Ghost Light (Doctor Who)

*Doctor Who: Ghost Light*
Doctor Who: Ghost Light
Soundtrack album by Mark Ayres
Released	June 1993 (original) ; 26 August 2013 (reissue)
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	51:34
Label	Silva Screen
Mark Ayres chronology
Doctor Who soundtrack chronology

Ghost Light
Author	Marc Platt
Cover artist	Alister Pearson
Series	Doctor Who book:; Target novelisations
Release number	149
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	20 September 1990
ISBN	0-426-20351-8

153^[1] – *Ghost Light*
153 – Ghost Light
Doctor Who serial
Cast
	Doctor Sylvester McCoy – Seventh Doctor;
	Companion Sophie Aldred – Ace;
	Others Ian Hogg – Josiah Samuel Smith; Michael Cochrane – Redvers Fenn-Cooper; Carl Forgione – Nimrod; Sharon Duce – Control; John Nettleton – Rev Ernest Matthews; Katharine Schlesinger – Gwendoline; Frank Windsor – Inspector Mackenzie; Brenda Kempner – Mrs Grose; Sylvia Syms – Mrs Pritchard; John Hallam – Light;
Production
Directed by	Alan Wareing
Written by	Marc Platt
Script editor	Andrew Cartmel
Produced by	John Nathan-Turner
Music by	Mark Ayres
Production code	7Q
Series	Season 26
Running time	3 episodes, 25 minutes each
First broadcast	4 October 1989
Last broadcast	18 October 1989
Chronology
← Preceded by; Battlefield	Followed by →; The Curse of Fenric
	List of episodes (1963–1989)

Ghost Light is the second serial of the 26th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts on BBC1 from 4 to 18 October 1989.

Set in a mansion house in Perivale in 1883, Josiah Smith (Ian Hogg), a cataloguer of life forms from another planet, seeks to assassinate Queen Victoria and take over the British Empire.

Plot

Thousands of years ago, an alien expedition came to Earth to catalogue life. After completing its task and collecting samples which included Nimrod, a being known as Light, the leader, went into slumber. By 1881, Josiah Smith gained control and kept Light in hibernation and imprisoned the creature known as Control on the ship, which is now the cellar of the house. Smith began evolving into the era's dominant life-form – the Victorian gentleman – and also took over the house. By 1883, Smith, having "evolved" into forms approximating a human and casting off his old husks as an insect would, managed to lure and capture the explorer Redvers Fenn-Cooper, brainwashing him. Utilising Fenn-Cooper's association with Queen Victoria, he plans to get close to her so that he can assassinate her and subsequently take control of the British Empire.

The TARDIS arrives at Gabriel Chase. Ace had visited the house in 1983 and had felt an evil presence. The Seventh Doctor's curiosity drives him to seek answers. He encounters Control, which has now taken on human form, and makes a deal with it. The Doctor helps it release Light. Once awake, Light is displeased by all the changes while he was asleep. Smith tries to keep his plan intact, but events are moving beyond his control. As Control tries to "evolve" into a Lady, Ace tries to come to grips with her feelings about the house, revealing that she burned it down when she felt the evil. The Doctor finally convinces Light of the futility of opposing evolution, which causes him to overload and dissipate into the surrounding house. Control's complete evolution into a Lady derails Smith's plan as Fenn-Cooper, having freed himself from Smith's brainwashing, chooses to side with her instead of him. In the end, with Smith taken captive on the ship, Control, Fenn-Cooper, and Nimrod set off in the alien ship to explore the universe.

Outside references

In the dinner scene, the Doctor says, "Who was it said Earthmen never invite their ancestors round to dinner?" This refers to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.^[2]

Production

Episode	Title	Run time	Original air date	UK viewers (millions) ^[3]
1	"Part One"	24:17	4 October 1989 (1989-10-04)	4.2
2	"Part Two"	24:18	11 October 1989 (1989-10-11)	4.0
3	"Part Three"	24:17	18 October 1989 (1989-10-18)	4.0

Pre-production

Working titles for this story included The Bestiary and Life-Cycle.^{[citation needed]} As revealed in the production notes for the DVD release, the story was renamed Das Haus der tausend Schrecken (The House of a Thousand Frights/Horrors) upon translation into German.

