ghost light

can anyone explain to me what this story is about. does it suffer from budget or what, ive watched the behind the scenes and it still doesent make any sense.

It has been a while since I last watched it, but basically think in terms of the patients have taken over the asylum. From what I can remember Light was collecting different species including Josiah and then for some reason went into hibernation. Josiah somehow evolved and came up with the idea to assasinate the queen. By weird coincidence the house where they were all gathered was the same house that Ace burned down in the far future. Of course with the 7th Doctor there is no such thing as a coincidence.

I'm sure others can add more since this is all I can remember at this point.

Ghost Light is about adaptability vs. obsolescence - a bit of a subset of Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest (which they name-check a lot in the show itself).

Examples: Light is completely inflexible in his desire to lock down and finalize his catalogue of life on Earth, and that inflexibility becomes dangerous when he makes it clear he's ready to do things like turning people to stone and melting policemen into primordial soup so everything will stop changing, stop evolving, and stay still so he can declare his task done and rest. Josiah wants to assassinate the Queen and install a government he agrees with, rather than risk letting the world change around him.

By contrast, Nimrod is capable of adapting to a variety of highly unusual situations very quickly, and so is Redvers, though he is initially traumatized when he gets a taste of just how different the world is from how he thought it was (by encountering the alien ship and its crew). In a more symbolic way, Control is able to become a "ladylike" rather than stay fixed in her ways like Light.

So the underlying theme seems to be: the moment you become rigid in your own thinking, you become a thing of the past. Better to stay adaptable and stay ahead of the curve.

At least that's the kind of AP English Lit thinking that I had in my head the first time I got to see it. I thought it was a wonderfully layered story, and all the better for not being bluntly obvious and preachy with its themes. It's right up there with Kinda in my book. Hope this helps!

I watched this the other week for the first time, and couldn't make any sense of the storyline. It was messed up in my eyes.

Anyone confused by Ghost Light should consider themselves in good company: according to the special features on the DVD, the cast themselves often had no idea what was going on!

I used to hate Ghost Light, but over time I've developed an appreciation for it. The story makes perfect sense after a couple viewings. Its main flaw (apart from Light's stupid affected falsetto voice) is that it's too short: three episodes made it whisk by entirely too fast for a tale with so many layers. It should've been a four-parter, but alas, the Beeb only allowed for 14 episodes per season at that time.

As far as its deeper meaning, Earl nailed it.

oddly enough this has helped. im trying right now get more into the mcoy era but over all its hard.lol i like him as a doctor and ace as a companion, but some of the stories mixed with the overall 80s stuff can be to much at times, and im a child of the 80s! really dont like mel so much, i am now wondering what it could have done for the show if they had started with ace instead or someone more beliveable.lol

The McCoy era can be a tough nut to crack: it relies a lot on subtext and subtlety, but much of the music is anything but subtle or evocative, and often ruins the mood. While McCoy's performance is always brilliant, it can be tough switching gears with him when he goes from comedic to melancholy, scheming to paternal, and finally back around to comedic; in this area, too, the music is often the problem. Switching gears with the erratic Tom Baker was never difficult, but he didn't have the spectacularly-overstated Keff McCulloch pounding on a frakkin' Casio in the background in half his televised stories.

agreed.

ghostlight has always been one of my favorite stories(i'm a bit odd, i know). the main plot is aliens relationships to each other. the sub plot is the assasination of the queen(think tooth and claw here, another of my favorites). another sub-plot is helping ace resolve a horrible incident from her childhood(which the 7th doc did quite often, sort of like with rose). the problem with most 7th doc stories is, they didn't just have one storyline, they had 2 or 3. they are very complex, and you may have to watch a couple of times to pick up on things you missed the first time. the doctor's relationship with ace is complex. he knew she would hate him for taking her there, but by the end of the story, she loved him again, for healing a part of her she never thought would be healed.

...and since you brought up the Doctor/Ace relationship, I have always loved this abspect of the McCoy era. Every bit of depth the new series has allowed the companions to develop? The precedent for that kind of thing was lset in the McCoy era: Ace grew so much in her time with the Doctor. I so fervently wish they'd got to do that fourth series together!

mysterylad, from your profile pic, i can see youre a fan of the 7th doc. i'm glad there's someone other than me. there are a lot of mccoy haters on this forum(everyone is entitled to their opinion), but he is one of my favorites. and you're right. the mccoy stories were the first ones to have companion depth as well as doctor depth, which in turn led to the new series narrative.

bret_owen99 wrote:

mysterylad, from your profile pic, i can see youre a fan of the 7th doc. i'm glad there's someone other than me. there are a lot of mccoy haters on this forum(everyone is entitled to their opinion), but he is one of my favorites. and you're right. the mccoy stories were the first ones to have companion depth as well as doctor depth, which in turn led to the new series narrative.

YANA

I am also a big 7th Doctor fan as well.

<-- Another fan of the 7th Doctor

As for the music, at least 3 stories got really good music (some of my favorite instrumental music, even), which would be the ones scored by Mark Ayres (Ghost Light, Curse of Fenric, Greatest Show in the Galaxy).