Why Would CBS Remake BBC One’s Brilliant Comedy Ghosts When the Original Is Already Perfect?

This weekend, CBS released a new trailer for their upcoming series Ghosts, about a young couple who moves into an inherited estate with the intention of turning it into a bed and breakfast. But as it turns out, the property is already inhabited by a coterie of ghosts, all of people who died there at various points over the previous centuries (and beyond).

If that premise sounds interesting, I have good news for you: The series already exists in its perfect form. The CBS remake is based on a British series that premiered in 2019 and is about to go into its third season.

After a near-death experience, Alison Cooper (played by Charlotte Richie, who also stars in the hilarious and heartbreaking series Feels Good, which is on Netflix now) is able to see the ghosts living in the estate she just inherited. No one is thrilled by this development, but the ghosts are unable to force the interlopers to leave and Alison and her husband Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) are stuck with a massive loan they just took out for renovations. When they realize that there are benefits to having a living person around who can see/hear/do favors for them, the ghosts resign themselves to letting the couple stay and a symbiotic (or possibly co-dependent) relationship forms.

Ghosts is a must-watch installment in our current era of kind, cozy television. (If you’re craving more Ted Lasso in between episodes, this show, while very different, fills the same void well.) It’s wonderfully silly and has an immense heart.

Here’s the season one trailer:

Now here’s the trailer for the American version:

I would love for this to be good. Rose McIver (iZombie) is great! It’s being written and executive produced by Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, who worked together on some wonderful shows like New Girl and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. But the trailer looks like what you might expect from an American remake for CBS (notoriously the blandest of all the network channels): a generic, flattened-out, completely unnecessary dud.

Good luck to this series (which was already picked up for a straight-to-series order) but in the meantime, if you haven’t yet watched the original, it’s available to stream on HBO Max and I can’t recommend it enough.

(image: BBC)

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