Target: Paradise Towers

Stephen Wyatt adapts his own script for this Target. One of my favourites too, I get the impression he himself at one time was faced with winning the respect of a group of 'Kangs'.

The initial TARDIS scene is placed first, before our first sight of the last Yellow Kang. 'Leave her for the cleaners' as shouted at her is merely a symbolic threat, by the way; it doesn't suggest that her pursuers expect her to be made unalive. The poor girl's life in the empty Yellow Kang Brainquarters is described with some pathos.

The saddest thing in Fountain of Happiness Square is the fountain itself, dry and full of rubbish. Shallowtown had just such a fountain.

The doomed Caretaker's thoughts inform us that the Cleaners have only recently been fitted with huge claws, they aren't standard equipment. His walkie-talkie is actually a Long Distance Communication Expediter.

The Red Kangs fire not one arrow but two at the Doctor and Mel - pinning them neatly to the wall through their clothing. Mel finds that their style reminds her of samurai; also, the pat-a-cake greeting ritual is both risible and menacing.

The Doctor's impression of the Kangs is of an odd mixture of toughness and vulnerability. The Caretakers, on the other hand, have something solid and comforting about them, even if their uniforms seem to him like tatty cinema commissionaires' outfits.

Pex is closer to the original conception of the character - he actually does have big pecs and an imposing physical presence.

The Chief Caretaker can't quite remember how he acquired his basement 'pet'.

The Kangs get into the Caretaker HQ to rescue the Doctor by using a keycard.

Investigating Maddy's report of the disappearance of Tilda and Tabby, the Chief Caretaker asks Maddy whether she has eaten them.

The Red Kangs refer to their video, on which the Doctor shows them the Illustrated Prospectus, as the Picturespout. They ask him a lot of questions about other worlds, and are amazed to hear that there are no Kangs thereon. This 'gave them much to think about and discuss in the days to come.'

Only Bin Liner and Fire Escape accompany the Doctor to the basement, Air Duct is not selected or named.

The Blue Kang leader is called Drinking Fountain.

The possessed Chief Caretaker has a voice of 'soft steely power', rather than a pissed-up slurred drawl. And his uniform has turned glistening white.

Pex and Mel enter the Pool in the Sky via a carpeted corridor decorated with murals and potted plants.

The reason that the Great Architect (conveniently) forbade surveillance of the Pool in the Sky is so that it would never be overlooked by prying human flesh.

Kroagnon asks Pex why the latter wants to help him get rid of the 'mobile rubbish'. Pex says it's because he doesn't belong.

All the remaining Caretakers are present at Pex's funeral, not just the Deputy and principals.

The Doctor's hat-raise to the piece of scrap metal and Mel's 'No, Doctor' are left out, wisely I think because we have a better ending here. It is from behind the dematerialising TARDIS that the famous wall-scrawled words are revealed: PEX LIVES.

Oddly, that was how I remembered the actual episode ending in 1987, a good couple of decades before I got hold of the book. The memory may cheat, but then that's a good director's job.