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GHOST WHISPERER |
Season Overview
Melinda Gordon - Jennifer Love Hewitt Jim Clancy - David Conrad Delia Banks - Camryn Manheim Rick Payne - Jay Mohr 
OTHER GHOST WHISPERER SEASONS Season 1 Season 3 Season 4 Season 5 THEY ALSO SEE DEAD PEOPLE Medium Haunted Afterlife Millennium 
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SEASON OVERVIEWThe helper of ghosts is back and carries on just where she left off. After sorting out the loose ends hanging off from the Season 1 finale, the show sinks into a seemingly unending repetition of 'ghost of the week' stories. This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't seem like the same story with only the names and occupations changed. There are new characters in the shape of Delia (taking the place of Andrea from last time as the best friend) and Jay Mohr as an entertainingly bonkers professor to whom Melinda goes with her more obscure queries. Both of these liven up the place, but not enough to entirely stifle the boredom that sets in. Even throwing in the car racing of Speed Demon and the lectures on autism and spousal abuse in The Ghost Within and A Vicious Cycle respectively don't vary things enough. Then, three episodes from the end, the story arc kicks in with The Collector and the introduction of the anti-Melinda. This trio of episodes almost makes up for everything that has gone before (almost but not quite). LOVE NEVER DIESFollowing the plane crash at the end of Season 1, Melinda has to struggle against the spirit in the hat for the soul of her friend Andrea (Aisha Tyler). Andrea is keeping herself there and suffering, but won't say why. He brother also is keeping secrets. The second series picks right up where the first left off. It looks for a while that it might have a darker edge to it with Andrea being Melinda's friend and appearing to be in deep torment during her apparitions. Melinda has to learn more about the spirit in the hat, but there is a handy local professor who happens to be the world's foremost authority on the supernatural, except that he doesn't believe in it (colour me Mulder). The spirit has a name, Romano and he is set to cause evil. Then Melinda learns that all she needs is love, gets brother and sister to say 'sorry', and 'I forgive you' and the sugar is back with a vengeance. Aisha Tyler was good enough in series one to make her parting more touching and less saccharine than have been others, but if this is your first visit to Melinda's world then go and clean your teeth now. TopLOVE STILL WON'T DIEA teenager steals some Grateful Dead backstage passes from Melinda's store, twice, but turns out to be under the influence of young ghost whose collection they belonged to. More importantly, he ex-boyfriend shows up dead and trying to win her back. There's some attempt to create some darkness in this episode early on by keeping the ghost in the dark until she learns who he is, but it's pretty feeble and never approaches any sort of scare. The touch of having the man's wife turn out to look a lot like Melinda herself is pretty neat, but in the end it all comes down to the usual message that there is no evil in a spirit that can't be exorcised by a cup of tea and a nice chat. TopDROWNED LIVESA little girl who drowned when she was six is haunting the house recently bought by a young couple. Melinda learns that the family was shattered by the event and all feel guilt over it. All she needs to do is to get them all together to read the little girl the last part of her book. OK, she's a little girl and she drowned, but everything else that happens follows the series template to the letter. Scenes are interchangeable from virtually any other episode. Talk about repetitive. Surely the show can come up with something more than running through the same plot with a different set of people each week. TopTHE GHOST WITHINA box of ornaments that Delia finds whilst out on a shopping trip glow with a light that only Melinda can see. When she touches them, she is transported elsewhere and gets visions. One of these leads her to a house where an autistic girl is found with the body of the ghost who has appeared with the ornaments. How can Melinda help him cross over if he cannot look at her or speak to her? For a while at the start of this episode there's a triumphant feeling of 'At last, something different' as the ornaments are the focus of the story, but then the ghost appears and it becomes clear that the only difference between this and all the other stories is that the communication will be done through the ornaments rather than by conversation. It also means that we have to sit through 'lecture number 1 on autism' giving the basics for anyone who hasn't seen RAIN MAN. That said, the movement of a single piece of a jigsaw puzzle proves to be more eloquent than all the tearful goodbyes that have been spoken in the show put together. TopGIVING UP THE GHOSTA promising local baseball star is being haunted by the spirit of a past star who never quite made it in the big leagues. Another week, another ghost, the same old story. The threat to Melinda is a little more physical (flying baseballs, being half-strangled by a possessed man) and Jim gets a chance to be angry (something negative in a major character? Surely not.), but in the end it's just the same as all the others. The addition of the 'we'll only win as a team' and the sporting 'will he come good at the end?' and Jim's little league home movies just up the sugar factor to even more unbearable levels. TopA GRAVE MATTERMelinda is visiting Andrea's grave when a ghost appears and announces that he is buried in the wrong place and the woman who comes to cry for him every day is someone else's wife. The ghost turns to be a famous writer, but When Melinda learns that he abandoned his family she refuses to help him. Then the very dead writer makes a very live phone call. This starts out looking like it might be different and Melinda might get involved in a search for missing bodies and clerical errors in burial homes, but it soon defaults back to people needing to talk to find