Saturday, December 04, 2010

Target - The Horns of Nimon

Now this is rather better. A Prologue tells of the arrival of the Nimon, and explains how Soldeed came by his position, and relates the sad fate of General Sato.

The Co-Pilot's name is Sardor. Some of his 'Weakling scum!' lines are replaced with glares.

The sacrifices wear short golden robes, not pyjamas. We're shown Teka's admiring thoughts about Seth. Seth's supposed plan to defeat the Nimon is specifically stated to involve painting the ship white for the return journey.

The Doctor still twists K9's head the right way up, but he doesn't give him mouth-to-mouth.

We learn from Soldeed's thoughts that doesn't really know much about science, he just fiddles with all that junk in his laboratory to make himself look important.

The concept of the Nimon's maze constantly changing is introduced earlier on - it's experienced by the Co-Pilot when he's thrown in there. He's pleased that the guards forgot to take his blaster off him: he doesn't realise that they didn't need to bother.

When the Doctor gives his impromptu speech to the generals, he doesn't then huddle together with them to ask the way out, he pushes through them.

Romana's scenes on Crinoth with Sezom take place in a room very much like the Nimon's nuclear kitchen on Skonnos. If that is in the screen version then I missed it under all the rubble and cobwebs. Sezom was 'something of a scientist' before the Nimons came to Crinoth.

Sorak's purpose in fiddling with K9 is to use his power for himself - he's decided that the time to overthrow Soldeed is close at hand.

Soldeed's actions in between being surprised by the three Nimons, and calling Romana a meddlesome hussy, are explained: the Nimons ordered him to keep out of the way until summoned, so he hid in an empty compartment.

When the Doctor emerges from the Complex and tells everyone to take cover, Sorak orders his men to the cellars. The Doctor and Romana take shelter in the TARDIS. As explained in the subsequent flashback, the explosion was a confined one which destroyed only the Complex, and it was relatively clean too, meaning that only the palace itself had to be evacuated. (I'm glad these points are addressed, because they always bother me, but it's a pity that so much narration is required to do so). The flashback concludes by telling us that the Doctor then had a word with Sorak to set him and Skonnos on the right path.

In the final TARDIS scene, the Doctor is more optimistic about the future of Skonnos than Romana. He says he hopes they've learnt to mend their ways, she isn't convinced and gets the 'nasty race of people' line.

Romana reminds us what Crinoth is before we see it explode. It's in the same solar system as Skonnos - which makes it seem odd that the Nimons had to use two black holes to travel between the two planets. Romana implies that Crinoth explodes because the Nimons carried out their backup plan to reach another (third, unnamed) planet - a plan she couldn't have known of because she was inside the capsule, pressing the call button when they were talking about it.

There's an extra final scene after Romana flounces out of the console room, where the Doctor repeats the 'Other places, other times' line to K9.

No comments:

Post a Comment