Not
Gonna Be No Clay Wheels And Patrick Swayze #Ghosted #FOX
#3weekroundup #review #recap
All pictures courtesy of FOX
So
a lot of the TV season premieres have been a little staggered this
year, which I actually hate because then something new is always
coming on every single month. I’m not gonna go on a rant here, but
I think that things get canceled so quickly and nothing is ever given
the chance to stick and stay or build up a fanbase because of both
this culture to binge-watch everything, and because of this releasing
of shows at any old time across all platforms and networks. I think a
great many networks would really be able to see what they had if they
released all of their fall shows at once, then let them run for three
weeks before making any snap judgments, because you know that some of
this stuff is just going to get switched around by date and time, and
the worst thing to do is to switch its day or time after a few weeks
of existence. Dang it! I said I wasn’t gonna go on a rant. Why
didn’t you stop me, reader? Anyway, for today’s review we have
Ghosted. Does it scare up a good TV-watching time or is this show as
good as gone? Let’s find out together.
FOX’s
Ghosted (#Ghosted) stars Craig Robinson as Leroy Wright and Adam
Scott as Max Jennifer—an unlikely, totally odd couple drawn
together to stop crazy paranormal, supernatural and just plain ol’
bizarre happenings. Basically, this is the half-hour comedy version
of FOX’s defunct Sleepy Hollow mixed with a little X-Files. OK, so
we start with Scott’s character Max Jennifer in a book store
talking to a random customer-lady. He reveals to her that he used to
be this quasi-famous big-shot science professor at an Ivy League tech
school (MIT) on the East coast. It should be pointed out that this
show is supposed to be happening in California (LA, I think. Don’t
quote me on that). He reveals this because he tries to get the
customer-woman to believe that he is not crazy after he said that he
was going through a rough time in his marriage not because his wife
left but because she was abducted by aliens. Yeah, he’s,
essentially, that crazy-haired, big-noggin’d dude on the History
Channel’s Ancient Aliens show. Or any teacher/scholar off of that
show, really. And out of nowhere, he receives a bop on the head and
is kidnapped.
We
cut to Robinson’s character Leroy Wright who is working as a
security guard in a local mall. In some quick character building, we
learn that he is actually an ex-LAPD Missing Persons detective who
was recently fired. His former partner is dead, but his partner’s
family—a wife and son—are still around and Leroy, being the good
guy he is, tries to help out and be a friend to the boy, sticking to
the cop’s code of family. He has to go to a janitor’s closet in
the mall and is also bonked on the head.
 |
| Wait, So... What? |
The
two of them awake in the same room, sitting on chairs with a stern
white woman in front of them. Ava Lufrey (played by Ally Walker) has
ordered their kidnapping because she needs their help. She is in
charge of a secret government agency called the Bureau Underground,
which is pretty much like the MIB, save for paranormal and
supernatural stuff... And aliens. From what I’ve seen, the agency
basically covers everything under the sun, yet is so unbelievably
small that it almost qualifies as being quaint. One of Ava’s top
field agents just went missing and he left a cryptic message before
he was disappeared. The message: get Dr. Max Jennifer (yeah,
dude’s a doctor-professor) and Detective Leroy Walker. Have they
ever met the guy? Nope. But Ava cuts crap smooth and quick and offers
them restoration of their respective careers and positions if they
help the Bureau figure out what happened to their agent. With a
little bit of massaging, Leroy is convinced by Max and the adventure
begins.
Not
but a few blocks into this trip do we see how this show will play
out. Leroy does not want to be paired with Max in any way, which is
sad for him because they had to come as a packaged deal for the
mission or else no perksies. He tries to kick Max out of the car so
that he can be left to do his detective work alone, but Max pleads
with him in a heartfelt little speech about how this is all he has
after his wife was abducted and how after being called crazy for
believing what he did, this is the first chance ever for him to be
proven right about something.
They
continue their detective-ing through the city to get to the
disappeared-agent’s storage unit. In it, they don’t find much of
anything but they do find a copy of Max’s book. See, not only is
our good friend Max a doctor, but he wrote the book on Multiverse
theory and how there are multiple -verses as opposed to one and how
each one has its own replicas of the same people and oh my god, why
am I explaining this? If you’ve seen a comic book TV show or read
them or just about any sci-fi, then you know the principle.
The
team uses some clues to discover that the agent was working
undercover at a nuclear power plant but the Bureau has no idea why.
