'Ghosts' Sees CBS Adapt Spirited U.K. Comedy

Cast of CBS's Ghosts
Utkarsh Ambudkar (front l.) as Jay and Rose McIver as Samantha in ‘Ghosts.’ (Image credit: Cliff Lipson/CBS)

Single-camera comedy Ghosts premieres on CBS Oct. 7. Adapted from a U.K. show, Ghosts is about a journalist and a chef who inherit a giant country estate that’s in rough shape, and decide to convert it into a bed & breakfast. They then realize the place is inhabited by ghosts. 

Rose McIver plays journalist Samantha and Utkarsh Ambudkar portrays chef Jay. 

Danielle Pinnock, Brandon Scott Jones, Sheila Carrasco and Richie Moriarty play some of the ghosts. 

Kelly Kahl, CBS Entertainment president, described the show as “really intelligent” in an interview with B+C. “We’ve seen what the BBC series has done and that has given us a real nice road map, a path to produce these episodes,” said Kahl, who described Ghosts as more akin to a workplace comedy than a supernatural series. 

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Executive producer Joe Port, speaking at a TCA Press Tour session, called Ghosts “tailor-made to adapt, because such a big part of the British show is those British archetypes that are their wonderful ghosts. And so, [exec producer] Joe [Wiseman] and I saw a big opportunity to put our own stamp on it with American archetypes for this show. Some of them bear quite a resemblance to their British counterparts, and others are big departures.”

The show is shot in Montreal. 

McIver, from New Zealand, had the lead part in The CW series iZombie. She said she gets a kick out of working on supernatural shows. “I always grew up with an appreciation that as an actor you get this chance to go into this other world, whatever that might mean,” she said. “As much as I have been able to hopefully play some grounded versions, and some more heightened or stylized things, I feel like it's the best part of the job, being able to go in and dress up and become something that isn't just you every day. The escapism that comes in a show like this, and the humor--particularly right now, I just feel like something that I want to put on at the end of the day is something that makes me laugh and something that is a great escape from whatever the day may have been.”

CBS Studios produces the show, in association with Lionsgate Television and BBC Studios’ Los Angeles arm. Executive producing with Port and Wiseman are Mathew Baynton, Jim Howick, Simon Farnaby, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond and Martha Howe-Douglas; Alison Carpenter, Debra Hayward and Alison Owen (Monumental Television); Angie Stephenson (BBC Studios); and Trent O’Donnell.

Kahl called Ghosts “the most unique show, certainly the most unique comedy that’s gonna be on television this fall.”

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.