
	reboot

Release Date:

November 17, 2008

Press Release:

Scifi Channel

Who is he? It's not Jim for now.....

by Kathie Huddleston

The producers of CBS' Ghost Whisperer have been teasing us all season that something big was going to happen that would change the series forever. And then there were the ghostly warnings that death just might rub off in some way on Melinda (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and that she'd better be careful.

Our minds couldn't help but fill in the blanks. Was Jim (David Conrad) going to be killed off and then hang around the rest of the season, a la the 1990 Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore movie Ghost? Not so? Jim died, but at the dramatic conclusion of Nov. 14's episode, "Threshold," he jumped into the body of a dead man. Then Jim woke up but didn't remember who Melinda was.

OK, the previously dead guy looks like Jim to Melinda, but he's going to look like the original dead guy through everyone else's eyes.

Could the adorable Conrad be leaving the show? Say it ain't so, Ghost Whisperer Powers That Be?

"David Conrad is very important to the show. Jim is a character that is in the core of the storytelling, and he is not leaving the show: not in any way, shape or form," executive producer Kim Moses said in a conference call with reporters, which he held with fellow executive producer Ian Sander on Nov. 14.

"When we started the series four years ago, the pilot opened up on Jim and Melinda's wedding. And in the four-year journey, what we've found is that audiences really love their relationship," Moses said. "We're going to reboot Jim and Melinda's love story so that the audience can experience them falling in love from the very beginning."

"What we have found from the audience is that they have really fallen in love with these two characters," Sander added. "This was a way of going back and giving them a courtship, if you will, and a [romance], in a way that we think is very dramatic and very exciting."

The series' changing arc continues on Nov. 21 with the episode "Heart and Soul," which was written by P.K. Simonds and Mark B. Perry and directed by Sander.

As to what will happen with Melinda and New Jim (and whether or not he'll remain in the dead guy's body), we'll have to wait to find out. But the producers promise that the events will reverberate through out the rest of the season.

But why take a chance on changing up the core relationship in this successful series?

"We realized that we want to give their relationship more screen time," Moses said. "And so we have to balance out the ghosts, and the way to do it is to take the journey that we're taking. And so what we want the audience know is this is about hope, because very few people get a second chance at true love, and that's what this journey is about."

"Unless you're willing to try to stick it out there and try do something that is brave, you will never do anything great," Sander said. "Whether it's an actor's performance, whether it's a director directing a show or whether it's a painter painting, you have to try something bold and chancy and take those kinds of chances to do something great. And this is our way of doing that. We took what we felt was a bold move and an exciting move and something that was chancy, and we feel that we have totally succeeded. And we hope that you'll all agree."

For Sander, Ghost Whisperer has sci-fi, paranormal, romantic, funny and scary elements. "But it also is a mystery," he said. "And as such, all I can say to [the audience] is you must turn the page and see where this mystery is going if you want to be satisfied. ... We promise you will both be surprised and satisfied with what's on the next page."

As to what will be on that next page once the big arc ends, the producers tell us there will be many surprises. There will be complications to New Jim's situation "that have to be overcome by the relationship," Sander said. "As he's finding out new things, there are things [that surprise] him, and he may find out things in his memory that also surprise Melinda. And those kinds of things will bring in complications that we will work to overcome and that will make the relationship even stronger."

"The other surprises have to do with the other characters in the show," Moses said. "It's h ow that information and how this new relationship lands with the other characters. ... Sometimes the show has been the Melinda Gordon show in many ways. But there is an ensemble around her, [and] we now are finding we have the opportunity to explore all of that. And somehow rebooting this romance has given us the opportunity to do that, always in relation to Melinda, but their characters are getting to grow to new places." The other characters include Camryn Manheim's Delia, Jamie Kennedy's Eli and Christoph Sanders' Ned. "We think it's been a very freeing [part] of the show."

For those who want more than just one episode a week to complete their Ghost Whisperer experience, Moses said the producers have created what they call an "infinity loop," "where we do all of these things on multi-platforms--on the Internet and DVDs and youth outreach and many, many different platforms--to drive eyeballs to the show each week, and in-between give the audience a bridge experience. And so having the audience, this huge surge of interest and reaction. ... What's happening with Jim and Melinda, we feel like is part of that infinity loop."

Ghost Whisperer airs on CBS on Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.