Ghost Light is the second serial of the26th season of the Britishscience fiction television seriesDoctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts onBBC1 from 4 to 18 October 1989.

Set in a mansion house inPerivale in 1883, Josiah Smith (Ian Hogg), a cataloguer of life forms from another planet, seeks to assassinateQueen Victoria and take over theBritish Empire.

Thousands of years ago, an alien expedition came to Earth to catalogue life. After completing its task and collecting samples, which included theNeanderthal Nimrod, the leader alien, known as Light, went into slumber. By 1881, another alien, who had adopted the name Josiah Smith, gained control and kept Light in hibernation and imprisoned a third crewmember known as Control on the ship, which had now become the cellar of a manor named Gabriel Chase. Smith began evolving into the era's dominant life-form – theVictorian 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 withQueen Victoria, he plans to get close to her so that he can assassinate her and subsequently take control of theBritish Empire.

The TARDIS arrives at Gabriel Chase.Ace had visited the house in 1983 and had felt an evil presence. TheSeventh 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.

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

Working titles for this story includedThe Bestiary andLife-Cycle.^{[citation needed]} As revealed in the production notes for the DVD release, the story was renamedDas Haus der tausend Schrecken (The House of a Thousand Frights/Horrors) upon translation intoGerman.

The story evolved out of an earlier, rejected script entitledLungbarrow. It was to be set onGallifrey 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.^{[citation needed]} Script editorAndrew Cartmel said it "was too internal a script to really work as a drama."^[4] 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 hisVirgin New Adventures novelLungbarrow.^{[citation needed]}

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 andSurvival, both produced beforehand, followed it in transmission order.

The master tapes for Parts One and Two were changed after broadcast to correct a spelling error in the credits,Katharine Schlesinger originally being misspelt asKatherine Schlesinger.^[5]

Michael Cochrane and Frank Windsor had both previously appeared inDoctor Who withPeter Davison; Cochrane as Charles Cranleigh inBlack Orchid inSeason 19; Windsor played Ranulf inThe King's Demons inSeason 20. Carl Forgione appeared in the final serial of theJon Pertwee era,Planet of the Spiders.

Ghost Light was released onVHS in May 1994. A DVD was released in September 2004, with many extended and deleted scenes included as bonus features. However, unlikeThe 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 withtimecodes burnt-in, i.e. recorded permanently onto the picture. This made an extended edit, as had been prepared for theCurse of Fenric DVD release the previous year, impossible. This serial was also released as part of theDoctor 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.^[6]

Extended Workprint

Marc Platt's novelisation was published byTarget 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.^[7]

The soundtrack album for this serial was released on Silva Screen Records in 1993 on CD with a cover adapted from the novelisation cover.^[8][9][10] It was reissued on CD with extra tracks on 26 August 2013 with a new cover.^[11][12]

A book length study written by Jonathan Dennis was published as part ofThe Black Archive series fromObverse Books in 2016.^[13]

The serial was covered in volume 46 of theDoctor Who: The Complete History, which reprinted Andrew Pixley'sArchive features fromDoctor Who Magazine and the variousDoctor Who Magazine Special Editions, as well as new articles created specifically for the book.^[14]

Wikiquote has quotations related toSeventh Doctor.

• Ghost Light atBBC Online
• Ghost Light onTardis Wiki, theDoctor Who Wiki
• Script to Screen: Ghost Light, by Jon Preddle (Time Space Visualiser issue 40, July 1994)

• Ghost Light title listing at theInternet Speculative Fiction Database
• On Target –Ghost Light

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