The story evolved out of an earlier, rejected script entitled Lungbarrow. It was to be set on Gallifrey in the Doctor's ancestral home and deal with the Doctor's past, but producer John Nathan-Turner felt that it revealed too much of the Doctor's origins. It was reworked to make both evolution and the idea of an ancient house central to the story. Marc Platt used elements of his original idea for his Virgin New Adventures novel Lungbarrow.

Production

Ghost Light was the final production of the original 26-year run, with the last recorded sequence being the final scene between Mrs Pritchard and Gwendoline. It was not, however, the last to be screened – The Curse of Fenric and Survival, both produced beforehand, followed it in transmission order.

Cast notes

Michael Cochrane and Frank Windsor had both previously appeared in Doctor Who with Peter Davison; Cochrane as Charles Cranleigh in Black Orchid in Season 19; Windsor played Ranulf in The King's Demons in Season 20. Carl Forgione appeared in the final serial of the Jon Pertwee era, Planet of the Spiders.

Commercial releases

Home media

Ghost Light was released on VHS in May 1994. A DVD was released in September 2004, with many extended and deleted scenes included as bonus features. However, unlike The Curse of Fenric, these scenes no longer existed in broadcast quality as the master 625 line PAL colour videotapes containing the extra footage had been erased for reuse shortly after the story was broadcast, and were thus sourced from VHS copies, some with timecodes burnt-in, i.e. recorded permanently onto the picture. This made an extended edit, as had been prepared for the Curse of Fenric DVD release the previous year, impossible. This serial was also released as part of the Doctor Who DVD Files in Issue 96 on 5 September 2012. In February 2020 the full serial was released as part of the Doctor Who: The Collection Season 26 box-set with a new Extended Workprint Cut.^[4]

Extended Workprint

Episode	Title	Run time
1	"Part One"	27:30
2	"Part Two"	28:16
3	"Part Three"	27:14

In print

Marc Platt's novelisation was published by Target Books in September 1990.

In June 2011, an audiobook of the novelisation was released, read by Ian Hogg.

The script, edited by John McElroy, was published by Titan Books in June 1993. Marc Platt contributed a chapter, written especially for this book, which rectified the omissions from the transmitted story.^[5]

Soundtrack release

The soundtrack album for this serial was released on Silva Screen Records in 1993 on CD with a cover adapted from the novelisation cover.^[6] ^[7] ^[8] It was reissued on CD with extra tracks on 26 August 2013 with a new cover.^[9]^[10]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Mark Ayres, except where noted

Original 1993 track listing
No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Madhouse"
2.	"Redvers, I Presume?"
3.	"Uncharted Territory"
4.	"Heart of the Interior"
5.	"Enter Josiah"
6.	"Indoor Lightning"
7.	"Nimrod Observed"
8.	"Time to Emerge"
9.	"Burnt Toast"
10.	"Ace's Adventures Underground"
12.	"Loss of Control"
13.	"The Way to the Zoo"
14.	"The Memory Teller"
15.	"Lighting the Touchpaper"
16.	"Homo Victorianus Ineptus"
17.	"Out of the Shadows"
18.	"Light Enlightened"
19.	"Tropic of Perivale"
20.	"Tricks of the Light"
21.	"Judgement in Stone"
22.	"Requiem"
23.	"Passing Thoughts"

