(Review) 1.04 – Dinner Party

Favorite quote:
Hetty: “I told her a nip of cocaine would wipe that hay fever right out, but does she listen?”
Most memorable scene:
Me thinking that Newhart was a fake TV show that they made up for this episode until I looked it up and found out that it’s real
Star character:
Thorfinn the security guard
Overall rating: 8/10

In its own take on the episode “Moonah Ston” from the original BBC series, this episode of Ghosts sees Sam and Jay’s efforts to continue renovating the estate threatened by their older uptight neighbors, the Farnsbys. Desperate for Henry Farnsby, who is the head of the Historical Preservation board, to approve their permits, they invite him and his wife Margaret to dinner that night. Although Sam asks the ghosts not to attend, Hetty doesn’t approve of this decision and instead invites herself, Alberta, Thorfinn, and Isaac. This, of course, devolves into several hilarious scenes of sensory overload for Sam, who struggles to impress her guests over the constant noise of the ghosts.

While this episode returns to taking the basic premise of an episode from the original series, it wisely does not pull word-for-word dialogue, and instead focuses on strengthening the characters, their backgrounds, and their personalities. The episode is strong not because it falls back on plot and dialogue that has already been successful, but because it steers further away from the source material. The characters featured speak with their own voices and reveal more about themselves with a distinct sense of humor, even though some of them are based on the characters from the original series. This made the episode much more enjoyable, and sets up future episodes to focus more on adding layers to each character and how they interact with others.

After a second viewing, it’s clear that this show has begun to find its voice by this episode. It’s bright and punchy, and makes it clear that these characters are not just a ragtag group, but a family. The humor of Ghosts is at ease in the realms of both verbal and physical comedy and at ramping up both; in this episode, even after trying to remain quiet during the dinner party, the ghosts’ intervening results in a hilarious scene with all of them shouting and arguing while Thorfinn has Trevor in a headlock, with completely silent scenes cut in between to show what everyone beside Sam is seeing.

Overall, it was, once again, one laugh-out-loud line after another, and I look forward to seeing how the group and one-on-one dynamics play out in the future.