An Eric Saward adaptation. He's probably my second least favourite Targeteer (after Pip'n'Jane) so I'm not approaching this comparison with much relish. It'll be Marteresque gore and random bits of POV from wild animals, I shouldn't wonder...
..and here we are on page 1 with an owl eating a mouse, a fox walking by and Elizabeth writing it down in her journal in copperplate handwriting (which would come into use in about 50 years' time, calligraphy fans). It's sunset rather than night and it's August 5th 1666. Elizabeth is given other character traits, notably being much better at cards than her father.
Yellow fluid spurts from the wounds of the Tereleptil in the opening battle. Yes, this is Saward country.
'I won't be sleeping here again,' muses Tegan intriguingly as she smooths her bedclothes in the TARDIS, and Nyssa hands her her purple jacket.
The Doctor gets very cross when Tegs storms out of the TARDIS. 'How dare she talk to me like that!' he fumes.
Tegan is puzzled that Mace's barn is empty of corn despite it being September, ie harvest time. (She does come from a farm after all). Mace, by the way, is not just sitting waiting to be entertained, he's cutting up bread and cheese for them all to eat. His remaining suspicion of the TARDIS crew is nicely conveyed by the way his flourish of the hand, inviting them to explore the barn, also brings that hand close to the handle of his pistol.
There's some comedy when Nyssa opens the manor house door to Mace, with him carefully assuming a servile expression (on the expectation of being horsewhipped) and then being all surprised when he sees it's her.
The chat about lighting by vintaric crystals is brought forward from the escape pod scene to the cellar one.
'Foolish boy,' thinks Mace in response to Adric's wine-related naivety.
The Doctor actually grabs Mace when the latter doesn't want to rescue Adric (Nyssa dissuades him, and he apologises). That is not really a Doctorish action and it suits the Fifth Doctor particularly badly. This scene, and the 'trick' the Doctor shows Mace with the power pack, takes place on the driveway of the house.
Tegan does not tell the Terileptil that the Doctor talks a lot about Guildford. Indeed her and Adric's responses in the interrogation scene are mostly just summarised.
The light coming through the boards, when the Doctor and Mace are locked in the harness room, makes a 'zebra-crossing effect' on the floor. Is that a metaphor that would occur to the Doctor or Mace? This makes me uneasy, like the 'express train' simile in Lord of the Rings.
Mace's bit in the same scene about never having been so afraid as when he saw the man with the scythe are delivered in a dramatic tone. But when he talks about the bottomless pit of despair, he's quite serious.
The Terileptil is not stated to have one eye missing. In the confrontation scene, the Doctor is greatly cheered by the dignity that Mace puts into the 'no primitive' speech. Is it Mace or Michael Robbins being praised here? Mace looks blank at the word 'genocide' (apparently not used till the 20th century). Wagging his finger at the Terileptil makes the Doctor feel silly.
Saward's love of nature shows itself again when a badger is present to see the Terileptil off to London from the manor house.
Nyssa's giant vibrator actually makes the bedroom mirror crack and shatter. There's much more urgency in her struggle to switch the thing off and then put the fire out.
The Doctor puts 'more pomposity than he intended' into his line about liking long walks.
London in 1666 is described as 'mediaeval' - the Middle Ages ended between 150 and 200 years before the date of the story.
There's a very odd bit of business when they enter the bakery: the Doctor asks Mace to light a torch, so he strikes his flint and tinder (the narrator smugly points out that he can do this in less time than it takes to light a match) - and then goes over to the oven where there's a bunch of tapers. He lights one of the tapers from the oven (just as he does on screen), making the tinderbox bit totally unnecessary. I wondered if it was to see his way to the oven - till I remembered the oven is glowing red hot.
Nyssa doesn't suggest that Mace's keepsake might puzzle the archaelogists, but otherwise the ending is just the same, Pudding Lane gag and all.
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