Date Added
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
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Ghost Hunters Academy
Description
I’ve always been a big fan of Ghost Hunters (hereafter known as GH) on Syfy(formally Sci fi), and to a lesser extent a fan of Ghost Hunters International (GHI), so I was interested to watch the first episode of Ghost Hunters Academy (GHA?). It seemed like a solid premise, take two of the original Ghost Hunters, throw them in a bus with a bunch of wannabe’s, and let the ghost hunting schooling begin. The nice thing is that if some of the trainees don’t work out too well, there is a chance they get kicked off and replaced with new members. Should keep things fresh and interesting.
I have to admit though, I was a bit disappointed with Syfy’s choice for who should “lead” the academy. Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango. Apart, they seem like solid ghost hunters, and either one would be a solid pick to lead the academy. The problem is that when you put them together they start to resemble a really bad Abbott and Costello. Too many jokes and pranks, not enough ghost hunting. The one thing I do like about these guys though, neither one has any patience for people that claim to be mediums or psychics (two of which are on the team), which is nice.
Most of the academy members seem like a decent bunch, though I get the feeling that more than one of these people is just in it to be on TV rather than for a real interest in ghosts and the paranormal. It’s a nice mixture of guys and gals, though most of them look like they would be more at home modeling than hunting ghosts.
The first episode was decent without many twists or turns. It was mostly a “getting to know the team” episode, with Steve and Tango really just trying to get a feel for what the team knew, and who would be the troublemakers. I liked that Steve and Tango were pretty easy going about a lot of the mistakes made because, lets face it, it’s not like this is brain surgery we’re talking about. Something that I thought of asfairly interesting was that more than one academy member (on more than one occasion) tried to hide their mistakes from Steve and Tango, rather than admit outright that they had screwed up. On each occasion the team member was caught, and Steve and Tango made it known that they didn’t accept any dishonesty (just ask Brian from the original Ghost Hunters, who was booted off the show for lying, brought back on, then booted again for the same problem).
One item I didn’t care for, was how Steve seemed to be going out of his way to “trick” the academy members. A notable occurrence of this was when 2 academy members reported smelling cigarette smoke in an old fort magazine storage area. Steve comes in to verify the smell, sniffs for a moment and then asks one of the academy members “This smells like the smoke from a hand-rolled cigarette, not a modern one, right?”, to which the academy member agrees. At this point Steve then lets the academy member know he was lying and that he shouldn’t be so quick to agree with what others say.
I just didn’t understand the point of this. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an episode of GH where when one investigator says “I just heard<insert noise here>, did you hear that?”, that another investigator doesn’t immediately agree. I understand that when investigating you have to be careful that you don’t persuade other investigators and tamper with their experiences and evidence. However, they do this all the time on GH, so I don’t know that Steve or Tango is the right person to chastise others for this.
Still though, all in all, a solid first episode. The team will need some time to gel, and Steve and Tango still seem a little tense in front of the camera and with the team, but I have high hopes for the show. New blood on GH is always welcome. Until next time….