Ghost Light (Doctor Who)

153 – Ghost Light
Doctor Who serial
The Doctor muses about the events of "Ghost Light."
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
Executive producer(s)	None
Incidental music composer	Mark Ayres
Production code	7Q
Series	Season 26
Length	3 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast	4 October–18 October 1989
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → Battlefield The Curse of Fenric
List of Doctor Who serials

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

Doctor Who: Ghost Light
Reissue cover
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: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (1992) Doctor Who: Ghost Light (1993) Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans (1995)
Doctor Who soundtrack chronology
Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (1992) Doctor Who: Ghost Light (1993) Doctor Who - Pyramids of Mars (1993)

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

In 1883 the mansion house of Gabriel Chase in Perivale near London is under the control of the mysterious Josiah Samuel Smith, who has subjugated the occupants via some form of brainwashing. It is a most mysterious place, where the servants brandish guns and the butler is a Neanderthal named Nimrod. Other occupants include Gwendoline, the daughter of the original owners of the house who have seemingly disappeared; the calculating night housekeeper Mrs Pritchard; the insane explorer Redvers Fenn-Cooper; and the Reverend Ernest Matthews, opponent of the theory of evolution which Smith has done much to spread. For his pains Matthews is transformed by Smith into an ape and placed in a display case.

The TARDIS arrives at Gabriel Chase. It turns out that Ace had visited the house in 1983 and had felt an evil presence, and the Doctor‘s curiosity drives him to seek the answers. Something is also alive and evolving in the cellar beneath the house and when Ace investigates she finds two animated and dangerous husks. The cellar is in fact a spacecraft with something trapped inside. The Doctor, meanwhile, works his way through the stuffed animals in Gabriel Chase and eventually finds a human in suspended animation, Inspector Mackenzie, who came to the house two years earlier in search of the owners. The Doctor revives him and together they seek to unlock the mysteries of Gabriel Chase. He also encounters the evolving creature from the cellar, known as Control, which has now taken on human form. The Doctor helps it release the trapped creature from the cellar, a being known as Light who takes the form of an angel.