Dead Inside After Watching Ghosted

By Cade Culbertson, Staff Writer

Right off the bat, I was greeted with special effects worse than those found in “Attack of The Clones” and cheesy humor that belongs only in an Adam Sandler movie. “Meh” is the most suitable word to describe the first episode of Fox’s new fantasy / supernatural “comedy,” “Ghosted,” starring Craig Robinson and Adam Scott, which runs every Sunday at 8:30 PM.

Leroy Wright (Craig Robinson), a mall cop with a cliché backstory of being fired from the LAPD and blaming the death of his partner on himself, is recruited to a cliché top secret government agency with former string theory physicist Max Jennifer (Adam Scott), who was fired from his job after he was accused of being insane (which probably has something to do with him claiming that his wife was abducted by aliens).

They are then told by a top secret agent that in order to get their previous jobs back, they must infiltrate a (again cliché) top secret facility to find out what happened to an agent that disappeared. At this point, I thought that the writers would run out of clichés to use, but I was horribly mistaken.

When Leroy and Max infiltrate a facility looking for clues, they come across a locked door. Naturally, like any other show with a cliché government agency, the door is able to be “hacked” and unlocked by a stereotypical glasses-wearing computer guy who types random stuff on a keyboard with cliché random visuals on the computer monitor with “computer noises” (random beeps) coming out of the speakers.

Because it is a comedy, these previous aspects should be relatively forgivable – that is, if one could even call it a comedy. Perhaps that is being a little bit too harsh as the comedy isn’t actually that terrible at all. I found myself laughing on at least a few occasions during the first episode at the jokes, which were relatively funny.

However, what really ruined this show for me was that the delivery of the jokes most of the time wasn’t that great. The show would have actually been better, in my opinion, if it had fewer jokes as they seemed extremely forced and unnatural most of the time.

Speaking of being forced and unnatural, the plot of the first episode was just that. The show seemed extremely rushed and unrealistic; all in one episode, two people are recruited to be a part of a top secret agency and leave their former lives behind and don’t really seem to give it a second thought.

Despite all of this, the acting is actually pretty spot on. Even with his cliché backstory, Robinson is able to make the character of Leroy Wright at least somewhat realistic and believable. However, if you’re looking for a well-developed character portrayed by Robinson, like in “The Office,” you have come to the wrong place.

Overall, “Ghosted” is a “comedy” with poorly delivered jokes, embarrassing special effects, and a cliché story, but contains relatively good acting and well thought out jokes. Again, this is only after watching the first episode, so I feel as if it is somewhat unfair to judge the entirety of this show. I would give it a 6 out of 10 based off of all these factors. The show got off to a rocky start, but there is no reason that it will continue to be like this from what I have seen. Because of this, I can’t say to stay away from it, but I also can’t recommend it.