Daleks, because her would-be paramour was a sad old bugger in a bad toupee. And, they never did give her a convincing romance (there's nothing romantic about her time with Yrcanos). Choice of costuming was dubious, to say the least, emphasizing lusty desires in some sad attempt to give the show an adult boost. (I suppose you could say the same thing about Leela, but her skins were based on a practical idea. And Louise Jameson never did have zooming cleavage shots during her run on the show.) Still to this day, you mention Peri to some fans, and they'll mention her rack first, instead of her personality.
Nicola Bryant was rock solid throughout her run in Who. She got the job because of her ability to do an American accent. But Nicola did manage to add some depth to her performances as Peri, even in clunker stories like Timelash. Her best performances were in The Two Doctors, Revelation of the Daleks, and Mysterious Planet.
Peri was the opposite of Tegan in one way. Peri was a cardboard character in design that gained depth by the time the stories were taped. Instead of narrowcasting Peri, they tried to slap on as many different character levels on her as possible. Peri was an innocent with hidden depth. An innocent who should have had a tragic demise.