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Ghosts On Normal TV Shows

The Soap demonic possession episode scared the crap out of me as a kid.

https://tv.avclub.com/soap-episode-44-1798228049

Great show. They had Burt replaced by an alien, too (one for the UFO section). Unfortunately they were cancelled before resolving about a hundred storylines (they sent up everything they could think of in it, and the 1970s were the first modern paranormal decade).
 
The West Wing – “Two Cathedrals”

Ghost: Mrs Landingham
Seen by: President Bartlet

Mrs. Landingham was killed suddenly and unexpectedly offscreen, so this scene gives both Bartlet and the viewer the chance to say goodbye that they were denied in the previous episode.

Peaky Blinders – Series five

Ghost: Grace Shelby
Seen by: Tommy Shelby

Grieving for his late wife Grace, Tommy sees her apparition several times across the six episodes. He sees and speaks with Grace, who seems to appear to comfort him.
 
The West Wing – “Two Cathedrals”

Ghost: Mrs Landingham
Seen by: President Bartlet

Mrs. Landingham was killed suddenly and unexpectedly offscreen, so this scene gives both Bartlet and the viewer the chance to say goodbye that they were denied in the previous episode.

Peaky Blinders – Series five

Ghost: Grace Shelby
Seen by: Tommy Shelby

Grieving for his late wife Grace, Tommy sees her apparition several times across the six episodes. He sees and speaks with Grace, who seems to appear to comfort him.
There are quite a few episodes of 'normal' TV programmes where a character talks to a dead character who appears to them. I think it's Foyle's War where a young airman sees the ghost of his dead girlfriend - whom the audience don't know is dead - and arranges to go dancing with her. It's a way of coping with grief. It's also a way for a previously much-loved character to make a reappearance to boost audience numbers (she said, dryly).
 
There are quite a few episodes of 'normal' TV programmes where a character talks to a dead character who appears to them... It's a way of coping with grief. It's also a way for a previously much-loved character to make a reappearance to boost audience numbers (she said, dryly).

See also Rise of Skywalker!
 
Auf Wiedersehen Pet
Series 2; 'A Home From Home'


Oz, Neville, Moxey, Barry go to the supermarket to stock up on food, beer and toilet paper. The lads are at a loose end and Barry suggests brass rubbing but the lads try the Barley Mow. While brass rubbing Barry meets the local vicar who tells him about the ghost at Thornely Manor. Barry can't sleep due to the thought of the ghost, he goes to the toilet and sees what he thinks is a ghost.
 
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Auf Wiedersehen Pet
Series 2; 'A Home From Home'


Oz, Neville, Moxey, Barry go to the supermarket to stock up on food, beer and toilet paper. The lads are at a loose end and Barry suggests brass rubbing but the lads try the Barley Mow. While brass rubbing Barry meets the local vicar who tells him about the ghost at Thornely Manor. Barry can't sleep due to the thought of the ghost, he goes to the toilet and sees what he thinks is a ghost.
Admittedly I have never (knowing) watched Auf Wiedersehen Pet', but this sounds like the most bizarre synopsis of any TV programme, ever.
 
Admittedly I have never (knowing) watched Auf Wiedersehen Pet', but this sounds like the most bizarre synopsis of any TV programme, ever.
Haha, yes..on more detailed reading it is a rather strange synopsis. Brilliant show though.
 
In Season 7 of Mad Men, Bert Cooper twice appears to Don Draper as an apparition, once performing an entire song 'n dance routine to The Best Things in Life Are Free:


maximus otter
 
Auf Wiedersehen Pet
Series 2; 'A Home From Home'


Oz, Neville, Moxey, Barry go to the supermarket to stock up on food, beer and toilet paper. The lads are at a loose end and Barry suggests brass rubbing but the lads try the Barley Mow. While brass rubbing Barry meets the local vicar who tells him about the ghost at Thornely Manor. Barry can't sleep due to the thought of the ghost, he goes to the toilet and sees what he thinks is a ghost.
I bet it wasn’t a ghost.
 
Auf Wiedersehen Pet
Series 2; 'A Home From Home'


Oz, Neville, Moxey, Barry go to the supermarket to stock up on food, beer and toilet paper. The lads are at a loose end and Barry suggests brass rubbing but the lads try the Barley Mow. While brass rubbing Barry meets the local vicar who tells him about the ghost at Thornely Manor. Barry can't sleep due to the thought of the ghost, he goes to the toilet and sees what he thinks is a ghost.
I was just about to post the same thing, but you beat me to it kiwisaint. The “ghost” turned out to be an old tinker staying at the manor didn’t it..?

