it was originally decided that after "castrovalva", the doctor would only have two companions, adric and tegan. as a result, the character of nyssa was to be written out of the series at the end of this story. however, peter davison strongly opposed this move because he felt that nyssa was the companion who was "most suited to his vision of the doctor". given this, producer john nathan-turner and the rest of the production team relented and nyssa was retained. the story for the following serial "kinda" was already developed with two companions and nyssa was not featured in that narrative as written. rather than a complete rewrite of "kinda" to include nyssa in the narrative, she remains absent much of that serial, said to be resting in the tardis. this was set up with nyssa's collapse at the end of this story.