As usual with Malcolm Hulke, there are quite a few differences between screen and Target. Major Barker gets the full back-story treatment - he's working as a security officer because he was asked to leave the army after an incident one rainy day in Londonderry (characteristically, an incident with an element of moral ambiguity about it).
One thing I noticed for the first time this time was that he's painted as a specifically English patriot, the old-fashioned Major Misunderstanding type. 'In the name of St George' he expostulates to Liz at one point! Lesser writers than Hulke would have given him sinister National Front connections, and provided a black member of staff for him to hate.
Miss Dawson and Dr Quinn's previous relationship is summarised at some length, in the course of which his motivation for dealing with the 'reptile men' (always so called) is made clearer. Though we still don't find out why he thought they would just go back to bed when they found the humans had got settled in on their planet.
The Brigadier, as in many Targets, is given more humanity and intelligence. We learn that he likes the Doctor's vain streak, because it makes him seem human. He has spent some time trying to find patterns in the power outages before the story opens. (See? He's not all shouting and shooting).
Masters is rather different from Geoffrey Palmer's cautious politician - he's vain and foolish, giving a 'silly laugh' at one point. He's also oddly described as 'Permanent Under-Secretary', which isn't a ministerial job at all, but a civil service one.
Dr Lawrence isn't like his icily precise, hostile screen counterpart, all they really have in common is ambition. Previously I thought he survives to the end of the book, but of course he actually gets it in the Silurian invasion of the control room, where he accuses Morka of ruining his career.
Hulke brings forward a Miss Travis to fix the exploding reactor (by pulling out a fuse). She's previously seen making coffee for Dr Lawrence and Masters, rather obligingly for a technician I thought. I wouldn't ask our technicians to make me coffee.
Said coffee is amusingly consumed by the Doctor, in one of a number of gags based round his casual attitude to human social conventions. He amusingly apologises and offers Masters the cup back, covered in grimy cave dust fingerprints. Masters says he'll leave it, thanks.
The spread of the plague is neatly conveyed by having Sgt (not Capt) Hawkins plotting its progress on a map of Britain. Then he unrolls a world map... There's also an additional element of suspense when the Silurians kidnap the Doctor - Liz doesn't know which formula is the right one, and has to guess.
All in all one of my favourite Targets, even as a kid when I found it rather an effort because of the focus on people's working and other relationships. Also, why was the Doctor (who was wearing a long scarf as usual on Saturday, and had gone by TARDIS with Leela to a lighthouse) suddenly in a garage on Earth with someone called Liz reading him messages from the army? Hulke had a mountain to climb with young Shallow.
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