During their panel and pilot screening at San Diego Comic-Con, Ghosted executive producers Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten revealed their inspirations for the paranormal buddy comedy, while also teasing some rather interesting monsters we can expect to see in the show’s first season.
The pilot, which was much better than the show’s so-so first trailer, wastes no time in dropping Adam Scott’s true believer Max, an ostracized astrophysicist working at a bookstore, and Craig Robinson’s skeptic Leroy, a talented former LAPD detective exiled to mall security guard duty, into their new roles as paranormal investigators at the Bureau Underground — a secretive agency committed to investigating things that go bump in the night. They’re recruited (well, drugged and kidnapped) to find an agent who mysteriously disappeared, but who name-dropped the two of them as the only ones who could find him in his final communication before vanishing. Figuring out why he recommended them (they didn’t know him), and where he went, are part of the show’s overarching conspiracy.
In addition to the mythology of the show which involves, as far as I could tell from the pilot, dimension-hopping aliens, the series will also feature self-contained “monster of the week” episodes. If all this sounds familiar to you, you’re not far off base. Etten and Gormican revealed that The X-Files is obviously a major influence on the show, but it’s hardly the main one. Tonally, it plays much more like the buddy action comedies of the ’80s, which they revealed were their biggest influences. Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hours, and the more recent This Is the End were all mentioned as having the feel they were going for, and the show’s not too far off.
As far as what kinds of monsters we should expect to see in the series, the producers revealed it will be a combination of well-known cryptids and creatures as well as some new creations. For instance, a Bigfoot with long flowing blonde hair was mentioned, while the pilot featured an interdimensional being that could remove his own head — and his head screams a lot when it’s removed.
Overall, the show’s tone, subject matter, and creativity — as well as its talented leads — all look promising, so hopefully it will stick around long enough for us to figure out the big conspiracy at the center of it.
Ghosted premieres on Fox on October 1 at 8:30/7:30C.
