Posted on: Thursday, July 12, 2001

Ghosts appear with a vengeance on TV series

Associated Press

Those chills down your spine are not necessarily from the air conditioning. Your television set is haunted and no electronic exorcism will vanquish the ghosts.

An increasing number of characters on TV series are returning as walking, talking apparitions after they've died.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Hamlet advises a shaken friend after Hamlet's late father pays them a visit.

More things in heaven, earth and television. We're seeing so many dead people that a scorecard would help in keeping track of who's kicked the bucket and who still has a pulse.

On "Providence," tough-love mother Lynda Hansen (Concetta Tomei) died at the beginning of the series in 1999 and has been haunting daughter Sydney (Melina Kanakaredes) ever since.

"Did I really raise you to be this naive?" Lynda snaps in one exchange after she is confronted by her daughter about a long-ago indiscretion. A noodge in life, a noodge in death.

Nathaniel Fisher (Richard Jenkins) on "Six Feet Under" was mowed down by a bus in the series' premiere episode and immediately started dropping in on the wife and kids.

The new HBO series about a family of undertakers features at least one funeral a week, so it shouldn't have been a surprise when another ghost popped up: One of the mortuary's "clients" made a brief comeback.

The late, lamented Mrs. Landingham (Kathryn Joosten) was shown advising President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) in the season finale of "The West Wing," a poster child for postmortem loyalty.

Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart) chatted with ex-boyfriend Billy (Gil Bellows) after his death. Both FBI agents Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder (David Duchovny) have been visited by late relatives, while Lily's (Sela Ward) dad on "Once and Again" is another dead drop-in.

On the putatively nonfiction side of television, self-proclaimed psychic John Edward plays matchmaker between the dead and living on "Crossing Over."

"Civilizations tend to start talking with the dead when they become mature products — that is, when they have realized whatever dreams formed them in the first place and start to plateau," Roger Rosenblatt wrote in a recent Time magazine essay, dryly noting his own "brief edgy chat" with the late poet Robert Lowell.

Whether television has grown in step with society is arguable but, for better or worse, the medium sure knows how to milk a trend. At first glance, however, our contemporary TV spirits seem like mere doodles when compared to the slain Danish king in "Hamlet."

"If thou did'st ever thy dear father love, revenge his foul and most unnatural murder," he beseeches son Hamlet, setting turbulent events in motion before fading away with a chilling "Adieu, remember me." Another brief cameo, and that's it for him.

TV spirits refuse to make such graceful exits, continuing to mooch screen time in greedy mortal fashion. But these dearly not-so-departed turn out to serve a crucial contemporary role.

In a nation that has embraced the joys of therapy, TV's ghosts take on the job of shrinks. We could all use a little help, according to current wisdom, so why should series characters be left out?

Dad Fisher on "Six Feet Under" is helping his widow come to grips with her infidelity and a wayward son gain a sense of responsibility. Another Fisher son got a lesson in courage from the slain youth he was preparing for burial.

In "Once and Again," the father (Paul Mazursky) bestows wedding-day calmness on his family, at one point playing silent go-between for an anxious child and her future stepfather.

For the record, the Hall of Fame trophy for best use of a dead therapist goes to "Northern Exposure," which sent one of its characters for Freudian therapy to the late, great man himself. When the patient expressed skepticism, Freud was unfazed: "It's only a theory."

It's comforting to believe that answers to life's great questions lie just beyond the grave, along with familiar faces. From a narrative viewpoint, ghost counseling is inherently more dramatic than a standard couch session.

But they are not necessarily more religious: The spirits tend to be circumspect about their home base, whether heaven, hell or elsewhere, following TV's general pattern of avoiding matters of faith.

The number of spectral shrinks on TV could become a logistical problem.