Ghost Hunters Season 4 premiere preview

I do not think I can say whether I am skeptical of the paranormal world or not [though I should add that my browser crashed three times while trying to post this review and this never happens]. I am sensitive to spirituality within a faith-based context but I have never given much thought to ghosts or spirits or haunted houses. So I have no difficulty watching a show like Ghost Hunters if but for the sheer entertainment value of it, not really banking on it to make up my mind for me. And it is good entertainment. It has the trappings of a reality program: the team pep talk where the camera cuts to team members nodding their heads in agreement, stilted dialogue when setting up the next scene, the attractive female team member, Kris Williams, because research is hot. But the show stills managed to hold my interest despite all that I guess because of the team’s own conviction towards paranormal sleuthing.

In the premiere episode of Season 4 the TAPS teams is invited to the American Civil War era Fort Mifflin, a sprawling facility that apparently played a key role in turning the tide of the Civil War. The staff and visitors have claimed over the years to have heard voices and seen apparitions of the fort’s earliest inhabitants, staff and prisoner alike. TAPS set themselves up at the fort for the night and monitor key areas of suggested paranormal activity; a room where a distraught mother hung herself, a prison, a building where a door opens and closes by itself and Casemate 11 an underground cell meant for solitary confinement. The facility’s lights are turned off and the TAPS gets to work.

The investigative part of the show balances tense moments and light moments between team members, just so the viewer doesn’t get completely wound up from the quiet moments when one team member says to another, ‘Shh. Did you hear something?’ There are some good jump moments in the episode. One of the co-founders Grant gets the piss scared out of him after some paranormal activity in Casemate 11 and one of his investigators Dave gets the willies when he comes across one of the fort’s inhabitants.

In the end Grant and his partner Jason present the evidence of their research to the fort’s caretaker [insert crack of thunder and lightening?]. Then they decide if indeed Fort Mifflin is haunted. Using infrared cameras, Thermal-Imaging, EVP sound recorders and their can-do spirit they come to their conclusions then drive off into the sunset without summoning a priest to perform an exorcism. Ghosts sell more tickets. I see the “evidence” and I hear the “evidence” but none of it made me a believer. What is important is that the show entertains, it is a good diversion and it has been a ratings bonanza for SciFi. Heck, if things continue along like this I may just have to catch a couple more episodes.

Season 4 of Ghost Hunters launches on Wednesday at 9pm.