Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Rose McIver, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Brandon Scott Jones, Danielle Pinnock, Richie Moriarty, Asher Grodman, Rebecca Wisocky, Devan Chandler Long, Román Zaragoza, Sheila Carrasco, Betsy Sodaro, John Hartman, Tristan D. Lalla, Arthur Holden, Stuart Fink, Nigel Downer, Christian Daoust, Cat Lemieux, Punam Patel, Caroline Aaron, Cody Crain, Kathryn Greenwood, Christian Jadah, Steven Yaffee, Odessa A’zion, Mary Holland, Crystle Lightning, Deniz Akdeniz, Matt Walsh, Neil Crone, Jessie Ennis, Dean Norris.

The U.S. version of Ghosts keeps hitting the mark, it is a huge endorsement to the original version that was taken to the hearts of the British audience, that the franchise has been accepted in a way that many television series that make the transatlantic crossing suffer from the one thing that divides the two countries, a common language…a mismatch in comedy stylings and appreciation.

In its fourth series, a massive 22 episodes long, the continual evolution of the cast and their characters is one of unsurprising enjoyment, unsurprising maybe, but full of respect nonetheless, and as revelations appear, as the comedy flows, so the magic of the series becomes impossible to ignore; and whilst it probably does not meet the ferocity of fandom that the likes of M*A*S*H, Frasier, Cheers, and Friends found as their own series caught their particular zeitgeist, so the progression of Ghosts (U.S) has maintained its duty to the genre without allowing its core belief to wither, or even retreat, deteriorate to the point where the joke becomes a dull remanent of time.

For a series to evolve it must continually refresh, it does not have to be one of a seismic undertaking, but small moments in which a new character is introduced for example, even briefly at first, and it is worthy of the series that they should introduce a dead puritan woman as a new insight into how death affects those left behind, and with the alluded to Patience from the end of the previous series, so the sense of how loneliness and isolation can play into the minds with too much time on their hands, so the fourth series begins to gallop, to enjoy itself immensely.

This enjoyment shows superbly in one two-part episode where both Samantha and Jay, played superbly by Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar, have to deal with possession, and for Rose McIver especially as she is taken over by one of the basement ghosts who died of cholera, the interaction is filled with humour and fierce observation.

A show built on heart, of a family of a kind, one very easily identifiable with as each character’s quirks and very human attitude capture the meaning of the afterlife and those stuck between heaven and hell; death after all is not the end, just the beginning of more. Ian D. Hall