Another Philip Hinchcliffe adaptation. No time is wasted in the opening, we're told straight away that this is Italy in 1492. The cart full of straw being set on fire is the first act of violence, rather than the last, which I think works better than the confused brutality seen on screen.
Sarah wanders off to pick peaches, not oranges.
The scene with the interrogation of the Doctor by the Count is different: the Doctor says that the Count's future will be short and unpleasant if he doesn't listen, not that he doesn't have one. It's Hieronymous who has the line about a mocking tongue, and it isn't immediately followed by the order for execution: Giuliano's entry causes a distraction, during which the Doctor surreptitiously examines a phial of poison which Federico has on hand.
I have in the past claimed that the High Priest isn't in the novel, just Hieronymous, but I was completely wrong I'm afraid.
When Hieronymous hypnotises Sarah into believing that the Doctor is a sorceror there's a wonderful bit of POV: 'A preposterous thought had formed in her head; something she had known all along, something which was blindingly obvious. What a fool she had been not to see it before. His strange manner, his alien powers, his magical possessions.'
Giulano, not the Doctor, explains what solvitur ambulando means. And he would know.
The means the Doctor uses to defeat the Helix are made clearer: he's laying a circuit of wire so that the energy will short-circuit when it reaches the Brethren. Also, his breastplate is earthed - there's some good suspense when he notices that the earth wire is on the point of melting.
At the masque, Giuliano doesn't recognise Sarah when she's all glammed up, until she asks him where the Doctor is. When the story finishes, she's sad to leave him behind: she wants to share the task of getting San Martino back to normal with him. But she settles for just giving him a 'heartfelt look', and the young Duke is left only with the consolation of watching the TARDIS vanish and thinking 'There is a reason for everything. Even this. One day science will explain it all.'
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