My copy of this is very well-thumbed, and I can remember reading it in a junior school classroom in 1980. I enjoyed it just as much on this reading thirty years later.
The doomed radio operator uses the jovial racist term Sassenach in his haggis ordering conversation. How ironic that it's a fellow Scotsman who shoots him later.
The TARDIS is seen - and then it isn't, as it turns invisible just after the travellers get out. The Doctor goes back in to fix it and comes out wearing the Scottish version of his costume seen on screen.
The stag's head is in the back of the Duke's 'shooting brake', and we hear him telling Angus that he's brought him it when he reaches the inn. Sarah's conversation with Angus is a bit different: the fact that one of the cases of weirdness on the moor happened in 1870 is used as a punchline, not an introduction, and it works much better.
Sarah's question about the jamming detector being jammed has not previously occurred to the Doctor. 'I shall build in a protective circuit,' he says hurriedly (it's a bit like a Pert/Jo exchange, isn't it?) The bit about the Brig and the quayside is swapped to after this. Sarah does not do a joke accent on the phone.
Sister Lamont is not overtly sinister, if anything she's painted as being very innocent. Terrance is concerned that we might forget she's supposed to be Scottish, so we're reminded of her 'Highland lilt' at least twice.
Benton is not sent for plaster of Paris by the Doctor. The Doctor says that it's not so much teeth that chewed up the rig, but 'dentures' that can cut through steel and concrete. The Brig then gets the immortal line 'Come on now, Doctor. First you suggest we're dealing with some kind of sea monster, then you say it's got false teeth.' (Very obvious feedline but still very funny). The word 'cyborg' is mentioned at this point, much earlier than on screen.
The Doctor tries the sonic screwdriver on the decompression chamber window, with little success. Then he has to try and remember human reaction to oxygen deprivation. 'Unconscious in two minutes, dead in under ten, wasn't that it?' - a bit that I always particularly liked.
A motivation is stated for Broton's boastful, yet helpful, explanations to Harry. 'It might be amusing to overawe this primitive creature with the might of Zygon technology, to see his fear when he knew the fate that awaited his planet'. Good to have it acknowledged that gloating, which is invariably a bad mistake for DW monsters and villains from both the security and time management standpoints, ought to have some kind of explanation.
It's old UNIT favourite Corporal Palmer who annoys the Brigadier by calling him 'sir' too often. And the sleeping gas takes effect while he's talking, leading the Brig to think 'Sleeping on duty was a serious offence in itself, but actually dropping off under the eye of a superior officer...', another moment which I used to enjoy as a kid.
It's getting dark when the Doctor goes out onto the moor. His landrover runs out of petrol rather than breaking down. When the Brigadier and Sarah go to look for him, the Brig does a nice bit of deduction to work out that he'll be on his way back to Tulloch, and soon their headlights atmospherically pick out his tall form trudging home.
A night at the inn follows: Sarah notes that it's unusual for the Doctor to bother with sleep. Porridge for breakfast: she and the Brig 'scandalise' Angus by demanding milk and sugar, but the Doctor likes his with salt, a taste he acquired, he says, in the Jacobite rebellion.
At the castle, the Doctor has another good line: 'The Brigadier does have a rather touching faith in high explosive as a universal solution.' We're shown the 'duel' between him and the Duke from Sarah's POV.
When the Doctor and Brig are called back to Tulloch, they visit Benton at the Zygon hunt before going to the inn. Meanwhile, Sarah's boarding the ship, where she hears the 'abomination of a body' line delivered in the Zygon voice, not the human one. When she and Harry meet the Brigadier and Doctor in the library, and the Doctor goes into the tunnel, and Zygons come out, the Brig draws his gun immediately - only to have Broton enter from the other side of the room, which makes a more interesting confrontation. After his parting shot, Broton picks up the Duke's document folder from the table, causing Sarah to think how odd it looks clutched in the alien claw.
Once again, Target Brig is much more the professional, telling Sarah that he isn't intending to destroy the Zygon ship (subtext: what do you take me for?) but to get it to surface.
On the ship, the Doctor's taunts about the Zygons hiding culminate in another wonderful line: 'You have to step out on a balcony from time to time and wave a gracious claw.' The taunt about there only being six Zygons is missing. The purpose of Broton's plan to construct thousands of lakes is to breed herds of Skarasen in.
The Duke is not trustee of any comically-named organisations. The Prime Minister is not female, and his basic message to the Brig is that whatever happens, it's the latter's head on the block. When Sarah sympathetically asks him what he'll do, he resolutely says 'Just what I always do, Miss Smith. I shall act as I think best.'
There's a UNIT tracking squad atop the Post Office Tower. The thing that Harry has over his shoulder at the quarry is a thermic lance (to cut into the ship with). When the real Duke is freed on the ship, the narration mentions the Zygons kidnapping him and his retainers (plural), suggesting that the Doctor finds more than 3 humans in storage.
The Fourth (not First) Energy Conference is described in detail, but the rest of the denouement is very much the same. Sarah doesn't bear the Skarasen any ill-will, since it was just being controlled by the Zygons.
The Brigadier turns down the invitation to a TARDIS trip because he has 'very disturbing memories of his one trip in the TARDIS'. A footnote points us to 'Doctor Who and the Three Doctors' - I always used to think enviously of the lucky people who'd found that book and read the wonderful story of the Brig in the TARDIS.
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