This is Obverse Books' sixth in the series of novella-length analyses of Doctor Who stories. All of them so far (I haven't yet read Simon Bucher-Jones' "Image of the Fendahl" since I haven't seen the TV story) have been excellent, and Jon Dennis' look at "Ghost Light" is no exception.
Now, it has been about a month or so since I read this book (my life has been busy with other things in the interim, as seen on the blog you are currently visiting) so I can't be as detailed in my review as I would like to be. A great many of the things I would have commented on after reading have simply been forgotten.
So this review will be a rough overview rather than a blow-by-blow dissection of the book. I really wanted to get this written sooner, but other events took priority.
My overall summation is that this is a great book that does a fabulous job at analyzing and deconstructing the final piece of 20th century Doctor Who to be shot: "Ghost Light". However, it is somewhat less of a revelation than other books in this "Black Archive" have been, due only to the fact that so much has been written about the serial in the intervening 27 years that Jon Dennis (despite having many new things to say) must in part be treading well-traveled ground.
One of the things that pleased me about the analysis in this book is that Dennis largely avoids the most common topic of discussion these days when it comes to this serial. The DVD release revealed that according to the writer and script editor, the exact nature of Josiah and 'Control' was supposed to be that of a biological experiment. Josiah was the 'Survey' and 'Control' was... Well, yeah.
Much of the debate about the confusing nature of "Ghost Light" as a televisual story revolves around exactly how clear this fact was to the audience at the time. ('Not at all' being the correct answer.) Wisely, Jon Dennis says little or nothing about this, because he seems to recognize that it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the story being told; it is backstory, pure and simple.
That is to say, whether one comprehends the biological or physical function of these characters is irrelevant; we understand their story function completely. We see that Josiah evolves into what he considers to be the dominant lifeform on the planet, and we see Control (once she is let out of her captivity) follow a similar evolutionary path.
(Yes, I know this is not how evolution works, It's a story - a metaphor - and I am merely using the terminology presented on screen.)
Because this is almost the only topic debated these days on the subject of "Ghost Light", Jon Dennis avoids it and barely if ever mentions it. Very wise move.
Onto the first chapter, then: "I Wanted to See How it Works 1: Angels in the Architecture".
This chapter is a very insightful look at how "Ghost Light" (again, the last story to be recorded for many a year on Doctor Who) evolved (sorry) with the times, both in relation to the series itself and cinema as a whole. Dennis shows his working in hypothesizing that this serial is an excellent piece of evidence to show that modern Doctor Who would have wound up more or less the same as it is whether or not it had been taken off the air for 16 years.
Along the way, it takes in the basic inspiration behind this particular serial - even addressing the novel "Lungbarrow" (which ardent Who fans will know is very closely related to this story).
A great introduction for the book, with some intriguing things to say.
"Talent Borrows, Genius Steals: Sampling and Remix Culture" is the second chapter, basically dedicated to exploring the inspirations behind every aspect of "Ghost Light". It examines the way (and the reasons why) we incorporate existing ideas and works into our current creative output, and is an interesting look at the story's roots. (Even if it can get a bit listy.)
Chapter 3 is "The Secret Origin of a Haunted House". It discusses the history of haunted house stories in (and out of) Doctor Who and attempts to analyze what exactly makes a 'haunted house story'.
Dennis then shows the ways "Ghost Light" uses, abuses, and eschews the conventions of the haunted house tale, and what effect the serial appears to be going for. In general it is a very thought-provoking chapter that might make you look at certain Doctor Who serials in a different way.
Where would fiction be without the old 'mind control' device? That is the subject of Chapter 4: "Where is My Mind?: Moral Culpability and Mind Control".
It's a nice examination of the reasons why fiction writers (and Doctor Who writers in particular) choose to include the element of mind control in their stories - and the problems that arise in general and in "Ghost Light" specifically. But it is the research and explanation about real-life mind control that I found most illuminating.
That's not to denigrate the point of the chapter, however, where Jon Dennis has some great insights about the mind control trope which anyone who has an interest in either writing or literary analysis ought to find intriguing.
Chapter 5 ("I Wanted to See How It Works 2: "So Where Precisely is Java?") is basically an examination of one particular plot inconsistency in the serial. There's nowhere near enough here to justify filling out a whole chapter (and indeed it is a very short one) but it requires enough explanation that it couldn't really be just an aside elsewhere in the text.
(I would have made it an Appendix myself, but it could be argued that an appendix is just a chapter put in an unusual place and therefore the distinction here is a moot one.)
The real meat of this book is in Chapter 6: "Scenes From the Class Struggle in Gabriel Chase: Darwinism, Social Darwinism, and Religion". It is the longest, most detailed, most political, and most meaty chapter in the book.
It is also the most difficult for me to discuss and summarize - not only because of its complexity and the breadth of its topic, but because the details are more hazy at this distance and I don't wish to misrepresent the book by getting any of its ideas or details wrong.
Dennis in this chapter presents the ideas and history of evolution, and of so-called 'social Darwinism', and the ways they are incorporated and represented by the serial "Ghost Light". It is a fascinating chapter, and a great look at the main subject of this story that for some reason never really gets the attention and analysis it deserves (in favor of nit-picking the presentation of the story instead).
Finishing up with a chapter called "I Wanted to See How it Works 3: God's Away on Business", the writer basically sums up his experiences researching and writing this work, as well as a final thought on audience reaction to the TV serial.
Jon Dennis is a great fiction writer, and his clever brain and witty asides really make this book a success. Though I would rate the book 4 stars - rather than the 5 stars many feel it deserves - this really is the side effect of "Ghost Light" being a topic discussed to death over the years, giving it none of the freshness that a monograph on "Rose", "The Massacre" or "The Ambassadors of Death" inherently has.
Strongly recommended for anyone with the slightest intellectual interest in Doctor Who and critical analysis.
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