The Ghost Whisperer Delights and Disappoints

How refreshing it is to see something paranormal on television...or should I say, paranormal and interesting. I didn't think much of Touched by an Angel. But that was a long time ago. Although the title makes me think inexplicably of horses, The Ghost Whisperer is quite an entertaining little weekly graveyard romp. I do love a good ghost story after all, and The Ghost Whisperer definitely delivers on that score.

The Ghost Whisperer has a cute setup, for one thing. It features a young woman named Melinda, who works as a matchmaker between the living, and the dead who still have unfinished business with them. Her goal is always to help the ghost cross over into the light, which they can't do if they're still fixated on something in the world of the living.

Sounds simple enough, right? Simply embarrassing, in most cases. Imagine having to explain to a bereaved mother that she needs to get her estranged husband to go finish reading their deceased child her favorite bedtime story so she can leave the house she's been haunting. Melinda is undeterable, however. She will do anything to help a ghost, even if that means breaking and entering. Luckily it all works out in the end.

Or...maybe that isn't so lucky. Although The Ghost Whisperer is a nice program if you like ghost stories, it isn't a great one, and that's largely due to the ghost-per-episode quota Melinda keeps. Not to mention the Pollyanna attitude that permeates the entire experience. For instance, when her dead ex-boyfriend tries to bully her husband Jim into leaving her and vandalizes their house on top of it all, Jim remains perfectly calm during the whole thing. He even agrees to leave Melinda alone with Creepy Dead Guy so they can talk, in spite of the fact that he had been exhibiting serious stalker behavior for the entire episode and was determine that he and Melinda were finally going to be together.

Sounds like a death threat to me. Why are death threats somehow not taken seriously when they come from people with superhuman powers? Isn't that backward?

Creepy Dead Boyfriend was the kind of jerk on whom people generally take out peace warrants, right up until the last five minutes of the show. That's when he became so impressed by the fact that Jim had disappeared at her request to let her handle crazy boyfriend on her own, that he suddenly saw the error of his ways and agreed to go away and leave them in peace. "Oh! You mean you LOVE each other? Well, since you put it that way..."

I just don't think an insensitive jerk would become selfless just like that.

Then there's the 6-year-old who drowned and had so much angst over being disturbed that she became really good at demonic voices and attempted to drown Melinda. One she realized she was dead, however, she was fine. I would have gone into a hissy-fit of the worst kind if I'd found out at 6 years old that I was dead. But this little girl took it like a champ, and even gave her dad a bit of selfless advice about how her brother needed him now and always would-you know, the sort of things that 6-year-olds have no way of knowing. I think a dead 6-year-old would be more concerned with whether her family would love the other child more now because he was still alive. Six-year-olds get upset over, "He got more chocolate milk than me." I think, "He's still alive and I'm not would definitely tend to cause some problems."

That sort of "tie it all up in a nice, neat bow" approach means that the first half of every episode is always better than the last. However, there are some things happening this season that are cooler than last season. They've made the ghosts a little ghostier, with gruesome decay on the newly dead, spooky white eyes and some freaky unnatural movements. In addition, we frequently get to see the room from the ghost's perspective as they watch the living, which goes a long way toward creepy.

Though there are plenty of things I would do differently, it is a show that I keep tuning in for, so they must be doing something right. However, the next television show about hauntings really needs to have more of a dangerous, gritty element at work. Is Melinda never approached by murderers with vendettas and rapists who just refuse to go into the light because they enjoy the power that comes with death? Doesn't she ever just fail? That sort of thing has to happen sometimes. I don't think it can happen on The Ghost Whisperer, because the show has been established as a "nice" one that little old grandmothers can watch. But it would be nice to see a different, darker ghost story. Something a bit more realistic-and yes, I realize how that sounds.