

Smith tries to keep his plan intact, but events are moving beyond his control. Once awake, Light is displeased by all the changes while he was asleep. He encounters Control, which has now taken on human form, and makes a deal with it. The Seventh Doctor's curiosity drives him to seek answers. Ace had visited the house in 1983 and had felt an evil presence.

Utilising Fenn-Cooper's association with Queen Victoria, he plans to get close to her so that he can assassinate her and subsequently take control of the British Empire. By 1883, Smith, having "evolved" into forms approximating a human and casting off his old husks as an insect would, managed to lure and capture the explorer Redvers Fenn-Cooper, brainwashing him.

Smith began evolving into the era's dominant life-form – the Victorian gentleman – and also took over the house. By 1881, Josiah Smith gained control and kept Light in hibernation and imprisoned the creature known as Control on the ship, which is now the cellar of the house. After completing its task and collecting samples which included Nimrod, a being known as Light, the leader, went into slumber. Thousands of years ago, an alien expedition came to Earth to catalogue life. Set in a mansion house in Perivale in 1883, Josiah Smith ( Ian Hogg), a cataloguer of life forms from another planet, seeks to assassinate Queen Victoria and take over the British Empire. Ghost Light is the second serial of the 26th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts on BBC1 from 4 to 18 October 1989.