As it turns out, someone or something in the plant is diverting power
to another tower in some sorta sender-receiver coil hookup. Well,
before they can figure out where the power is going and why, they
encounter some goblin-eyed skinhead who looks like WWE’s The Big
Show. They manage to escape but only by their teeth’s skin. Back in
the lab, the team figures out where the power is going, then go to
what looks like an abandoned building. But because Leroy doesn’t
trust Max, he handcuffs him to the car’s steering wheel while he
goes and investigates. But suddenly some sorta purple/fuchsia/pink
tractor beam grabs the entire car and starts to abduct him.
Leroy
returns to the car and doesn’t see the beam but does let Max out.
Only now does he confess that the reason he was fired from the force
is because he made the judgment call to raid some room/building
without backup, his partner followed and was then shot. He feels
guilty for getting his partner killed and actually wanted to protect
Max by leaving him in the car. Together, they breach the building
only to find the missing agent dude in a room on what looks like a
surgical table or morgue table. And guess who’s there? That same
The Big Show-lookin’ son of a gun. Well, big and bald does
somethin’ crazy: he plucks his head off like a Lego-man’s head
and sets it on the surgical-tools table. This is the first
paranormal/abnormal/WTF thing that Leroy sees with his own eyes and
now believes a little somethin’, somethin’. But what, not even he
fully knows.
They
try to get the agent to safety but end up running from the headless
big man. They play keep-away with his head for a little while before
he finds them and yanks his head back. A very quick mover, the big
man somehow gets the unconscious agent up onto the roof before Max
and Leroy can regroup. Max gets to the roof slightly earlier than
Leroy and sees a spaceship tractor-beam the agent inside, then zip
off. It also returned the green-eyed Big Show goblin to a normal
human and Max is tripping. Leroy is still ready to dismiss the alien
story, though.
Episode
two sees the two men starting on their first official day as part of
the bureau. A fairly lax recruitment and field agent training, they
go through not a lick of basic Bureau Underground protocol or
training of any kind. They are just out on the job immediately. This
episode delves deeper into Leroy’s personal life. While Max is told
that his wife must be prepped to meet with him and it will take a
little while longer before he sees her, Leroy asks for the night of
Halloween off so that he can take his dead partner’s kid out
trick-’r-treating. Ain’t that just like a black dude: get a job
and on the first day ask if you can have the day off. Anyway, the kid
tricked his mom and is hoping that it is alright if Leroy drops him
off at some young girl’s haunted Halloween house party. At first
Leroy is against it, but Max plays the cool non-uncle uncle and
convinces him to let the boy live (we’re talking 12-year-olds
here).
Before
they can drop him off, they get a call about a “creature” with
“fangs and glowing eyes.” Ava is all freaked and tells them to
get over there now. Well, the “creature” turns out to be a cat,
but something is strange about this cat. It bites the boy. The boy
subsequently becomes like some sorta strange rabid zombie like in the
move Quarantine (or Rec). He flees from the car and runs all the way
to the house party. Dressed as a vampire, the young white girl at the
door thinks that it’s cool and she’s into this cool funny black
boy at her school. Then he gets on the floor, growls and bites the
hell outta her.
By
the time Leroy and Max show up to the house, every kid inside is
infected with whatever this is. Back at HQ, they concoct a plan to
create some kind of antivirus/cure but they will need to get the kids
to stop trying to bite everyone in order to administer it. So, Leroy
and Max go into the house with tranq guns and take out every kid
inside, including his dead partner’s son after video-calling with
his mom and showing the kid vamping on his back trying to bite his
neck. She’s none the wiser. It does play slightly funny.
With
the kids out, the day is saved until Leroy realizes that he’s been
bitten and starts to bite Max who he had duct-taped to the
passenger’s seat. Leroy is injected by Annie in the nick of time.
Back at the Bureau, the kids receive the cure and the day is saved.
And the kid awakes to thank his play uncle AKA Bee Mo (Beast Mode in
babyspeak) and realizes that the guy is not trying to replace his dad
but be there to support him.
Episode
three sees the team dealing with a rash of strange deaths. Some guy
was found in a resort hotel dead from no apparent cause. There are no
puncture marks, no cuts, no bruises and tox report is clean. But the
strangest thing, and what is surely the reason he’s dead: got no
heart. How the heck does a human heart just disappear? Who knows, but
while they’re trying to figure that out, Max is trying to dig deep
into Leroy’s life. After learning that he will finally get to see
his once alien-abducted wife, Max wants to know if Leroy had
somebody. Leroy at first doesn’t reveal it but finally relents and
says that his last girl he proposed to on the jumbotron at Dodgers’
stadium and she said no, and it was very hilarious. Sad for him, but
hilariously awkward for everyone else. He’s been off relationships
since.
