Best episode of Trial of a Timelord

I agree about the Sixth Doctor and Peri having a warmer relationship works better (it's interesting that this seems to be more due to how Baker and Bryant's acting choices rather than anything in the script) (the Doctor apparently betraying Peri in Mindwarp wouldn't really work without this warmer relationship, it doesn't really work anyway but for other reasons).

I think there's an issue with most of the 1980s companions (until you get to Ace, anyway) that it's never really clear exactly why they are travelling about with the Doctor. Nicola Bryant plays the part like someone who is convincingly terrified and having a horrible time going to all these awful places where her life is frequently put in danger and she might die an incomprehensible ditance away from her home, which is interesting sometimes, but the tone is inconsistant and there's no real sense of Peri doesn't just ask the Doctor to take her back to earth in the 1980s, she'd make more sense as a character in the original 60s set up where the Doctor can't control the tardis and is trying to get someone back to their home planet/time. This is probably an obvious point, but I think part of the reason Colin Baker works better in some of the audios is that when he's paired with Evelyn Smythe he seems like less of a bully, someone who will give as good as she gets wrt rudeness and stubbornness.

This thread reminds me of one of my favourite photos of Brian Blessed - he was in Mindwarp, there is a connection:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fca66225e-2611-11e8-bb7d-85110f4c5caa.jpg

That's from Cats, which also had Bonnie Langford, which raises the question of whether John Nathan-Turner was aware of this or not.

From what I remember Peri was written as a caricature of a bored US gap year student - the kind that travels the world, but only in the company of other people from the US, and only to places where people from the US regularly go. Reading a synopsis of Planet of Fire she just leaves her family and, from their point of view, vanishes forever, which must have been disconcerting.