Ghost Light

 

Three episodes

Aired between 4th October 1989 and 18th October 1989

Written by Marc Platt

Produced by John Nathan-Turner

Directed by Alan Wareing

Synopsis

The TARDIS lands in an old Victorian mansion. It gives Ace the creeps as she has "a thing" about haunted houses after she snuck in one at Perivale when she was a delinquent.  

   

They explore and find a snuff box. A Victorian gentleman turns up and confirms that "atrocities" have happened in this house and he came here looking for Redvers Fenn-Cooper. The snuff box is the first evidence he's found of him being in the mansion. He's allegedly being held captive by the owner of the house - Josiah Samuel Smith.  It soon transpires that the man is in fact Fenn-Cooper himself and he's gone insane. 

Out of nowhere, maids who seem to know him turn up and march him away.  A very strange Neanderthal butler called Nimrod instructs the Doctor and Ace to the drawing room, saying Mr Smith is expecting them.

Once in the drawing room, they meet a young lady, Gwendoline, who is staying with her uncle Josiah. They have another visitor - the Reverend Matthews, who has shown up at the house to have it out with Smith over his outlandish theories of evolution that he published in a book recently.  The Reverend mistakes the Doctor for Smith and gives him an earful before Josiah turns up. 

He instructs Gwendoline and Ace to change for dinner, whilst he converses with the gentlemen.  They don't get far before they hear Fenn-Cooper screaming from upstairs.  They all rush to find him, cowering from a bright light coming from his snuff box.  

Nimrod forces them out of the room and tells them to leave him to the house staff.

In all the commotion, the Doctor and Ace miss the fact that Josiah instructs the Reverend to be chloroformed and taken away.

As they get back to the hall, Ace discovers that the mansion is in fact Gabriel Chase, the same building she sneaked into when she was 13.  She runs off in a huff and gets into the basement where she sees a strange room with clear alien technology and green skinned monsters in dinner suits. 

A gravelly voice calls out for them to get her.  Nimrod turns up and helps her escape them.

Meanwhile, the Doctor watches curiously as Gwendoline examines her uncles collection of insects.  In the bottom drawer is a Policeman, presumably in suspended animation. 

She says he's all the way from Java, and that the Reverend will be leaving for there soon. She also says her father was sent there by her uncle after he saw what was in the cellar.  Growing concerned, the Doctor tries to find Ace but is held captive by the staff who suddenly have revolvers.

Back in the cellar, Ace gets a bit overzealous with the stick and threatens to smash an oval panel with glowing light.  Nimrod doesn't like this and proclaims that "the sleeping one must not be woken". He struggles with her and she breaks the pane, setting off alarms all over the mansion.  In the confusion, the Doctor grabs a gun and holds it to Josiah's head, forcing him to take him to the cellar.  

Seeing the danger, the Doctor stabilises the streaming smoke from the hole Ace made, and recognises the green skinned monsters as past skins of Josiah Smith, left with rudimentary abilities to move and act.  Smith grabs the gun and orders the Doctor to repair the ship, but he unleashes the steam and gets Smith in the blast.  Together, Ace and the Doctor flee, bringing with them Nimrod and the incapacitated Josiah Smith as a retched creature is released from a cell in the ship.   

Once out of the cellar, Smith is taken by the maids to the upstairs. The Doctor says they won't see him until nightfall.  With that, they retire to rest.

During the day, the injured form of Josiah Smith starts to evolve, peeling and removing his husked skin.  

The Reverend Matthews wakes up, and starts lambasting Smith once more, but is soon put in a perilous position as he begins inexplicably devolving into a monkey.  

Gwendoline turns up and using chloroform, sends the Reverend to "Java".

Ace is woken at dusk by a human maid and given breakfast.  

When she arrives downstairs, she sees that the Doctor has awoken the Inspector McKenzie from the drawer who apparently came here three years ago to inspect the disappearance of George Pritchard, Gwendline's father.

The Doctor suggests some theories as to what's going on. He reckons that there are two creatures in the basement, the one in the cell and the one in the glass. He thinks the one in the glass is the master that Smith has kept subdued, asleep because he fears it.  Redvers Fenn-Cooper saw it and lost his mind, and Nimrod worships it.

