Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Target: Vengeance on Varos

The opening scene of Jondar being tortured is being watched by a technician, Bax, who's choosing the best shots for the viewers of Varos. He does this throughout the story whenever the action is in the prison areas.

The awful line about Peri's cold supper is omitted. She has just said that she'd like to return to America to finish her studies when the TARDIS breaks down.

Arak does his talkin' in an annoyin' phonetic representation. The unpleasant food doesn't come from a dispenser, but from the 'food-dole'. Etta gets paid for doing her viewer's reports.

The guards' patrol car in the tunnels runs on a monorail.

Sil can submerge in his water tank.

The Doctor's vision of Peri in the desert is actually holding a green bottle of water (such as Perrier comes in). The real Peri isn't in the control room at this point, she's still on her way there from the Zone.

The Governor has a dome, a car and a bath - there's a scene where he has to get out of the last and take a towel being offered him by the Chief Officer.

Quillan and the Chief Officer are old enemies.

Arak's clever 'they always do that - it's to show the acid is highly corrosive' line is sadly omitted.

The acid bath scene is quite different - the Doctor deliberately sidesteps so that the guard falls into it. There's no business fending him off with the screen and no final quip. Incidentally, he survived the death by hallucination thanks to his ability to suspend animation.

Peri asks the company in the control room 'What kind of vermin are you?'

Sil's translator explodes after the hanging scene - he gets a new one which makes 'humorous' mistakes and corrects them. ('february of science - march of science'.) He announces a takeover of Varos, enforced by his attendants' guns, but this doesn't make any material difference to the rest of the story.

The transformed Peri grows 'vulpine' feathers. She's turning into a bird not a fox, so I assumed this must mean that the feathers are red, but no, they're glossy black. Philip Martin must think that vulpine means vulture-like.

Peri describes the selection process for Governor as 'daft' - not a word I'd expect an American student to use. When they escape, he takes her by surface car to the outside of the safe exit - it's rather atmospherically half-buried in sand and hard to open. Anyone who actually made it to the exit would die of asphyxiation on the open surface of Varos.

The Chief and Quillam are riding in pursuit in cars at the point when they're killed by the poison tendrils.

There's a wrap-up scene for Sil on board his spacecraft: he's to explain his failure to Lord Kiv.

Arak actively turns off his television rather than just watching it go blank. And then there's a Doctor/Peri departure scene which isn't nearly as good as the ending of the screen version.



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