Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ghosts’ On CBS, Where A Young Couple Share A Mansion With The Ghosts Of Those Who Died In It

In a fall full of reboots and franchise extensions, the one new network series that looked at least a little different was Ghosts. But it’s not like the concept behind the show is new; TV fans know that shows where humans communicate with ghosts only they can see and hear have been a part of television history for decades. So does Ghosts do something new? Does it have to in order to be good?

GHOSTS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: In a dilapidated mansion, a group of ghosts wait for the current resident, an elderly woman, to pass away.

The Gist: Not everyone at the Woodstone Estate is destined to haunt the place for eternity, and the group of ghosts who introduce themselves to the old lady right after she passes are disappointed when she ascends to the afterlife right away.

There’s Isaac (Brandon Scott Jones), a bit of a dandy from colonial times; Hetty (Rebecca Wisocky), a Victorian-era society woman; Alberta (Danielle Pinnock) a lounge singer from the Prohibition era; Flower (Sheila Carrasco), a hippie who got attacked by a bear; Sasappis (Román Zaragoza), an Indigenous person from the area; Thorfinn (Devan Long), who goes even farther back; Pete (Richie Moriarty), a friendly scout master who got an arrow through his neck in the ’80s; and Trevor (Asher Grodman), a pantsless finance bro who died around the time that Tara Reid was a superstar.

They’re elated when young couple Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) take possession of the house; Sam inherited it from the old lady, whom she barely remembers. When they come visit to see the place, the ghosts love their young romance (though Hetty doesn’t love Sam showing her knees). But they’re horrified when Sam tries to convince Jay that they should fix the place up and make it a bed and breakfast. So they decide to use their special skills to haunt the place and drive them away.

After Thorfinn flickers the lights, Alberta hums and Trevor uses all of his might to topple over a vase, Jay isn’t as much scared as he is just annoyed. He doesn’t want to stay, but Sam thinks they should take a chance. After the two fight, Sam storms out, trips over the toppled vase and falls down the stairs.

When she comes back a few weeks later, the ghosts are happy she’s still alive, but are dismayed again that Jay is now on board for the B&B thing; they don’t need all these “livings” trampling through their house. But then Sam manages to spot Trevor, and everything changes for the ghosts.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Ghosts is based on a 2019 BBC series (also conveniently titled Ghosts), but shows where ghosts interact with humans can be found throughout TV history, starting with Topper all the way back in 1953.

Our Take: With such a big cast, it’s easy to assume that Ghosts is going to spread itself too thin just trying to hand out quips to every ghost and living character. And during the first two-thirds of the pilot, it does. Lines about how some of the older ghosts don’t understand modern technology like movies fly around during the initial scenes but get old quickly.

But during the final third, things settle down and Ghosts shows some funny potential of where it can go. Veteran showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman spend that last third not only establishing the relationship between Jay and Sam, which is pretty funny by itself, but it moves away from one-liners about the ghosts to actually showing what they can do — or more accurately, can’t.

The scenes when they try to scare Jay and Sam are funny because the dramatic perspective of the effort the ghosts are putting forth, with tense music and lots of straining, is juxtaposed with just how minor the results are when looked at from the livings’ viewpoint. More of that and less about people not appreciating Tara Reid’s superstar status in 2000 will make for a more robust comedy, especially as we get into the stories about how each ghost lived and died and why they are stuck at the estate.

Sam’s ability to see and hear the ghosts can go one of two ways. Either it’ll open up stories as she gets to know everybody and they know her, or the idea that she can see them and Jay can’t will get old quickly. As the pair gets the estate in shape to open up their B&B, we wonder if the ghosts will use their new line of communications to try to convince Sam against the idea. And will Jay finally accept that what Sam is seeing is real or will he start to think the fall down the stairs is affecting her mental health?

While there are a couple of risque gags, Ghosts does feel a lot like a throwback to the kind of quirky sitcom premise that used to permeate ’50s and ’60s network TV. Done the right way, there’s no reason why a quirky premise can’t work in the 2020s.

Sex and Skin: When Trevor celebrates the fact that Sam can see and hear him, we see that he’s not only pantsless, but underpantsless as well (blurred out, of course).

Parting Shot: As the ghosts introduce themselves to Sam, she starts to freak out, especially when she sees the guy who always loses his head.

Sleeper Star: There’s something to Richie Moriarty’s scout master Pete that goes beyond his friendly exterior and the arrow through his neck. When he talks about not knowing that the last time he argued with his wife would be the last time he saw her, it was actually affecting… even when he disagreed with her again after being reminded what the fight was about.

Most Pilot-y Line: Jay and Sam’s sexual role-playing seem to be mostly HGTV-related. That’s another gag that will get old quickly. In fact, there are a handful of references to that network in the first episode, and that feels like more than enough for the entire season.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Very few comedy pilots end better than they start, but Ghosts manages that rare achievement. It gives us hope that the show will find the right tone early in its first season.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Ghosts On CBS.com

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