Ghosts Series 4 Review

By Ben Wright (@iamzavagno | www.xgeeks.co.uk)

This review is spoiler-free.

The ghosts are back for a fourth series and the show is bigger, better and funnier than ever!

Thanks to the easing of COVID-19 filming restrictions, the cast is allowed to interact in a more standardised way, and this really shows in the final product! They tried their best last series, but sometimes you could see the seams where filming restrictions sometimes limited the number of characters in a scene. As this troupe works so well together, some of that natural flow to the group humour was not able to come through as much in the last series. That is why I am so happy that the group dynamic returns for seires 4 and is stronger for it!

Each and every season, or special, they choose to focus on the backstory of one or two of the ghosts, and this time around the focus lands on Mary (Katy Wix) and Robin (Laurence Rickard) – two of the last ghosts we are yet to explore in detail. Coincidentally, both of these stories featured in the two strongest episodes in the series! Mary’s episode carried had the most emotional beats, whereas Robin’s featured a story with a bear that genuinely had me laughing out loud and had some of the best comedic moments in the series.

The writing in this show has been incredibly consistent in terms of the characters, the comedy and the emotional story elements. The show once again takes on a real journey full of great comedy moments blended in with the more emotional drama moments, and this formula is so tried and tested it just works and shows no sign of becoming stale. Each series the show just gets better and better and that is once again the case in series 4! The negatives are so few and far between they hardly need mentioning!

Ghosts continues to be one of the strongest family comedies on the BBC, and there still feels like there is so much life in the show for more series and specials to come.