The Laughs Are Out There . . . Just NOT in 'Ghosted'

Max (Adam Scott) and Leroy (Craig Robinson), partners in the paranormal!

‘Ghosted’ Follows a New Team of Ghostbusters

Fox’s new comedy Ghosted puts a different spin on the oh so popular odd-couple, and buddy-cop trope. This time it’s not criminals that are being apprehended, but instead paranormal pests and other worldly entities. With autumn here and the Halloween season closing in, the time couldn’t be better for the network to kick off their new show all about the misadventures of two new ghostbusters.

Max Jennifer (Adam Scott) a former astrophysics professor at Stamford and Leroy Wright (Craig Robinson) a former missing persons LAPD detective both had bright careers and reputations before, predictably, they crumbled and the two guys lost everything.

Max’s mad scientist devotion to studying and unlocking the secrets of the “multiverse” and losing his wife to a sudden alien abduction made him the laughingstock of the Ivy League university and got him fired. Now a cashier and shelver at a big chain bookstore Max clings to his “crazy”, scaring off customers on a daily basis .

Our other part of the odd couple, Leroy is living the Paul Blart dream as a mall cop. After getting the boot when his partner got shot because of his reckless decision to go in without any backup now, the most excitement Leroy gets in his days now is stopping homeless drifters from peeing in the fountains at the food court. And meeting up with his security buddies at the Panera Bread in the mornings to talk about politics and the world. And obviously eat that delicious bread.

Ghosted wastes no time getting to the action. Max and Leroy get tazed and snatched by a sketchy van.

Turns out they’re abducted by The Bureau Underground -- a secret government agency created under President Truman’s administration that investigates paranormal activity. The operation is the plain vanilla pristine and uber high-tech bunker that is the only way ‘secret government agencies’ are ever portrayed on television. It turns out that a BU Agent, Kurt Checker went missing while on a case. This dude was the one we saw in the opening few seconds of Ghosted, a scene that was loaded with laughably bad CGI effects.

At least there's not a single lightbulb swinging above them...

The ringleader of the whole operation, stoic and blond, Captain LeFray (Ally Walker) has a proposition for Max and Leroy-- the reason she sent her cronies kooky British forensics agent Barry Shaw (Adeel Ahktar) and weapons and tech creator Annie Carver  (Amber Stevens West) after the two was because somehow before he poofed off into red sonic boom force field thingy, Checker howled out an SOS demanding both guys by name. We instantly find out afterwards that this disappearance is linked to Max’s area of expertise -- travels through the multiverse.  LeFray in drill sergeant mode gives Max and Leroy two days to complete their mission: if they can determine Checker’s whereabouts LeFray will get them back their jobs and the BU will not bother them again.

Naturally, Max and Leroy shake their heads, but carry on. Not exactly keeping calm. So how does the comedy play into this? While it’s not raunchy, toilet humor, it’s not clever or particularly funny either. It is bizarrely both subtle but also ridiculous and outlandish-- as is how the plot and the BU operates. The way the BU can dig up cell phone records and find secret storage spaces in seconds is hilarious and unbelievable. It REALLY took Leroy telling Annie and Barry to pull up Checker’s cell phone signal and the last place he used his credit card to find this out? Really?

As is how Max and Leroy infiltrate the Water Bridge Nuclear Power Plant (where Checker went missing) disguised as copy machine repairmen and manage to get through the enormous building, past multiple security and employees and get into the reactor in an instant. Watching shows like this are meant to escapes, but this is just stretching it. A LOT. So much about Ghosted doesn’t add up. It’s a watered down take on the buddy-cop trope, with two leads who may be funny enough on their own (especially Scott who killed it in Parks and Rec) but together have not an ounce of chemistry between them. And jokes that are more cringey that comedic.

Ghosted’s tone as a whole is a flop. There’s absolutely nothing at stake here, and there’s nothing that’s really shocking or exciting. Max and Leroy are nothing more than tropes: Max the believer and quirky one, and Leroy the stubborn skeptic and complainer. The other characters are flatter than paper (as flimsy as it too) and uninteresting. There’s absolutely no action or a promising plot for incentive to keep watching further. We aren’t given a single reason to care about Max or Leroy, or to be interested in the generic and bland BU with it’s run-of-the-mill ‘secret agents’.

The thing is, in trailers Ghosted is marketed as a parody. As poking fun at the genre of ghost-hunting and the supernatural. But the premier takes itself way too seriously. How did the message get soooo lost?

As far as spoof shows goes, TBS’s police procedural satire Angie Tribeca, starring Rashida Jones in the titular role, is an example of a rousing success. Angie Tribeca was hilarious and unapologetically campy-- going at the humor hardly, loudly, and shamelessly, and it rocked at it! Stupid humor? Yes. But, hilarious all the same!

Here in Ghosted the laughs kind of there, but they’re weak and quiet. The special effects are laughable crude (those bright red spark explosions are fake with a capital F) and the plot is flat and uninspiring.

Will I be watching episode 2? Ehh... even though the  runtime of these episodes --without commercials-- is about 22 minutes, I’d rather put that time towards watching American Horror Story: Cult , The Good Doctor and season 2 of Riverdale. No doubt about it,  Ghosted is DOA.

images from IMDB