Target - Survival

Once again, deleted scenes from the screen version are widely available, and where the novelisation uses those, I won't necessarily note it unless it's particularly interesting.

Dave, the doomed man washing his car, is still Dave, but he's Mr Aitken being called in to lunch by Mrs Aitken, who is an unimaginative cook and not his mum.

There's no clue that the 'man with cat's eyes' might be the Master. He's described from the cat's perspective as being 'on the other side of the door.'

Ace's last visit to the youth club prominently featured not only the music of Guns and Roses, but that of 'Spondy Gee'. Search for that and you only find links to the text of this novelisation...

After saying that 'survival of the fittest' is a glib generalisation, the Doctor adds that he warned 'Charles' that it would be misinterpreted. (It was Herbert Spencer's coinage, not Darwin's). Perhaps annoyed by the inaccuracy, Paterson calls the Doctor 'scrawny'.

Sergeant Paterson is a police sergeant, not Territorial Army, and consequently says to Ace 'We let you off with a warning, didn't we?' and not 'The police let you off with a warning, didn't they?' Later on she refers to him as 'that plod' not 'that TA twit', and when he pounces on the Doctor he's in police uniform, and refers to the Neighbourhood Watch as 'they', rather than implying that he himself is part of the Neighbourhood Watch.

The Doctor doesn't explain the punchline of the lion joke to Pace, or warn him to put his running shoes on.

When Ange asks the Doctor for 10p, he puts a gold coin from Psion B weighing several ounces in her Hunt Sabs tin.

When Ace first spots the Cheetah Person, she's impressed by its beauty as well as its menace.

The Master is not discovered in a tent; he becomes visible when the massed Cheetah People part to let the kitling through them. Very cinematic.

Midge is a much nastier piece of work both on the Cheetah Planet, and in Ace's memories. His later metamorphosis seems much more credible in the light of this.

The powers, habits and interrelationship of the Cheetah People and the kitlings are outlined at length in the Doctor's thoughts. The Master appears to have been associated with them both for some considerable time before this story opens.

Ace's anti-Cheetah trap attempts are described in some detail. The second trap is a technique she learnt from a commando in 1943 - 'last week'. Incidentally, the insights into her issues that she gained in Curse of Fenric are no use to her now, because they seem unconnected to the reality of Perivale. And while we're on the retconning, she was - so we're told - thrown out of the Brownies after a petrol bomb incident. I think we're straying into the Marmalade Atkins universe here.

When told about the Master, Ace does a comic summary of the plot so far. It is quite funny, but it's not really in her voice, she doesn't say things like 'I take it he has got those?' It's more as if, the plot being at the halfway stage, Rona Munro has come out in front of the curtain to joke with us while the actors have a quick break.

The big battle and escape scene with the Cheetah People is, again, in much more detail but essentially has all the same effects in plot terms. It gets Ace to the lake for the encounter with Karra, it gets Midge to safety, and it gets the Doctor into conversation with the Master. There's a long summary of their previous relationship and it's (humourously?) implied that their rivalry stems from their schooldays when the Master was a bad loser at chess ('that demon game that exists in every world,' as Fritz Leiber pointed out).

The scene where Ace gives Karra the moon water has - famously - a distinct erotic undercurrent. It reminds me of some of my better Secondlife encounters.

We see Midge and the Master appear back in Perivale outside the block of flats. The surroundings evoke deep distaste in the Master.

While the Doctor chases after Ace and Karra, Paterson bores the others with a continuing monologue about an SAS survival course he did. It's raining on the Cheetah Planet at this point.

The animal corpse that Karra invites Ace to dine on is one that they've just hunted and killed. Ace regains her humanity as a result of watching Karra eating.

There's an extra scene where the Master and Midge visit Hale and Pace's shop and rob the till. H & P are attacked by a kitling and transported to the Cheetah Planet.

When the Doctor and party arrive back in Perivale, Derek doesn't repeat the words of Ace's sarcastic speech of gratitude. He just says 'Thanks' quietly.

Midge's flat is decorated with heavy metal posters, and it's these that Ace is looking at when she makes the remark about pensions.

After killing Paterson, Midge and his goon squad locate Derek and kill him too. Poor lad.

Midge doesn't just die after the crash, he's kicked to death by his own boot boys. Serve him right too.

When the Master sees the Doctor lying in the rubbish pile he checks that he's dead (as he thinks).

It's the moon water that Ace wants to get for Karra to make her well again. This scene is very moving on the page, it took me by surprise rather.

Ace leaves the wasteground and meets Shreela, and they have a conversation about Ace's intention to once more leave Perivale. Ace asks Shreela to get her a can of petrol for 'one last bonfire.'

When the Doctor meets the Master at the TARDIS, he says 'Good hunting, Master?' Usually scriptwriters go to some lengths to avoid having the Doctor address him thus (there's a lone exception in Logopolis, I think).
The possibility of their fight destroying the Cheetah Planet is underlined by mass volcanic eruptions, which are much cheaper to do on the page.
The Doctor yells 'If we fight we'll die!', just that. And he's under strangle attack at the climax, not bone club attack.

The annoying woman who clutters up the ending is still there, but she's the 'What are you doing?' woman from the cat food scene, shouting out of a window, rather than just some arbitrary madwoman barging into the story.

There's no Cheetah Person to dispose of the corpses. Instead Ace has instead made a pyre with the motorbikes, put Karra and Midge's bodies on it, and cremated them with the petrol she asked for earlier. Okay...

The last bit is slightly different: it's the Doctor who proposes they go back home/to the TARDIS. And the final voiceover is not present.