peace to....blah, blah, blah. Only the fact Melinda Gordon turns out to not be perfect and to have abandonment issues with her own father takes this story away from the apparently ironclad template. TopTHE WOMAN OF HIS DREAMSWhilst Melinda visits her sick mother, Jim is visited by the ghost of a beautiful woman with a cat. He tracks her down as a supermodel and then learns that he had a connection with her that he was never aware of. Now that knows who she is, he judt has to figure out what she wants. For almost a third of an episode this looks like it's going to be different. Apart from it being Jim being visited, there seems to be more of a mystery to be looked into. There's also the hindrance that Jim can't hear the ghost so she has to use symbolism (the cat and bright green scarab beetles as well as ripping off her own face). Then it falls into the same old groove, the truth is discovered and all it takes is a family get together and the regulation teary goodbye with Melinda repeating the ghost word for word. Take away the repetition and the scripts have probably half as many pages. TopA VICIOUS CYCLEMelinda and Jim take a camping trip and find an old wrecked car with a ghost and a creepy baby doll attached. The woman died in the woods in a storm and wants go find her child. The child has grown up to be engaged to an abusive man and the ghost remembers that the reason she was out in the storm was because of an abusive man. Spouse abuse is a crime and should be neither accepted nor a cause of shame for the victim. That's today's lesson. The early scenes try to channel THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, but fail miserably and then everything falls back into the inevitable pattern. The SCI FI FREAK SITE also hates camping, so we can sympathise with Melinda here, but it doesn't improve the episode any. TopTHE NIGHT WE METThe anniversary of the night that Jim and Melinda first met is looming and a fire at a local restaurant brings back memories of that night. It also brings the ghost of a chef who set fire to that restaurant the year before and who seems set on burning a few other things. DIABETIC ALERT!! As if the show wasn't sugary enough on its own, the addition of flashbacks to the night that Jim and Melinda met along with the fact that she worries he's going to forget the anniversary when we know he's the perfect husband and so he's deliberately fooling her so that the surprise is bigger just ladles on the sweet stuff to the point of sickness. The ghost story is the same stuff, although the fire effects are pretty good. This though, is a low point. TopTHE CURSE OF THE NINTHA former musician is being haunted by a ghost that won't allow him to play music anymore. At first Melinda believes it to be the band's dead lead singer, but then it seems that the man's father wants him to complete his 10th symphony. This is a much better episode. We've not been shy here at the SCI FI FREAK SITE about saying how much we haven't been enjoying the repetitive sweetness overload of THE GHOST WHISPERER, but there is a sharper and darker edge about this episode that puts it way ahead of any of the episodes in this second season so far. The fact that there are two ghosts fighting over the haunted musician and that one of them is unrepentant about what he has been doing and determined to continue on doing it and never crossing over is refreshing. True, the father/son motif of the rest of the episode is the stuff of sickbags, but a walk on the darker side of life seriously helps the show. TopCAT'S CLAWA rainforest appears in Melinda's house when the spirit of a dead explorer comes to visit. He was a friend of Professor Payne's, which means that Melinda has some explaining to do, but it is the explorer's girlfriend who needs the real help. Apart from the connection with Jay Mohr's character, this is indistinguishable from all the rest. Sure, there's some vivid rainforest imagery, but the plot is just the same. More of Professor Payne's presence is always a good thing, but even his character is softened down for the end of the episode, so we have to hope that's just an aberration. Oh, and we wonder how long it's going to be before we get the story about why the ghost of his wife is haunting his house. TopDEAD TO RIGHTSA rich young man is in a coma. He's braindead, but the machines keeping him alive are tying his soul to his body, keeping him prisoner. The family is wracked in a legal battle between the daughter, who wants to let him die and the parents who insist on keeping him alive. Melinda's back in the hospital, never her favourite place. This time, though, the imagery is particularly startling and disturbing before everything falls back into the pattern that every episode must follow and everyone has a chat that solves all their problems. Is there really no variation to be had in this format? TopDEJA BOOMelinda's pregnant friend is being haunted by a ghost with a split personality disorder that causes the other personalities to actually manifest itself. Or so she thinks, but it turns out that these are actually his earlier lives. He is a soul that is being reincarnated and doesn't want to be. When the friend's baby is born and the ghost is still there, the question becomes whose baby is he destined to be? At last, an episode that does something different. OK it starts out like all the others, but then the reincarnations aspect comes in to make it much more interesting, especially when it seems certain that the baby isn't going to be born and Melinda realises the connection that must lie between the ghost and herself. Of course, it switches back at the end into default mode with everyone talking it out and the light being summoned, but there is perhaps still a little hope for this show yet. TopSPEED DEMONA ghost with a leather jacket and no skin starts to make Melinda's motoring life hell. He turns out to be a local street racer who died and year ago and believes that his girlfriend was to blame. He intends to return the favour. Melinda Gordon gets all Fast and Furious? The street racing background is so utterly incongruous that it shows up all