CBS’ ‘Ghosts’ a work in progress

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McKayla Clark Snodgrass, Page Editor

CBS’ “Ghosts” is the newest sitcom for the channel. “Ghosts” is a remake of the BBC show of the same name that came out in 2019. 

The show follows Samantha (Rose McIver) and her husband Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar), who inherit Woodstone Manor after one of Sam’s distant relatives passes away. The couple plans renovations to turn the house into a bed and breakfast, upsetting the ghosts who inhabit the house. The ghosts haunt the couple in hopes of scaring them out of the house but instead lead to Sam having a “near-death experience,” which leads to her having the ability to see and hear ghosts.

In its first two episodes, the show suffered from an inability to find its own identity. The first two episodes of the new series were trying to be almost exactly like the BBC original while sprinkling in some of its own material. The result was something not very enjoyable. The entirety of the first two episodes was full of unfunny joke delivery and, at one point, poor timing. The show was trying to find its footing, which it began to get later on. The third episode also had a moment of poor comedic timing meant to lighten the mood but it instead weakened the scene.

I don’t usually enjoy remakes of shows or movies I’ve already seen unless they take a creative approach to it, like a villain isn’t truly a villain or just loosely using the source material. “Ghosts” does attempt to stray from the British version but doesn’t always succeed. My favorite episodes are the ones that aren’t repeats of the original such as “Halloween” or “D&D.” The show for some episodes seems to heavily rely on the show it’s going off of. 

I was able to predict almost an entire episode because it was almost exactly the same as the original. The episode in question was “Pete’s Wife,” which has many big similarities to the episode of the BBC’s version titled “Happy Death Day.” When reading the title, I thought about the main points of the episode I had already seen, which was the British equivalent of Pete (Richie Moriarty), named Pat in the 2019 version, having his family visit on his “death day,” the day he died. Around that time, he discovers his wife was having an affair with his best friend, who she later married after his death, while he was alive. The episode also includes the discovery that his grandson was named after him and the beginning shows how he died. 

In “Pete’s Wife,” I could tell from the beginning it was going to be the same idea with the exclusion of a specific joke that was used earlier in the remake.

The show itself suffers from a need to carry on gags for a bit too long. On several occasions, a character will say something, and other characters will say the same thing, or they’ll say it in other words. It drags on too long. It’s one thing for characters to build off of one another, and that be the reason the joke has lasted so long, but it’s another for the gag to last a while with nothing new being added. It just causes the joke to be unfunny.

There are currently 10 episodes out with no clear sign as to how many episodes the season will have. If the show creates more original plot lines and properly builds complex characters, it’ll be an enjoyable experience.