They go to the attic to speed things along.  The Doctor winds the clock forwards to midnight and the occupants of the house come to life.  They subdue Ace, the Doctor and the Inspector and a newly evolved Josiah Smith shows himself, bringing them all back downstairs.  

He doesn't count on the fact that the Doctor has made a deal with the creature called "control" from the cell though. It has released the master from it's sleep and it indicates that it has brought it up from the cellar.  Smith tries to stop the creature called "light", but is blown back by an electrical charge.  With a blaze of light, the creature emerges.

The creature turns up in a glowing humanoid form that it adopts as the dominant form in this world.  

The Doctor explains to all that the creature came to earth to catalogue all life here. With him came two other creatures - Control who was a control subject, was kept in the ship to remain pure. The other was Josiah Smith, who went out to gather samples for Light. He however rebelled against Light and after their first expedition to Earth (in which he collected Nimrod as a sample), Smith ensured Light remained asleep and brought the ship back to Earth. He took over the mansion, hypnotising the Pritchards and killing the owner of the house.  Once in control, he tricked Fenn-Cooper into coming to the mansion and aimed to use him to get close to Queen Victoria, with the hopes of killing her and taking over the empire.

All this is inconsequential now though, as Light has awoken and is very displeased to find that everything has "changed" and evolved.  It cannot handle the fact and decides to make sure that life will not evolve again, setting in motion a firestorm and devising a plan to turn people into primordial soup, starting with the unfortunate Inspector McKenzie.  

As Light goes off to formulate his plan, the Doctor cures Fenn-Cooper and despite Gwendoline on the orders of Smith trying to send Ace to "Java", brings them out of their spell by revealing that her and the head housemaid are actually mother and daughter.  Light turns them to stone and goes to dinner.

After Control begins to evolve into a "Ladylike", she helps Ace free herself from Gwendoline and goes to dinner.

Everyone gathers in the dining room and Light outlays it's plan to stop evolution, but the Doctor points out that everything changes, even Light.  It changes location, changes it's mind, changes forms. It cannot handle it and dissipates into the house.  This is the sinister feeling Ace had when she visits the house in the future and she reveals that she set the building on fire and burned it to the ground.

They all make it to the ship in the cellar to stop the oncoming firestorm, but Josiah Smith has one final attempt at gaining the upper hand.  Control somehow switches place with Smith, becoming the more evolved of the two and sending him back to a simpler creature.  With the threat ended, Control, Smith, Fenn-Cooper and Nimrod all fly off in the ship, taking the threat away.

The Doctor and Ace leave, going back to the hallway. The Doctor asks Ace if she has any regrets and she says yes, she regrets not blowing the place up instead.

Trivia

• This story was originally set on Galifrey and was the Doctor's worst nightmare from his past, with links to his family. John Nathan-Turner thought it revealed far too much of his past, so they changed it to be a storyline for Ace.  The original idea was used for the novel "Lungbarrow" instead.

• The story didn't have any monsters originally beyond Light and Control, but John Nathan-Turner insisted, so they put in the husks to fulfil the demand

• This was actually the last true Doctor Who story to be filmed before the show was cancelled.  The final scene to be shot was the one where Gwendoline and Mrs Pritchard were turned to stone. 

• Many of the deleted scenes for this story were sadly lost as their tapes were wiped for reuse shortly after broadcast

The Review

Other guides accompanying this story have indicated that it is somewhat "marmite", that you will love or hate this story. I find personally that in fact there is a middle ground to be had.  The main clue to this, beyond personal experience, is in watching the making of. This story is rich in background and concept.  It accomplishes a lot in three episodes and has no time to dally about, therefore beyond a little explanation, it leaves people with little option to keep up unless they watch it on re-run which in 1989 was indeed possible. Because of this, many of the cast said that they knew it was pretty good, even though they couldn't fathom what the hell was going on.  That is where I found myself for much of this in the years from being a teenager until now.

Watching Ghost Light as an adult, I have found that I understand the plot a lot more and I appreciate how hard the story works.  It cooks up a very good sinister atmosphere, from the music, to the darkened lighting and aged scenery.  The sense of foreboding and the sinister implication of being sent to "Java".  It also handles mutlitple plot threads from Josiah's plans, the background of Gwnedoline, the evolution of Control and the nature of Light.  All of this is very well done and when put in contrast to the Doctor Who Series 2 episode with Queen Victoria and the Werewolf, you can see just how much future stories will talk down to people.  