2013 reissue track listing
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Doctor Who (Opening Theme)" (Ron Grainer arr. Keff McCulloch)	00’55″
2.	"The Madhouse"	03’52″
3.	"Redvers, I Presume?"	00’44″
4.	"Uncharted Territory"	01’41″
5.	"Heart of the Interior"	02’19″
6.	"Gwendoline" (previously unreleased)	00’23″
7.	"The Fang of a Cave Bear" (previously unreleased)	00’19″
8.	"Enter Josiah"	00’29″
9.	"Indoor Lightning"	01’39″
10.	"Nimrod Observed"	01’02″
11.	"Time to Emerge"	01’24″
12.	"Burnt Toast"	01’42″
13.	"Ace’s Adventures Underground"	04’37″
14.	"Where is Mamma?"	00’44″
15.	"Loss of Control"	03’34″
16.	"The Way to the Zoo"	01’54″
17.	"The Hungry Inspector" (previously unreleased)	00’34″
18.	"The Memory Teller"	01’51″
19.	"Lighting the Touchpaper"	01’11″
20.	"Homo Victorianus Ineptus"	01’20″
21.	"Out of the Shadows"	04’03″
22.	"Light Enlightened"	01’58″
23.	"Tropic of Perivale"	02’16″
24.	"Tricks of the Light"	04’31″
25.	"Judgement in Stone"	02’20″
26.	"Requiem"	05’04″
27.	"Passing Thoughts"	01’25″
28.	"Doctor Who (Closing Theme)" (Ron Grainer arr. Keff McCulloch)	01’13″
29.	"The Madhouse" (demo version, previously unreleased)	03’45″
30.	"Redvers, I Presume?" (demo version, previously unreleased)	00’25″
31.	"Uncharted Territory" (demo version, previously unreleased)	01’36″
32.	"Heart of the Interior" (demo version, previously unreleased)	02’18″
33.	"Gwendoline" (demo version, previously unreleased)	00’22″
34.	"The Fang of a Cave Bear" (demo version, previously unreleased)	00’18″
35.	"Enter Josiah" (demo version, previously unreleased)	00’29″
36.	"Indoor Lightning" (demo version, previously unreleased)	01’39″
37.	"Nimrod Observed" (demo version, previously unreleased)	01’02″
38.	"Time to Emerge" (demo version, previously unreleased)	01’08″
39.	"Burnt Toast" (demo version, previously unreleased)	01’35″
40.	"Ace’s Adventures Underground" (demo version, previously unreleased)	01’31″

Critical analysis

A book length study written by Jonathan Dennis was published as part of The Black Archive series from Obverse Books in 2016.^[11]

The serial was covered in volume 46 of the Doctor Who: The Complete History, which reprinted Andrew Pixley's Archive features from Doctor Who Magazine and the various Doctor Who Magazine Special Editions, as well as new articles created specifically for the book.^[12]

References

^ From the Doctor Who Magazine series overview, in issue 407 (pp26-29). The Discontinuity Guide, which counts the four segments of The Trial of a Time Lord as four separate stories and also counts the unbroadcast serial Shada, lists this story as number 157. Region 1 DVD releases follow The Discontinuity Guide numbering system.
^ Cornell, Paul; Day, Martin; Topping, Keith (1995). "157 'Ghost Light'". Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide. London: Doctor Who Books. pp. 351–2. ISBN 0-426-20442-5.
^ "Ratings Guide". Doctor Who News. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
^ "Season 26 announced as the next instalment in the Collection Blu-ray range".
^ Platt, Marc (June 1993). McElroy, John (ed.). Doctor Who - The Scripts: Ghost Light. London: Titan Books. pp. 2, 5. ISBN 1-85286-477-X.
^ Doctor Who: Ghost Light (CD Booklet). Silva Screen. 1993. FILMCD 133.
^ Ayres, Mark. "Mark Ayres - Doctor Who Incidental Music". Archived from the original on 15 September 2008. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
^ "Millennium Effect". Archived from the original on 10 April 2009. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
^ "Doctor Who: Ghost Light". Doctor Who Music. Retrieved 16 July 2013.
^ Doctor Who: Ghost Light (CD Booklet). Silva Screen. 2013. SILCD1372.
^ Dennis, Jonathan (2016). Ghost light. Place of publication not identified: Obverse Books. ISBN 978-1-909031-43-2. OCLC 945390781.
^ "Doctor Who: The Complete History". Doctor Who: The Complete History. 2015. ISSN 2057-6048. OCLC 978424294.