Great show – not too sure about the 3rd series though.
 
I was just about to post the same thing, but you beat me to it kiwisaint. The “ghost” turned out to be an old tinker staying at the manor didn’t it..?

Great show – not too sure about the 3rd series though.
Yeah, there was apparently an actual tinker ghost story associated with the manor. Barry sighted a real tinker who was randomly staying there (who in turn thought the Auf Wiedersehen crew were all tinkers dossing there to). Yeah, Series 1 was great...Series 2 was also good but it went downhill from there.
 
Yeah, there was apparently an actual tinker ghost story associated with the manor. Barry sighted a real tinker who was randomly staying there (who in turn thought the Auf Wiedersehen crew were all tinkers dossing there to). Yeah, Series 1 was great...Series 2 was also good but it went downhill from there.
Yeah shame about series 3. Series 2 used to air on Friday evenings and Fridays was my snooker night when I was 14, so me mum used to video tape the show for me. I’d get home quite late, Mum and Dad in bed, and both my older brothers out, so I’d nick a beer from the fridge and enjoy.

I remember the episode like it was yesterday. Barry getting spooked in the darkened church, the vicar telling him about the ghost at the manor, then Barry waking up in the early hours to use the toilet and seeing the “ghost”

What a shame, we can’t make such great TV there days.
 
I was just about to post the same thing, but you beat me to it kiwisaint. The “ghost” turned out to be an old tinker staying at the manor didn’t it..?

Great show – not too sure about the 3rd series though.
See I knew, almost always the Scooby Doo explanation. Hardly ever something unexplainable.
 
See I knew, almost always the Scooby Doo explanation. Hardly ever something unexplainable.
Yeah, the exception to the 'Scooby Doo' type conclusion being the Bergerac 'Fires In The Fall' episode discussed earlier in this thread...to quote:

'The Christmas episode Fires in the Fall (which features a Bergman-esque representation of Death which appears, to judge from the last line, to have been real in spite of a 'Scooby-Doo' explanation having been offered a scene earlier)'
 
Yeah shame about series 3. Series 2 used to air on Friday evenings and Fridays was my snooker night when I was 14, so me mum used to video tape the show for me. I’d get home quite late, Mum and Dad in bed, and both my older brothers out, so I’d nick a beer from the fridge and enjoy.

I remember the episode like it was yesterday. Barry getting spooked in the darkened church, the vicar telling him about the ghost at the manor, then Barry waking up in the early hours to use the toilet and seeing the “ghost”

What a shame, we can’t make such great TV there days.
So true. I was working on building sites when the first series came on and the characters were so realistic. I could see the same type of people every day on site. I think we tend to forget how good these early TV series were and how they made the characters seem to have real depth without just seemingly reaching for the screenwriters sterotype handbook where every policeman has a troubled past, every teenage tearaway comes from a broken home and so on.
 
So true. I was working on building sites when the first series came on and the characters were so realistic. I could see the same type of people every day on site. I think we tend to forget how good these early TV series were and how they made the characters seem to have real depth without just seemingly reaching for the screenwriters sterotype handbook where every policeman has a troubled past, every teenage tearaway comes from a broken home and so on.
As a young Kiwi in the 1980s, between Auf Wiedersehen Pet/Coronation Street/Emmerdale/EastEnders/Taggart it was a great way to learn many of the different accents and dialects of the United Kingdom.
 
There are quite a few episodes of 'normal' TV programmes where a character talks to a dead character who appears to them. I think it's Foyle's War where a young airman sees the ghost of his dead girlfriend - whom the audience don't know is dead - and arranges to go dancing with her. It's a way of coping with grief. It's also a way for a previously much-loved character to make a reappearance to boost audience numbers (she said, dryly).
there was a fantastic episode of scrubs where Dr Cox is talking to his brother-in-law (played by Brendan Fraser) at multiple points in the episode. Right at the end we discover that the BIL has been dead all along, and Dr Cox is struggling to come to terms with it. I don’t mind admitting that it managed to bring a lump to my throat.
 
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