The downside of this story is that because there is so much going on, it has glaring cuts from scene to scene that left me feeling a little frustrated. It's almost like vignettes of action where the logic just disappears between times.  For example, you know Josiah is up to no good, yet let him retire to bed, and hang about in his house until nightfall, even letting Ace sleep there!  Nobody seems to say "hang about, you're a Neanderthal" until way into episode 1.  It's all quite infuriating, plus Light just disappearing because he can't handle things is a bit of an anti-climax.

So, I do refute the Marmite argument.  I like this story, there's a lot to like, but it is equally non-sequitur and confusing which does detract from the enjoyment quite a bit in my opinion.  Still. One of the better efforts for the Seventh Doctor.

Rating

6 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Talons of Weng Chiang

• Lungbarrow

• The Unquiet Dead (Doctor Who Series 1)

• Tooth and Claw (Doctor Who Series 2)

Eighth Doctor Episodes

 

Summary

The TV Movie

Bonus *

Night of the Doctor

Battlefield

 

Four episodes

Aired between 6th September 1989 and 27th September 1989

Written by Ben Aaronovitch

Produced by John Nathan-Turner

Directed by Michael Kerrigan

Synopsis

Earth, the near future. UNIT are on military manoeuvres with a nuclear missile convoy in the sleepy English area of Carbury.  Their new commander, Brigadier Winnifred Bambera is unimpressed when the missile truck breaks down near lake Vortigen. She is even more perplexed when sounds of overhead missiles begin to sound. Little does she know that these missiles are carrying armoured knights!

In the TARDIS, the Doctor is listening to a strange transmission that he believes is coming from somewhere sideways in time (another dimension).  

He tracks the signal back to Earth and get a lift from local Archaeologist, Peter Warmsley.  He takes them to the lake and they soon finds that the signal's coming from around the area where the missile convoy is.  Using old pass cards for himself and Liz Shaw's to get Ace past security, they make it into the area.  They come face to face with Bambera who is unimpressed by their presence.  She kicks them out but is soon warned by her subordinate that the Doctor was part of unit once and when he's around things go wrong, fast! Wanting to know more, Bambera takes the Doctor and Ace to the Gore Crow Hotel but gets little from them.  

Inside the hotel, they meet the landlord and his blind wife. Ace meets a new friend called Shou Yuing, and the Doctor finds a mystical scabbard which apparently Peter Warmsley found as part of his local dig near the lake.  The Doctor suspects is far older than is dated.

Ace and Shou go outside to discuss explosives and hear sounds of fighting and a big explosion.  It turns out they were made by the futuristic knights who had been roaming around the neighbourhood doing battle with each other. 

The "goodie" knight was blown through the brewery roof by a futuristic hand grenade.  The Doctor, Ace and Shou get to the knight and remove his helmet.  

The knight seems to know the Doctor and refers to him as Merlin. Bambera turns up armed and tries to arrest them all, but they are interrupted by a gang of "baddie" knights, led by Mordred. He orders them all killed, but the Doctor plays to his role as Merlin and scares them away, but not before Mordred warns that his mother, Morgaine is coming to settle the score with Merlin.  Once alone, the gang retreat back to the hotel (Bambera and the knight, Ancelyn fighting for dominance on the way). 

Meanwhile, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart himself is called out of retirement once word of the Doctor's return is passed on.  He goes to London via helicopter for a briefing and then on through the night to Carbury. 

Mordred sets up his lair in an abandoned castle in the area and summons forwards his mother, using some arcane ritual.  The force affects the scabbard in the hotel and causes it to fly off the wall and pierce some wood, presumably pointing towards the lake.  The surge of power knocks out the lights and plunges the hotel into darkness as Morgaine arrives in this world.  

The day after, Morgaine and Mordred gather in an old church to discuss their plans. They see the Brigadier's helicopter coming in and Morgaine shoots it down.  She soon realises however that they have respect for their dead and is displeased with Mordred for allowing her to fight on holy ground. She dismisses him. 

Thankfully, the Brigadier and his pilot survive. 

They separate and try to get help.  The Brigadier comes across Morgaine and her troops, but she calls a truce so she can hold a remembrance ceremony  for the dead.  