External links

Ghost Light at BBC Online
Ghost Light on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
Script to Screen: Ghost Light, by Jon Preddle (Time Space Visualiser issue 40, July 1994)

Target novelisation

Ghost Light title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
On Target – Ghost Light

[1] From the Doctor Who Magazine series overview, in issue 407 (pp26-29). The Discontinuity Guide, which counts the four segments of The Trial of a Time Lord as four separate stories and also counts the unbroadcast serial Shada, lists this story as number 157. Region 1 DVD releases follow The Discontinuity Guide numbering system.

[2] Cornell, Paul; Day, Martin; Topping, Keith (1995). "157 'Ghost Light'". Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide. London: Doctor Who Books. pp. 351–2. ISBN 0-426-20442-5.

[AllRatings-3] "Ratings Guide". Doctor Who News. Retrieved 28 May 2017.

[4] "Season 26 announced as the next instalment in the Collection Blu-ray range".

[5] Platt, Marc (June 1993). McElroy, John (ed.). Doctor Who - The Scripts: Ghost Light. London: Titan Books. pp. 2, 5. ISBN 1-85286-477-X.

[6] Doctor Who: Ghost Light (CD Booklet). Silva Screen. 1993. FILMCD 133.

[7] Ayres, Mark. "Mark Ayres - Doctor Who Incidental Music". Archived from the original on 15 September 2008. Retrieved 5 October 2008.

[8] "Millennium Effect". Archived from the original on 10 April 2009. Retrieved 5 October 2008.

[9] "Doctor Who: Ghost Light". Doctor Who Music. Retrieved 16 July 2013.

[10] Doctor Who: Ghost Light (CD Booklet). Silva Screen. 2013. SILCD1372.

[11] Dennis, Jonathan (2016). Ghost light. Place of publication not identified: Obverse Books. ISBN 978-1-909031-43-2. OCLC 945390781.

[12] "Doctor Who: The Complete History". Doctor Who: The Complete History. 2015. ISSN 2057-6048. OCLC 978424294.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

v t e Doctor Who episodes
Original series (1963–1989, 1996) Season 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Film Missing episodes Revived series (2005–present) Series 1 2 3 4 2008–2010 specials 5 6 7 2013 specials 8 9 10 11 12 13 2022 specials 2023 specials 14 15
Season 26	Battlefield Ghost Light The Curse of Fenric Survival

v t e Doctor Who soundtracks
Original series	BBC Sound Effects No. 19: Doctor Who Sound Effects The Music The Music II Space Adventures – Music from 'Doctor Who' 1963–1968 25th Anniversary Album The Curse of Fenric The Greatest Show in the Galaxy Ghost Light Pyramids of Mars 30 Years at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop Music from The Tomb of the Cybermen Original Soundtrack Recording Terror of the Zygons/The Seeds of Doom Volume 1: The Early Years 1963–1969 Volume 2: New Beginnings 1970–1980 Music from the Tenth Planet Volume 3: The Leisure Hive Volume 4: Meglos & Full Circle Devils' Planets – The Music of Tristram Cary Cold Worlds Survival The Daleks The Invasion The Five Doctors The Sun Makers The Visitation Time and the Rani Revenge of the Cybermen The Daleks in Colour
Revived series	Original Television Soundtrack Series 3 Series 4 Series 4 – The Specials Series 5 A Christmas Carol Series 6 Series 7 The Snowmen/The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe The Day of the Doctor/The Time of the Doctor Series 8 Series 9 Series 11 Series 12 Series 12 – Revolution of the Daleks Series 13 – Flux Series 13 – The Specials
Compilations	The Worlds of Doctor Who The 50th Anniversary Collection
Torchwood	Original Television Soundtrack Children of Earth
Other	Myths and Other Legends Dr. Who & the Daleks Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans An Adventure in Space and Time Class