Doctor Who has finally fixed its worst companion mistake - the death of Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown. The various incarnations of the Doctor are usually accompanied by companions, who serve as viewer surrogates in the show. The relationship between the Doctor and their companions has frequently been troubled, and sometimes even abusive; current showrunner Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who: Flux echoed its worst companion insult by even hinting the Doctor is unwittingly continuing a cycle of abuse based on memories she has forgotten, of her own childhood as a companion to the Gallifreyan explorer Tecteun. However, no companion mistake was worse than the treatment of Peri.
Back in the 1980s, behind-the-scenes drama forced one companion - Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown, played by Nicola Bryant - to leave in particularly abrupt circumstances. She was killed off in the first part of the epic "The Trial of a Time Lord," when an alien entity possessed her body and King Yrcanos - a warrior king who had become smitten with her, played by Brian Blessed - shot her dead. "Peri died, Doctor, because you abandoned her," the Doctor's enemy the Valeyard accused. There was a significant backlash from viewers, and the show was forced to retreat on the idea; the end of "The Trial of a Time Lord" revealed it had all been a trick, with the footage from the Matrix modified by the Valeyard as part of his attempt to kill the Doctor. Peri had survived, and apparently gone on to marry King Yrcanos, becoming his queen. Although Bryant herself seems to have been pleased with the drama of her departure, it was generally felt to be one of the least satisfactory character arcs in the show's history, simply because it lacked a real sense of closure.
Doctor Who has redeemed Peri's fate in a new video, "The Eternal Mystery," released to promote the upcoming season 22 collection. There's a sense in which this turns Peri's fate upside-down; no mere victim of circumstance, she became a Warrior Queen who was even greater than the king himself. She ultimately left because she believed the people of her world were ready to go on without her; what's more, Peri was never abandoned by the Doctor at all, but rather seems to have left with his help, and returns in the TARDIS once a year to check up on the planet she once ruled. All the worst aspects of Peri's departure are redeemed in a beautiful manner, in what feels like a direct response to criticisms of "The Trial of a Time Lord."
There's something quite cathartic about seeing Peri's true fate. Companions are important to Doctor Who because they serve as the primary "viewpoint characters," serving as the lens through which viewers interpret the Doctor and the events the time traveler is facing in the latest episode. The relationship between Peri and Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor had never been a particularly comfortable one; Baker's first story, "The Twin Dilemma," famously kicked off with a failed regeneration in which the Doctor's mental instability caused him to attempt to murder his companion. Baker and Bryant had attempted to fix the problems in "The Trial of a Time Lord," playing the characters as though a substantial amount of time had passed for them between seasons and they'd become closer, but it didn't quite work - and then it came to an abrupt end, with Peri apparently killed. Little wonder many viewers were unimpressed, and the BBC was forced to rewrite Peri's story by revealing she didn't die after all.
Modern Doctor Who has tended to be a lot more careful to give companions a suitable end. Indeed, the Doctor Who Holiday Special set up a Doctor/companion romance that is sure to be central to Jodie Whittaker's departure as the Thirteenth Doctor later this year; some viewers have concerns about the direction of this plot, but this latest Peri twist should serve as a reminder that, in a TV series as long-running as Doctor Who, any twist or character arc can eventually be redeemed. Hopefully, it won't need any such redemption, though.