Doctor Who: Ghost Light
Doctor Who: Ghost Light – Written by Marc Platt & Read by Ian Hogg – 6xCD / Download (AudioGo www.audiogo.co.uk)
I’ll be honest, the first time I saw ‘Ghost Light’ on the idiot box, it confused the heck out of me, and it was only with repeated viewings on DVD that the three part story began to make sense, but here, allowed to gestate and given the space and time to develop over six discs, it’s an absorbing tale of alien biological expeditions, evolution, the duality of all personalities, how good and evil are flipsides of the same coin and can’t function without each other, how beings are shaped by places and time and how places can moulded by their occupants, and how the Doctor, no matter how strange the situation, always comes through in the end. ‘Ghost Light’ is slightly different to what we were used to with classic Who, but it’s a welcome difference that adds an extra layer to the tale, and with it’s exploration of Ace’s background, her arc before she met the story, and the importance of the location of ‘Ghost Light’ to both her past, her present and future, it starts to change the idea that companions where only present so that the Doctor had someone to explain what it was he was doing to without shattering the fourth wall. It’s definitely an odd tale, but thoroughly enjoyable, due in no small part to both the expanded nature of the story and Ian Hogg’s reading, as an element of Josiah Smith, the role he played in the original serial, creeps into his narration. Definitely worth seeking out… Tim Mass Movement