The Brigadier honourably takes part and then goes on his way. Morgaine says if she meets him again, she'll kill him.

The Doctor meanwhile is curious about the dig and the scabbard, so he gets Peter to take him to it.  There, they find a strange inscription in the Doctor's handwriting saying "Dig hole here".  They use Ace's nitro-9 to blow a hole in the ground and find a tunnel there. Ace and the Doctor go down it and find an alien spaceship with passwords that allow access to the Doctor's voice, and King Arthur knelt on a plinth with Excalibur, clearly dead.  

The ship's defences activate and the Doctor is attacked by them. Ace enters a cubicle and is nearly drowned but shot out of the ship at the end.

Ancelyn and Bambera get to the dig site, but they're too late. They watch in astonishment as Ace emerges from the lake, brandishing Excalibur. Shou and the Brigadier end up there too, and the Brigadier goes into the tunnel, rescuing the Doctor and reuniting with him.

Morgaine in the meantime orders her knights to find and take Excalibur. She goes to the hotel and finds Mordred drinking there, drowning his sorrows. The pilot arrives and threatens Morgaine and is disintegrated for her troubles.  Morgaine is not without compassion however. She cures the Landlord's wife as payment for Mordred's drinking session. Satisfied, they leave.

The Doctor and companions split up and go in separate cars back to the hotel. They encounter the knights on their way and Bambera and Ancelyn are separated from the others, their car being wrecked in the fight. Not being able to do anything for them, the Doctor and the rest go back to the hotel to find the residents of the area are being evacuated. Peter Warmsley and the landlord protest, but the Doctor uses a Jedi mind trick to convince them otherwise. They all go but Shou Yuing manages to slip away and hide.  

The Brigadier is happy about the UNIT preparations and shows the Doctor they have specialist weapons to deal with Daleks, Yeti's and Cybermen. They even have Bessie brought to the area. The Doctor asks if they've got any silver bullets, just in case. 

The Doctor and the Brigaider go in Bessie to the missile convoy, trying to reach it before Mordred and his troops, and the Doctor tells Ace to draw a chalk circle and stay in it at the first sign of trouble. 

Morgaine senses that Ace and Shou are alone and vulnerable and seizes her chance to get Excalibur. She summons The Destroyer - a Demon from another dimension. Hearing the after effects of this, Ace and Shou draw the circle. Morgaine tries to use head games to wrest the sword from them, but the girls withstand them, leaving Morgaine little option but to go there herself with the Destroyer and try to get the sword directly.

Mordred and his troops do indeed attack the nuclear missile convoy and there's a big battle. Bambera and Ancelyn make it to the fight and there is chaos all around. The doctor turns up, living up to his role as Merlin and decries the battle. Mordred laughs and says it's only a diversion and Morgaine is getting the sword. The Doctor speaks psychically with Morgaine who offers a trade - Ace for the sword. The Doctor threatens Mordreds life, but they scoff at it, saying that Merlin hates violence. The Brigadier however puts a gun to Mordred and Morgaine leaves him to die.

With psychic communication cut off, the Doctor, the Brigadier and Mordred get in Bessie and head back to the hotel, just in time to find it being shaken to the ground.  They find Ace and Shou in the rubble. They explain that they ended up giving up Excalibur before they were killed but did manage to find some silver bullets. The Doctor is grateful, as he can't replace Ace.

Mordred slips away in the commotion.

The group see a dimensional portal in the corner of the room. The Doctor and the Brigadier go through it to the old castle to confront Morgaine and the Destroyer. They go back and forth with arguments, and Ace following through knocks Excalibur from Morgaines hand. She warns the Doctor to give it back or she will release the Destroyer from the chains that keeps him at bay from devouring the world. He calls her bluff and she does indeed free him.

Mordred turns up and argues with his mother for abandoning him. Together they teleport away out of the path of the Destroyer. 

The Doctor, Ace and the Brigadier run away too, but the Doctor decides to go back, loading the Brigadier's revolver with the silver bullets they found. The Brigadier knocks the Doctor out however and takes the gun, telling him he's to sacrifice himself as the Doctor is too important. He goes back and after threatening the Destroyer, pumps six shots into him. The demon explodes and throws the Brigadier out of the window. Thankfully, they find him alive. Then the Doctor, the Brigadier and Ace return Excalibur to the alien spaceship, finding a note from a future Doctor that tells him Arthur died ages ago.

