By Chris Revelle | TV | February 20, 2024 |
By Chris Revelle | TV | February 20, 2024 |
Ghosts, the CBS spin on the UK hit, is perfect Sunday afternoon television. Despite being about supernatural spirits, Ghosts feels like a classic sitcom, one that hits the reset button regularly enough that if you miss an episode, you’re unlikely to feel locked out. The sitcom format gets derided these days, but in my eyes, it takes on a new value in a media world obsessed with multiverses: Ghosts is here for 30 minutes of fun and isn’t working overtime to tee up another property or establish lore with implications for a movie due out next year. It’s a light, fun, and resolutely silly show that freshens up its familiar sitcom constructs and plotlines by using them to tell stories about ghosts. It’s a simple choice but an effective one, because, aside from putting a new spin on familiar sitcom tropes, telling stories about ghosts opens up tons of possibilities to introduce new ones or say goodbye to old ones.
For those in need of a refresher on the general arc of the past two seasons: Samantha (Rose McIver, iZombie, The Christmas Prince trilogy) and her husband Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar, Never Have I Ever, Moongirl and Devil Dinosaur) moved into the Woodstone mansion that Sam inherited from her great aunt Sophie Woodstone. They’re pumped until they find out the Woodstone house is falling apart and full of ghosts that Jay is oblivious to but Sam can perceive and interact with due to a near-death experience. The ghosts appear just as they did at the times of their deaths and represent a range of eras from across history: Sasappis or Sass (Román Zaragoza) is a sarcastic Lenape ghost, Captain Isaac Higgentoot (Brandon Scott Jones, The Good Place, The Other Two) is a gay officer in the Continental Army, Thorfinn (Devan Chandler Long, Doom Patrol) is a Norwegian Viking who hates Danes, Alberta Haynes (Danielle Pinnock, Young Sheldon) is a mysteriously murdered jazz singer, Henrietta Woodstone (Rebecca Wisocky, like, basically everything) is a Gilded Age “lady of the manor,” Trevor Lefkowitz (Asher Grodman) is a young stockbroker who died pantsless, Pete Martino (Richie Moriarty) is a sweet-natured Pinecone Trooper leader with an arrow through his neck, and Susan “Flower” Montero (Sheila Carrasco) is a goofy space cadet of a hippie with memory problems. The ghosts help and hinder the “livings” Sam and Jay as they turn the mansion into a B&B.
The magic of Ghosts is in watching these large but well-shaded characters interact in classic sitcom set-ups without sacrificing emotional resonance. It’s a delicate balancing act mining each character for comedy while taking them seriously as people, but Ghosts does just that by allowing their characters to grow and develop. For example, Isaac learns about himself in the process of coming out and forging a new romantic relationship, and Thor grapples with feelings of loneliness having to go through eternity without his family. The show holds space for relevant and salient social issues like an episode where Sass asks Sam to save a sacred tree becomes an episode about land acknowledgments. That particular episode invokes classic sitcom tropes like a lie spiraling out of control and weirding out the neighbors with hijinks and makes space for recognizable or resonant themes handled with respect.
Sitcoms get derided often, but they’re as valid a format as any other. Ghosts runs on a formula, but that repetition doesn’t register as boring, it makes it a comfort watch not unlike a cozy mystery. Ghosts treats its characters with love and respect, and allows them more depth than the show’s status as a sitcom may imply. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but Ghosts shows how far heart can go on a fizzy sitcom.
The season 3 premiere is an exemplary episode that encapsulates all of Ghosts’ strengths. Spoilers for Ghosts: We begin with Sam, Jay, and their ghostly pals scrambling in the wake of the ghost ascension that occurred at the end of season 2, trying to take a headcount and figure out who got “sucked off” into the heavens. It turns out to be sweet Flower, the hippie who died hugging a bear. Understandably, everyone is distraught at losing their friend and Thor for losing a new love. When a contractor making over the barn into a restaurant reports they have to pause to move a barn owl that’s taken up residence, Thor protests because he believes Flower’s spirit lives within it. A shared love for owls was something the couple connected on. Thor speaks with shouts and grunts, but the show doesn’t belittle him as a clown. He misses this person he connected with and wants to hold on to whatever piece of Flower he can. Thor convinces Sam to keep the owl in a cage in the house and hide it from Jay.
Meanwhile, Pete invites the cholera ghosts from the basement upstairs to make up for a slight they’re mad about. They wander around, getting in the way and annoying the main cast. Pete denies the cholera crew nothing, out of guilt, and the other ghosts slowly lose their patience. All seems fraught and ready to boil over when one of the cholera ghosts recounts how Flower would visit the basement and spend time with the ghosts there, just listening and never judging them. This culminates in a memorial the ghosts hold together, upstairs and downstairs alike, to praise and mourn the passing of Flower. Thor begins to grieve, the cholera ghosts return to the basement, and Jay releases the owl on a majestic cliff before the owl swoops back to claw poor Jay. The episode doesn’t shy away from its broad comedy nor its big warm heart and it does an excellent job combining them. Look! You can have a classic sitcom without problematic bullshit! It’s possible!
The third season of Ghosts airs weekly on CBS and streams on Paramount+.