Leroy
and Max go to the hotel to follow the one suspect they have: a past
doctor turned photographer who was caught on surveillance cameras at
both heartless murders—oh yeah, there’s been others. Some of the
firsts were in Florida and now they’re here. Undercover as a
Bachelor Party weekend with just two guys (saddest party ever), they
try questioning the photographer and circumventing the fine-ass lady
detective working the death case. Things get complicated when the
photographer dude dies in the same way as the other heartless fella.
Back
with Leroy and Max, as they keep detective-ing away, Max tries to set
Leroy up with the black detective. He succeeds and is free to go do
some of his own sleuthing while Leroy is trying to get his own
middle-aged-man groove back. Max sneaks into the dark room of the
photographer/once-doctor (he lost his medical license) only to find
that the doctor was also Scooby-Dooing. He was at the sight of both
murders not because he did them but because he was stalking the
person who did them, trying to capture her. With an assist from Barry
back at the office, Max learns that the real killer has tattoos on
her arm and that she is a succubus who yanks out men’s hearts with
a seductive love. Yes, it’s the cop.
There’s
a fight between Max and Leroy about how Max is totally killing the
vibe by interrupting his soon-to-be booty call and how he should get
out. Max is proven right and kicks the crazy succubus out of the
balcony window. She disappears and the day is half-saved.
They
get back to HQ and find that Max’s wife is ready to meet. He visits
her in some makeshift cell somewhere but she escapes, does that
creepy MIB-style vertical blinking thing, and tells him not to look
for her. And this is one of the many parts where you as a viewer and
fan of weird stuff are totally wondering, “Hm? You know, why the
hell isn’t there a live-action MIB show on TV? That woulda been way
better than the last movie. Will Smith, you don’t have to star in
it, but get to producing that show, man!”
What’s
my grade? I give it a solid B+. This
show is goofy comedy, so it isn’t going to challenge you in any
meaningfully deep way, but it will entertain for a little while.
Craig Robinson and Adam Scott seem totally in their element and
comfortable with their roles. They have a very good chemistry, albeit
not historically good (they’re no Abbott and Costello). But if
you’re looking for something close to Parks and Recreation or The
Office (their previous shows), then you might be out of luck. I will,
however, say that this comedy, while slapstick, is very much-so more
mature than FOX’s other big comedy/sci-fi add The Orville. This
show might actually have some laughable moments whereas The Orville,
in my opinion, really doesn’t.
There
really isn’t much I can say about this show. It moves at a good
pace as it assumes that you already know the concept so you should be
able to slide right into this show. It also doesn’t try to be
something it isn’t. It doesn’t straddle the line between comedy
or drama. And it has at least two overarching mysteries for the
entire season: what really happened to Max’s wife, and where the
heck did that flying saucer take the agent guy. It’s a solid comedy
addition to the sci-fi genre. Will it break any barriers or tread new
ground? No.
Should
you be watching? Yes. If you liked shows like The X-Files or
Supernatural or Warehouse 13, then you should probably enjoy this if
you also like a heavy dose of comedy with your “the truth is out
there” adventures. Ghosted airs on FOX Sundays at 8:30pm EST. Check
for it on demand to catch up.
What
do you think? Have you heard of Ghosted? If you haven’t, do you
think you’ll tune in for a peek? If you have heard of the show,
have you seen it? Did you like it? Where do you think they can
improve on the show? Which character is your favorite? Do you wish
that they would give Annie something more to do like I do? Let me
know in the comments below.
Until next time, “The truth is...
wait a minute, we’ve looked everywhere for the truth but one
place.”
‘Where?’
“Inside ourselves.”
‘Say whaaaaa!’ (mind blown!)
P.S.
Come up, now that’s definitely a good sign-off. Heck, it can even
be a good all-around sign-off for the first time finally, like...
ever. I could put that at the end of every post because it’s so
Kantian and deep and philosophical and—what? You don’t like that?
It’s nothing like the writings of the great philosopher I. Kant?
Fine. But just let the record show that I thought it was pretty good.
I’ll think of a better sign-off next time.
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