Terrance Dicks uses the 'opening pan' technique seen in his Inferno novelisation to show us the twin Androzani planets. It doesn't work quite so well this time because he doesn't then zoom in on the Doctor.
When he does appear, the Fifth Doctor has an extra attribute for his last Target appearance: 'an air of mildly bemused curiosity'.
The gun-runners' 'autogard' alerts them by glowing rather than beeping.
The magma beast doesn't just kill people, it eats them, as the half-consumed remains of 'Trooper Boze' testify.
The chacaws that Krelper doesn't pick are a spiked fruit which convicts are made to gather. The work turns their bodies into a mass of scar tissue.
Meeting Chellak, the Doctor weighs him up as a soldier under pressure - 'never the easiest type to deal with.' We're given a summary of the defence the Doctor makes against his accusations.
Krau Timmin always agrees with Morgus - outwardly. 'Her private thoughts she kept very much to herself.'
Morgus' asides, or addresses to camera according to who you believe, are either omitted, delivered as musings while he's 'staring into space' or tacked onto the end of his previous speech, so they're addressed to the person he's actually talking to. An example of the last is his 'And then we shall all feel a lot better,' which he says to Chellak.
There's a summary of an argument between Stotz and Krelper after the gas attack: Krelper wants to press on and contact Sharaz Jek, Stotz says they must abandon the weapons and escape.
Sharaz Jek's androids are made in a coffin-shaped tank, reminiscent of the Auton production tanks described in The Auton Invasion.
We're shown a secret panel opening in the cell where the Doctor and Peri are awaiting execution.
The President is 'handsome in an actorish way', a very fitting description for the man we see on screen. Only top politicians such as himself, and tycoons like Morgus, can afford spectrox.
When we rejoin the Doctor and Peri after the 'execution', their rescue from the cell and conduction to Sharaz Jek's base is outlined.
Chellak doesn't say he'll be the 'butt of the army'. His words are 'the laughing stock of the Army, the butt of a thousand jokes.'
The Stotz/Krelper confrontation on the dunes takes place just outside a cave mouth, rather than seemingly out in the open. There isn't the sudden, pivotal appearance of Stotz's loyal man, TD having his usual keen sense of when something very visual can't be successfully shown on the page.
Salateen doesn't say that the androids have killed most of, or indeed any, bats. (It occurs to me that Jek would surely be cutting off the spectrox supply if he allowed them to be killed.) The queen bats have only gone to the deeps to hibernate.
Chellak and robo-Salateen's 'What a planet!' conversation is preceded by an extra exchange about mud bursts and perihelion. The narrator takes the opportunity to explain that the mud is the primeval mud referred to by the Doctor in the opening, and that it's the same thing as the magma.
The real Salateen's reason in using Peri as a human shield against the android is carefully explained (he knows that the android won't fire, as she's wearing a belt-plate). When he arrives at Chellak's HQ, the general notes that the machine pistol he's carrying isn't service issue. Salateen gives Peri a chair - or rather shoves her into it - and a glass of water. But he glances at the general for permission first. TD doesn't forget that these men are soldiers.
When Stotz suggests to Jek that the Doctor's a spy, he isn't really interested in the spy issue. He just wants to get on Jek's good side.
Chellak's ungracious refusal to acknowledge that the Doctor was instrumental in helping Salateen to escape is neatly described thus: 'Defeated in logic, Chellak took refuge in authority.' Peri says there's a 'fat chance' that she'll be fit to guide the assault, not 'some hope'.
Krelper's mate, who Stotz kills at the same time as Krelper, is or was a taciturn man named Stark.
TD displays his occasional tendency to generalise when he says of Morgus that, 'like many tightly controlled people, he was all the more prone to panic when the control began to slip.'
The narration carefully explains that the Doctor, having cut his handcuff chain on board Stotz's ship, goes on to cut the bands off his wrists.
Morgus' principal motivation for having the lift engineer shot is that he asked for too high a bribe for his work.
The Doctor is feeling light-headed when he uncharacteristically addresses the chief gun-runner as 'Stotzy'.
The mud-burst that saves the Doctor from the gun-runners happens when he's standing up, not lying down on his back.
When Krelper returns to the ship, he's forewarned that something unusual is happening by seeing Morgus' space yacht parked next to it. Morgus has a gun on his lap throughout the ensuing scene, and when he says 'Perhaps you think you know me?', he puts a hand on it to give his words added weight.
Stotz's response to the 'my part in all this has been discovered' line is expanded: 'When you say all this, you mean the gun-running, and collecting spectrox and -', whereupon Morgus interrupts him impatiently. Interesting how just a few extra words, and a change of timing, work as characterisation to show us Stotz's harsh sense of humour in action again.
The Doctor realises that even if he and Peri do both survive, he'll have to kill Sharaz Jek to get Peri away from him. When he reaches the bats, there's a fairly detailed description of how he has to feel around for the milk glands, and squeeze them. During this the dormant bat opens an eye, but doesn't otherwise react. I can't tell if TD secretly finds all this very funny, or whether he feels that the scene is distasteful but has to be put in to make the milk quest feel less perfunctory.
When Morgus and Jek finally confront one another, Jek's disregard of Morgus' threats is elegantly conveyed thus: 'As far as Sharaz Jek was concerned, the machine-pistol in Morgus's hand could have been a flower or a fan.' Sheer poetry, dear boy!
Jek's face, when revealed, is a mere formless blob. And he merely strangles Morgus, he doesn't thrust his head into a machine. (This means that the fire has to be started by Morgus' lifeless body being thrown into a control console.)
When the Doctor sees Adric's face, he remembers that Adric is dead - 'but then perhaps he was dead himself.' There's a strong implication that it's the Master's taunts that make the Doctor choose survival, because 'the one thing the Doctor had never done in all his lives was to let the Master have the last laugh.' Excellent.
The Sixth Doctor is described as having 'something cat-like about the eyes, a touch of arrogance in the mouth.' And he says 'Change' twice. Certainly things will never be the same in the world of Targets again. (Though please keep reading these comparisons...)
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