Target - Logopolis

Not one of my favourite novelisations I'm afraid. All the bits I least like from the screen version are retained, and justified at some length, while the elements that I do like are messed about with.

We get some background on the policeman who's killed in the opening scene; also there is only one copper accompanying the inspector when he meets the Doctor later, not two.

Aunty Vanessa is retconned into a timid old lady who wears sensible shoes, whereas on screen she's rather nonchalant and laidback, and wears high heeled boots. Tegan's accent is mentioned but her aunt's is not, the implication being that the latter isn't Australian.

Indeed Bidmead is worried that we might forget that Tegan has an Australian accent, so he mentions it several more times - 'her loud Aussie accent', 'her outback Aussie voice was easily the loudest present'. It seems like Australia must be the noisiest place in the world with everyone yakking away in their loud Australian accents, I'd hate to have a hangover there.

(Incidentally, Teeg really does come from the outback in the book. On screen Aunty Vanessa demolishes her pretentions of ruggedness. Oh yes, and Tegan's dad had a small plane which he taught his daughter to fly, hence her interest in aviation.)

Adric's point of view is much used: we see his interpretation of a dual carriageway, and also his impressions of Paradise Lost which the Doctor gives him to read. (But the volume smells of 'ancient classrooms': a good description, but not one that Adric would have thought of). Adric sees the Master as being Lucifer - a subtle parallel there. When he gets to Logopolis, the number muttering reminds him of the rhythmn of the poem.

Various minor elements of the layby scenes are rearranged - people are standing in different places, they get further away from the Master's TARDIS before being killed, the bicycle diversion is slightly different.

When the Master's TARDIS materialises in the cloisters, Tegan stares at it 'in broad-minded Australian disbelief'. Bidmead could be accused of seeing Australians in stereotypical terms, I think. Also, I wonder how broad-minded disbelief differs from narrow-minded disbelief?

Bidmead brazens out the whole 'materialising the TARDIS under water' sequence, presumably because it would look like an admission of failure to change it. This means he has to try and make it sound more reasonable - no easy task - by having Adric listen to the Doctor's 'careful explanation' of how they'll swim out of the doors using handholds. It doesn't matter how carefully he explains it, it's still a deranged, suicidal idea. But Adric's only quibble is with hovering the TARDIS over the water rather than materialising under it: that makes it easier to target accurately, apparently.

The jetty it lands on is crumbling and derelict, not neat and tidy.

The similar hovering of the TARDIS over Logopolis is explained as politeness - the Doctor showing the inhabitants that he's arrived. The ironic exchange about the purpose of the Pharos Project goes on longer, but isn't improved.

The 'sweatshop' exchange goes on a bit longer - the Monitor reminds Tegan that she enjoys her job, just like the Logopolitans. She came top of her training course, it seems.

If you share Bidmead's fascination with microcomputer technology circa 1980, you'll love this adaptation, because it has even more tiresome references than the screen version. Even the Pharos technician is trying to debug range errors in global variables when we meet him. (His compiler hasn't picked them up. If that surprises him then he should look for another job, since range errors are a classic example of a run-time error, which compilers specifically don't and can't catch.)

The 'ignorant old Doctor' line is thought, not said.

Nyssa hears the Master's voice when her skirt gets caught on a thorny plant, and she stops to disentangle it.

When the Doctor tells Nyssa that the Master killed her father, she charges at him, stopped only by the bracelet device. Adric is 'astonished to see this small, aristocratic girl so brimming with icy anger.'

Adric, Nyssa and Tegan see the Doctor/Master handshake, because they don't get in the TARDIS till afterwards. There's no 'The man's a murderer' line.

The Monitor doesn't just fade away, he's up on the roof trying to get to the dish, and falls through a hole, crumbling to dust when he hits the ground.

The lines in the 'they should be pleased to see us' scene are slightly differently distributed between Nyssa and Adric. And on the subject: 'Alien intelligences!' says the Master before he records the universe-blackmail message. 'I'll show them the quality of alien intelligence.' Now that is a good line, worthy of Delgado in his prime. He kills the technician when he nicks the tape player, too (with the TCE). So perish all rubbish programmers.

After the regeneration, the Fifth Doctor sits up and says 'Well, that's the end of that. But it's probably the beginning of something completely different.' The sort of line Douglas Adams would have rejected as being too wordy and self-indulgent. What a start to the new era.