Ghost Whisperer – Barbie’s Dream House of the dead

Ghost Whisperer is one of those shows that’s pretty episodic. For the most part, you can come and go as you please, and you won’t be too lost. Unless you try to understand what’s going on with Jim/Sam. That one’s a bit of a headache even for people who watch it every week.

But what they’ve been doing of late is even more annoying. Rather than have any real character growth and development and progress within the context of each weeks’ stories, they’ve just tacked on these scenes at the end to take care of that for you. Last week, after the ghost went into the light, we got “Oh my god, I’m pregnant!” in an unconnected epilogue. This week, we got another major development the same way.

It’s a shame, because it’s perfectly feasible to work these character moments into the narrative of the week’s spectral adventure. It might even create a nice connection between Melinda’s personal struggles and her ghostly ones if the two were to thematically connect. They didn’t this week.

We did, however, get a pretty interesting haunting involving a dead family trapped in a bizarre homemade dollhouse. By breaking all the Ghost Whisperer “rules” of hauntings, it made for a pretty compelling mystery. I was as convinced as everyone else that Aunt Lucy was behind the deaths of Emma’s family.

It was a pleasant enough turn of events to find out that it was out of concern for Emma that she was outside their house while they were dying from a burnt out pilot light. It was also fairly typical Ghost Whisperer. There was a part of me that was actually excited that we might get another real live human threat on the show.

But it was at the end, and completely disconnected from the main plot except for an earlier scene of Melinda looking for her wedding rings, that Sam/Jim proposed. Which is our “major development” for this week. Now with only two installments until the season finale, I’m sure they’ll throw some kind of kink into the works. After all, Sam and Melinda have known each other less than two months to the outside world.

Still, if you do give us some big dramatic season finale … you better address it next season. No more of this “missing shadow” crap like last year that wasn’t even talked about in the season premiere and then just kind of ignored; we’re still not 100% on what it meant. Was it Jim’s death? Professor Payne’s leaving (hey now that Gary Unmarried might get canceled, maybe he’ll come back!)? Do better this year!

Clacked by Jason Hughes
on May 01, 2009 @ 23:00 EST5EDT