The Doctor then returns to the convoy to see that Morgaine and Mordred have gone there to set off the missile.  The Doctor knocks out Mordred and pleads with Morgaine, convincing her that nuclear obliteration is definitely something dishonourable. She agrees and stops the countdown.

The Doctor asks Bambera to lock Morgaine and Mordred up. 

All's well that ends well, the group retire to the Brigadier's massive country house. The girls all go on a shopping spree, leaving the Doctor, the now finally retired Brigadier, and Ancelyn behind to cut the grass and make dinner.

Trivia

• This story has a lot of "lasts in it as we close on the classic era of Doctor Who
• It is the last time we see the console room in the classic era (excluding the 8th Doctor's TV movie)
• It is the last official time we see the Brigadier in the show (although he did do an episode of Sarah Jane Adventures) 
• It is the last time we see Jean Marsh in the series too, her other credits include the First Doctor adventures - The Crusade and The Dalek's Master Plan
• It is the last official use of Bessie. We'll only see her in flashbacks now
• It is the last story Ben Aaronovitch wrote for the series too

• However, it is the first time that UNIT has been portrayed in a multi-national light and the reshaping of them in this story would be instrumental in how they would come to look when the show was re-launched in 2005.

• The Brigadier was originally meant to die during this story, but Ben Aaronovitch couldn't bring himself to kill such an iconic character, so he brought him back

• The Doctor in this season has a change of clothes, discarding his beige jacket for a dark brown one. This was intentional, to subtly show a shift from a light hearted wanderer to something more calculating and dark as we will come to see in the other stories of this season

• As most people know, the underwater spaceship scene went awry when Sophie was in the cubicle filling up with water. The person who made it misjudged the pressure and the water cracked the glass. The crew hauled her out of there, not because of fear of drowning, but because they feared her being electrocuted by the water pouring over cables as it spilled out

• Episode 1 of this story has the lowest viewer rating in all Doctor Who to date. This is somewhat unfair and skewed however, as the England World Cup Qualifier was shown on BBC 2 at the same time

The Review

Battlefield shines a light on one of the many curious areas of history that Doctor Who has always curiously shied away from.  Granted, these are Space-Knights from another dimension with crap firing guns and hand grenades, but the names are pretty much the same as in our mythology. For that reason alone, I tend to look upon the story more favourably than maybe it deserves.

Having said that, there's a lot to like in here if you're willing to put up with the little bit of awfulness that comes with it. It's the little things I find that are entertaining, such as the sense of sinister mysticism that is brought in with Morgaine and the Destroyer that summons up feelings almost as good as the devil worship in the Daemons or Image of the Fendahl. It's the poignant speech at the end of the story by the Doctor to Morgaine, and even the playful scenes with the £5 piece and the crisp packet in the hotel. These are glimpses that Doctor Who still has it when it's needed most. But scattered amongst these is also glimpses that Doctor Who is changing, perhaps for the better in some respects. UNIT for example is multi-national now and looking a little bit more like a military operation, although the purposes of them arsing around a British village with a Nuclear missile is somewhat of a puzzle. It also shows the changing of the guard with the Brigadier officially getting a retirement story.

With all this going for it, plus the best looking monster we've ever ever seen in Doctor Who (perhaps even to date), it is a wonder why it's not ranked higher in people's opinions.  To that, we have to look at the haphazard scenes that come with it - such as the irrational way the UNIT troops let everyone waltz around their nuclear missile, even giving them a lift away from it. The Bambera / Ancelyn relationship is at times both endearing and painful to watch, the acting is at times very overdone and everything to do with the spaceship is just awful.  There's also pointless aspects to it too.  The scabbard and Excalibur turn out to be of no consequence whatsoever (other than protecting Ace in a circle). The puzzling way Morgaine wants to kill and rule, and yet is distraught to find out Arthur's dead, and also, just how do they intend to keep her prisoner?

Battlefield is without question one of the better Seventh Doctor stories, and a personal favourite of mine. It is highly suggested viewing for anyone wanting to get into the Seventh Doctor era, but alas, it falls somewhat short when compared to the show overall.

Rating

7 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

5 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

The Crusade

The Time Warrior

Robot of Sherwood (Doctor Who, Series 8)