the things that are wrong about this show all the more. The ghost makeup is just like The Ghost Rider without his flames and really isn't convincing. Other than that and the flashy cars, it's business as usual with all the usual stages ticked off before the inevitable conclusion. Predictable seems to be this show's watchword. TopMEAN GHOSTMelinda goes back to High School when members of the cheerleading squad start meeting with unusual accidents. A goth member of a witchcraft circle might be to blame. It all took place in the boiler room of the school and so it's there that Melinda plans the reconciliation. There are some really creepy images in this episode. I'm not talking about the ghost, but about Jennifer Love Hewitt trying to play her high school self. It's just not right. Then there's the matter of the slow motion girl in the school shower scene. Gratuitous is a word that won't cover it. As for the rest - ho hum, here we go again. TopTHE CRADLE WILL ROCKMelinda and Delia get caught up in an armed robbery. Shortly afterwards, the ghost of the jewellery store assistant shows up and asks Melinda for help. She gets trapped in a house with the robber, now a killer, and his girlfriend in search of the loot that they stole. Or did they? Now this shows what you can do with the format if you move away from the 'get everyone together for a chat' structure that the show sticks so close to. This departs from that template and is all the better for it. The truth behind the robbery and the ghost's actions comes out as part of an, admittedly standard, crime plot that keeps Melinda in danger of her life and looking for a way out. It certainly raises interest levels higher than most of the episodes so far in season 2. TopTHE WALK-INA dead body gets up and walks out of the morgue. The original owner, now a ghost, comes to Melinda for help and she learns that he was the popular guy at school, a kid who never came good. The person now inhabiting the corpse is a classmate who died of MS and now wants to use the body to go to the class reunion. Jamie Bamber of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA guest stars in this episode as the man voted 'most likely to succeed' and who didn't. That is just about the only interesting thing that the episode has to offer. There is a short period when there's a feeling that the show might be trying something new for a second episode. There haven't been zombies before after all, but it quickly becomes clear that the ambulatory body aside this is exactly like all the others. TopDELIA'S FIRST GHOSTWhen Delia's dead husband Charlie shows up messing with the other men in her life, Melinda is forced to reveal her secret and the reaction that she gets isn't quite the one that she hoped for. The source of this week's ghost is closer to home, but otherwise this is just yet another ghost of the week episode that follows the formula exactly and that, quite frankly, is more than a little tiresome. TopCHILDREN OF GHOSTSMelinda meets a disturbed girl who is locked within the state care system when her mother ran out on her. Melinda tries to contact the ghost, but it seems only to emerge when the girl is upset and so she digs into the girl's background, learning a surprising truth. This episode manages a genuine creep factor because the ghost remains hidden and poses a genuine threat to Melinda with the damage that it causes, but it soon reverts to form. Disappointing. TopTHE COLLECTORMelinda runs into a man called Gabriel who also seems to be able to talk to ghosts. The trouble is that he seems to be imprisoning them in a house and using them to block others from crossing into the light. She also confronts Professor Payne about his dead wife. Ok, now this is what this show should be doing all of the time, rather than all that messing about with the ghost of the week routine. It is at first intriguing when Gabriel movies in adn then turns dark and then even darker. Not only do things not work out with the Prof's wife, but there is an apocalypse coming and its aimed directly at Melinda. Now, we can't wait to see next week's show. How long is it since we said that? TopTHE PROPHETAround the world, children are drawing images, images that relate to disasters that happened on the same day, disasters that Melinda is being shown by an anonymous ghost. They all point to one thing, that another great disaster is due to occur in only a week's time and Melinda must lead the dead to the light, but those who would prevent that are directly threatening the people that she loves. See what can happen when this show strays off the patented 'see the ghost, fear the ghost, research the ghost, reconcile the ghost with tears in everyone's eyes' format? This is a great episode that has some fantastic moments (the reveal of the ferry and the rain of falling cars are standout images) all of which point towards a season finale with a sense of dread and gathering doom. This is what this show can acheive and should strive for more often. Sadly, the presence of Julian Sands makes it likely that the kiss of death has just been planted. TopTHE GATHERINGAnd so it is time. Melinda tracks down the last of the children who survived the previous disasters and brings her to the others only to realise that she has put their lives in danger by doing so. Gabriel has hold of them and has taken them to a place of remembrance, a place where the fifth sign - the death of a loved one - finally happens. Against all probability, GHOST WHISPERER pulls off a great finale that makes us wonder what's to come in the third season. Considering that we were wondering why we bothered continuing to watch only four episodes from the end, this is an amazing turnaround. Much of the story is predictable (the whole Julian Sands strand was obvious from when he showed up last week) and the climax does seem a bit of a let down considering that last year we got a plane crash, but that's when the shock reveal comes and the real ending takes place. It's all about the children. We never thought we'd say it, but 'way to go Melinda!'. Top |
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