An American botany major[1] from Fell's Point in Baltimore, Maryland, Peri is a companion of the Fifth (Peter Davison) and Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) and a regular in the programme from 1984 to 1986, appearing in a total of 11 stories (33 episodes).
[2] Bryant therefore had to use her American accent in all public places, barring the local pop to the supermarket; this included BBC canteens and rehearsal rooms.
[6] The skimpy outfit she wore in her first story Planet of Fire (1984), while appropriate for the Mediterranean weather of its setting, was inappropriate for British winter and caused her to get frostbite and pneumonia.
[citation needed] As her first job after leaving drama school, Bryant expected to receive a character sheet to give her a window into Peri's backstory.
[2] She stated that there is not one of her stories that she would not wish to reshoot, noting her respect for The Caves of Androzani (1984) as a whole piece and believed the themes in Vengeance on Varos (1985) were still relevant.
[11] After an encounter with the Master and the shape-changing android Kamelion (who disguises himself as her stepfather, Professor Howard Foster), Peri asked to join the Fifth Doctor on his travels, while Turlough departed to return to his home planet of Trion.
Peri is a bright and spirited young woman, an undergraduate and thus likely around twenty years of age, who travelled with The Doctor because, like many of his companions, she wanted to see the universe.
In the second segment of the Trial story arc, Mindwarp, Peri was abducted by a gastropod-like creature named Kiv, who apparently transplanted his brain into her body.
"Kane's Story" established that, at one point during her travels with the Sixth Doctor, Peri left the TARDIS for reasons left unrevealed and went to live in New York City where she took a job in an office, a job she angrily quit for reasons also unrevealed just prior to encountering The Doctor again and voluntarily rejoining him.
The epilogue to the Target Books novelisation of Mindwarp, written by Philip Martin, stated that Peri returned to the 20th Century with King Yrcanos where the latter became a professional wrestler.
In the Marvel Comics graphic novel The Age of Chaos, written by Colin Baker, Peri lived out her life on Krontep as Queen Consort of Yrcanos and has 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 the wife of King Yrcanos, Peri blamed The Doctor for abandoning her.
In the novel, the Seventh Doctor made peace with Peri after she found her way back to Earth through a temporal rift on Krontep, and returned her to her time.
This is hinted at in the Past Doctor Adventures novel Synthespians™ by Craig Hinton, which also reveals that her parents were Janine and Paul Brown, and that her father died in a boating accident when she was thirteen.
Another audio play, Peri and the Piscon Paradox, states that the Time Lords made several adjustments to her time line, resulting in at least five alternate versions of Peri with different fates, including one that thought she never travelled in the TARDIS but instead moved to California and eventually hosted a chat show called The Queen of Worries after divorcing her abusive childhood sweetheart.
Future show runner Steven Moffat mentions an unnamed 'Warrior Queen on Thoros Beta' in his 1996 short story, "Continuity Errors".
Bryant played the role of 'Miss Brown' in the first three instalments of the BBV video series The Stranger, opposite Colin Baker in the title role; although her character was never explicitly identified as being Peri (much as The Stranger was never directly linked to The Doctor), there are nonetheless similarities in the two characters, with one major difference: Bryant used her natural English accent for Miss Brown, rather than affecting an American accent as she did with Peri.