I hope David Conrad is getting a pay hike for all of this.....

There are not many ghosts on TV nowadays, with Bob Barker turning over his Price-is-Right reigns and all, so here in FEARland we bask in the supernatural series that are out there—especially when said series happen to star the lovely Jennifer Love Hewitt as a hottie with a knack for chattin’ it up with the undead! If you too have been following the recent events of Ghost Whisperer you might be crying in the corner, confused and uncertain as to what will befall your favorite characters. We’re aware of the pain you’re feeling and the thoughts you just can’t seem to sort out, so we summoned the help of Ghost Whisperer executive producers Kim Moses and Ian Sander to set the record straight on upcoming episodes, the DVD release, the status of those creepy “watcher” ghosts and what the hell happened to Melinda’s hubby Jim. Read on to see learn what they had to say!

How did Jennifer Love Hewitt react when you pitched this season’s storyline to her?

Sander:  Her reaction was actually very positive.  She is not only the star of the show but is a producer of the show as well. She very often finds it easy to put on both halves.  When we went through it with her she got very excited about it.  She’s a very romantic woman herself.  The truth of the matter is we have a theory in television and perhaps movies which is: unless you’re willing to go out there and try to do something brave then you’ll never be able to do something great.  It’s not as difficult to do something that’s good and be even down the line. We took what we felt was a bold move and an exciting move and something that was chancy and we feel that we’ve totally succeeded, and we hope that you’ll all agree that we’ve done something really great.

Moses:  Let me jump in here for one second… we want to be clear that Jim getting shot is not a stunt.  It’s the trigger to a new storytelling journey that we’re taking.

What would you say to viewers who were very disheartened about seeing what’s happened to Jim?

Moses:  What we would tell them is that first of all, the show is a supernatural show but it is based in character and grounded by research.  In regards to the journey with David Conrad and the character of Jim – he is an extremely talented actor and everybody loves the chemistry that he and Jennifer Love Hewitt have on screen.  When we were casting – you always hope for that magic – but you could never imagine that you could get something this powerful, so as we’ve moved forward, what we’ve done is we’ve realized that we want to give their relationship more screen time.  But you have to balance that screen time with the ghosts, so the way to do that is with this to take the journey that we’re taking.  So what we want the audience to know is this is about hope, because very few people get a second chance at true love and that’s what this journey is all about.

Sander:  Very few people get a first chance at a true love – so for us to get a second chance is very special.  Another thing, in terms of your question that they may have been disheartened or worried about what happened on the show – our show in addition to having some sci-fi elements and some paranormal elements and some romantic elements, is also a mystery and as such you must turn the page and see where this mystery is going if you want to be satisfied.  And all viewers really have seen thus far was a page in the mystery and we want you to turn the page because we know you’ll be intrigued and satisfied and the mystery will be fulfilled.  Then of course we’ll continue to be mysterious because why would you want to keep watching without that page-turning aspect being there.  So we hope this will just be the beginning because there is a mythology to this show as we call it – and that is the ongoing story of the show.  Each episode presents self-contained, close-ended stories so that people will have been satisfied by the end of each episode – but the mythology is there so that people will keep coming back each week.  The real delight of television is that underlying mythology – in this case it’s that Jim-and-Melinda romance which will keep you coming back the following week and coming back again the following week.  So last year we got into the secrets that were behind Grandview, the town that they live in, and Melinda’s past with her brother and her father – that was the mystery that we were unfolding last year.  This year, it’s the Jim-and-Melinda romance that we’ll unfold and we think that it’s much more romantic and much more satisfying and we hope that people will agree.

Do you have any fears that you could turn off part of your audience with this plot?

Moses:  No, I don’t think so.  The whole motivation of this was to give the audience something special and raise the relationship with Jim and Melinda to a new level and give them more screen time.  We believe that it’s going to be delivered in a surprising way and a very special way and the audience will be able to take that journey with them as opposed to learning about their history later.

How are you balancing out this new relationship between Jim and Melinda from the pre-existing one?

Moses:  Well one thing that we are going to do is that we’re going to let the audience participate online with the old Jim and the new Jim because he has lost his memory, and so we’re going to ask the audience to help him remember.  Because what we’ve learned over the previous four seasons is that people watch the show, they’re devoted to the show, they pay attention to the details and they love the mythology of the journey and because they’re holding onto all this information we want them to share it to help bring back Jim’s memory.

The season three DVD has just come out with a ton of extras, with behind-the-scenes footage and games. Because of the nature of this huge storytelling change for the show, what types of interactivity can we expect for the season four DVD?

Moses:  That’s a great question, and let me just put that into context for everyone, the DVDs that we’ve released in the past two years have special features that are interactive that are based on online assets that have gotten a lot of attraction from fans and have shown a lot of promise in response from those fans.  And so we went to CBS/Paramount and we said to them that we thought we could take those and make them interactive on the DVDs with the special features so that you could interact with your remote control.  So we did them and it had never been done before and it worked really successfully.  So we did them the last two years and we’re going to continue to do them because it works for our fan base and for us and for the networks and the studio.

Sander:  In addition to some of the interactive stuff we’ve done before like the webisodes for the series, we’ve come up with stuff like the crystal ball.  Basically what that is is a special feature where it’s a crystal ball that reads your mind – and what’s fun about it is you’ll sit there all day trying to figure out how it’s really doing that – and if we told you, we’d have to kill you.  [Laughs.]  But everything from tarot cards to speed painting to Halloween card mash-ups… one of the things you want to do when you’re creating a DVD because there’s so many DVDs out there, everyone’s looking for a way to – 1 – expand your brand into different platforms, and – 2 – make something that will separate your DVD set from all the other ones out there.  Everyone does behind-the-scenes and interviews with the actors and commentaries – which are all important and great and everyone wants to see those things, but the interactive nature is something that we’ve kind of pioneered with the DVD.

Moses:  In season three what we did was created an interactive Haunted House.  In four for Jim and Melinda, these special features will be tied to the clues and to Jim’s memory and bringing that back and the journey of their romance.  So on the season four DVD, it will still be tied to the supernatural but it will also have that aspect of romance to it.

Sander:  And the Watchers, we’ll also be coming up with an initiative that will involve them.  We’re also going to be doing another series of webisodes which are the Other Side 3 if you will, that will also go on the internet and that will also deal with romance.  One of the things that we set up this year was that hope and romance would be big thematic elements of the story, and so we decided to go there with the webisodes also.  So we’ll be doing that – and it will parallel to the story, not Jim and Melinda necessarily – but will still run parallel to the story thematically.

Moses:  But also because we’re talking to you in particular, FEARnet, one of the things that we also want to let everyone understand is that we’re not changing the formula of storytelling – it will still have the mystery, the scares, and the ghosts.  It has always had romance but we’re just taking that aspect up a little bit more.

Sander:  Yeah, we just want to make this clear.  Our visual effects budget has not gone down any since we’ve entered season four – we still intend to scare you along the way and take you to an emotional place once we’ve entered the fifth act.  It’s just the ride that’s getting there, we understand that people aren’t only watching for this emotional effect the show has on you but we’re also very conscious that people want to have a ride on the way there that will scare them.  But we will be ratcheting up that journey along the way even more.