Ghost Light is the 154th serial and the second of the 26th season. It's the last season of the first series and the last serial filmed. It all aired October 4-18 1989. The DVD cover says that it's the 157th serial but I'm not using that count. Nor am I using the one they use on the Wikipedia. The latter doesn't count the recently finished Shada though the DVD count does. The Wikipedia counts Trial Of A Time Lord as one series but the DVD does not.
Sylvester McCoy is the 7th Doctor and Sophie Aldred plays Ace. The writer is Marc Platt and the director is Alan Wareing. Script editor is Andrew Cartmel and the producer is John Nathan-Turner.
The Tardis settles in a Victorian house in 1883 Perivale. That's the town that Ace is from, only 100 year in it's future. There's some weird things going on in the house. The butler is a Neanderthal, the maids carry guns and the Master of the house is up to something. The Doctor and Ace dig right in. A visiting reverend is turned into an ape. He didn't believe in evolution and he paid the price for his ignorance.
Ace comes to realize that the house is one she had been in before. She was 13 and she snuck in, got scared, and burnt the place down. What she didn't know is that the evil presence she felt was left over from the adventure she would have years later in the past.
The Doc stirs the pot and it yields up the aliens who have the space ship in the cellar. The Light is a researcher going about the galaxy collecting data and species. He doesn't care much of evolution since he has to keep cataloging new beings. He's been locked in his ship by the survey agent who has taken over the Victorian house near London.
Light is a big baby and when the Doctor convinces Light of the futility of opposing evolution the glowing one blows up. It was essence of Light that caused Sophie to burn the place down. Mostly entertaining but the story is chopped up a bit so it's a tad confusing. The cast and crew kept calling writer Mark Platt to ask what he was writing about. He talks about it on the extras. Not a bad story, even with the issues it has but I'm kind of glad things are winding down. Two more stories to go and the season is done. Now the question is do I listen to the audio of the missing episodes in the first series or go onto the 8th Doctor and his future selves.
There's a commentary with Sophie Aldred, Mark Platt, Andrew Cartmel and composer Mark Ayers. There's some deleted scenes and raw shooting footage, a making of featurette and an video of the writer at a con, an isolated score and a photo gallery. It was one of the early DVDs, most of the material was copyright 2004 or 2005.
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