Ghost Will Offer Dark Answers
Jennifer Love Hewitt, who stars as medium Melinda Gordon on CBS' Ghost Whisperer, told SCI FI Wire that the season-two finale will provide an explanation for her character's frequent encounters with the dark side of the spirit world. "You will finally understand in the end of the season why the dark side sort of has this defiant stare on this girl in particular," Hewitt said in an interview on the set. "The thing that people will definitely understand is why there is such a personal attack on this one person. And for Melinda, she will understand why. And it will not be going away anytime soon. And so it's something that she's really going to have to sort of get comfortable in fighting over and over again."
Hewitt also revealed that Melinda's reputation is beginning to grow outside of her small home town of Grandview. "I think one of the neat things that I'm fascinated most with our season finale is that you will also find out that it's not just people in Grandview who know about her," she said. "There are people in the world who know about this woman. [You will find out] why they know about her, and how that sort of all connects with the spiritual world, why the dark side is so forceful, not just with everybody, but with her."
Throughout the second season, the theme of the show has been the growing strength of the spirit world and the thinning veil between life and death. Hewitt confirmed that the finale will push that concept even further. "The [spiritual] side of things is getting stronger, because unfortunately—or fortunately, for our show—it's sort of only her in the light," she said. "And so, hopefully, in the third season maybe we'll find some more light people out there that can kind of help her combat the dark. But the dark is winning the war for this moment in time. Not for long, though. I get them."
Before the season is over, the audience may even meet some of those working for the dark side. "You will also find out that there are other people in the world who have this gift," Hewitt hinted. "They're not nearly as cute, so we won't be telling their stories." Ghost Whisperer airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The season finale airs May 11.
Ghosts Haunt Whisperer Set?
Jennifer Love Hewitt, who stars in CBS' supernatural series Ghost Whisperer, told SCI FI Wire that she's had a few encounters with what she believes are spirits on the set. "We've had all kinds of things happen," Hewitt said in an interview on the set last week. "My makeup artist, we took a picture of her, and she had this sort of white film over her face, and we took another picture of her 10 minutes later in another part of the [set], and there was nothing. And we had [producer and self-styled medium James Van Praagh] sort of look at it, and he was like, 'Yeah, absolutely, there's a ghost attached to her.'"
In the show, Hewitt plays Melinda Gordon, a woman who communicates with the dead and helps them cross over to the other side. This season saw the addition of Camryn Manheim and Jay Mohr to the cast. According to Hewitt, Mohr has already had his own encounter with playful spirits on the set. "We've had lights explode," Hewitt said. "That's Jay Mohr's favorite story, because he was so excited that it was [his] head that it exploded over. Who in the world would be excited about glass exploding over their head? No one but Jay Mohr. But he's very excited about that."
But Hewitt said that most of the supposed paranormal activity has been centered on her, with good reason. "I've had them show up around me a lot on film," she said. "I think it's exciting. I think it's neat. For people [who] don't believe, if it's just sort of a weird coincidence, that's kind of cool. And for people like me, who do believe, I feel like we tell their stories every week. The spirits are really the stars of the show. And if they stop by to say, 'Hey, thanks,' and make an appearance every now and then, it's their show, they should."
Hewitt added with a smile: "This is supposed to be the most haunted stage, by the way. So enjoy yourselves." Ghost Whisperer airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Ghost Webisodes Inform Finale
Kim Moses, executive producer of the CBS series Ghost Whisperer, told SCI FI Wire that a newly created series of eight webisodes titled Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side will eventually tie into the show's two-part season finale. "Every webisode is a little story within itself," Moses said in an interview on the set March 27. "There's a beginning, middle and end. The end is a cliffhanger that propels you into the next webisode. And then the final propels you into the season finale. And our dream is to go from the television series to propel you back into the webisodes and back around."
In the first installment, which went live March 30 on CBS.com, a bike messenger named Zach (played by newcomer Mark Hapka) becomes a ghost and begins to piece together the events leading up to his death. In the course of the eight episodes, Zach will meet up with other ghosts and learn how to navigate the spirit world before his journey finally takes him to Grandview, the town where ghost whisperer Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt) resides.
Moses said that one of the reasons for doing the online series was to establish the rules of ghosts, which would later be applied to the main series as well. "We get enormous amounts of e-mail from people asking what the ghost rules are," she said. "We're seeing how they're applied by way of the ghosts. Because before, they were applied through the world of the living. So these ghost rules—it's the same ghost rules that deal in both worlds—but they're used differently. And as Melinda's on her journey learning them, so are these ghosts. And some know more than the others. And so you'll see as he goes through this series he encounters other ghosts and he learns some things. And then he empowers himself, and it's interesting where that empowerment takes him."
This isn't the first effort on the part of producers to bridge the gap between television and online content. "Our whole mantra is to intersect television with the Internet to create magic, and we're hoping that this is one of the ways of doing it," Moses said. "We spend a lot of time with our team reaching out to ... Web sites and a core audience and constantly building on what the theme of the A story is. And we go to those worlds on the Internet constantly to bring in more and more eyeballs. And that seems to be working."
Ghost Whisperer airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT. A new webisode will be released each Friday from now until May 4, leading up to the first part of the season finale on May 11.
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/ghost_whisperer/the_other_side/ 