How could we lose? Well, for starters, that title. It doesn’t win the award for Lamest Fall TV Show Title Based on an Existing Movie Title—that award goes to UPN’s SEX, LIES AND SECRETS. But still, THE GHOST WHISPERER is a disadvantage a new show doesn’t need. Or, in this case, deserve.

The cute, plucky star of the show is Jennifer Love Hewitt, who co-starred with that BUFFY girl in I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER; so her 18-34 horror cred is there (or, you know, it was, 10 years ago). JLH is in need of a decent show, having flunked out of her post-PARTY OF FIVE show and more recently had plans to star as a sportscaster in another sitcom also crap out on her.

I know the JLH has pretty much no “heat” about her now—if she did, you wouldn’t see her on TV on Fridays at 8—but dammit, I’ve always liked her. I admit she’s limited, and I still maintain that her PO5 spin-off failed because she was saddled with big sweaters and not cleavage-baring outfits (let’s all be honest and admit that prurient interests are why some shows succeed with half the viewing audience), but I like her. So I’m sure I was easier on this show because of that fact, but there’s worse things than to have the JLH on TV every week (one such worse thing would be the JLH trying to have a singing career).

Love plays Melinda Gordon, essentially, a cross between Arcadia resident Joan and TRU CALLING’s Tru, a newly married antique store worker who communes with the dead. At her wedding, to patient, sensitive paramedic Jim (David Conrad), Melinda sees some ghostly writing in the window, and she talks to Jim’s brother (who we all know is dead, based on his words of support about his brother). But she lets this pass, and soon is back at work alongside her Latin-learning co-worker (Aisha Tyler, hoping to finally find a good show), and moving into her thus-unfinished house with Jim. Much of the show, exteriors and even some scenes with characters, is shot in the Orange Circle in downtown Orange, California, a place that looks like a backlot setting but isn't--it's nice to see a familiar setting like that, although where the snow in a later scene came from will be a mystery to all us CA natives.

Melinda constantly wakes in the middle of the night, and since the house is unfinished, there is plastic sheeting waving all around in a cheating sort of way to evoke a creepy atmosphere. Melinda, clad in various tight shirts and nightgowns (the producers seem to have taken a hint from failed TIME OF MY LIFE and improved her wardrobe a bit), is visited by a soldier who needs help returning home.

She digs into this ghost’s background, mostly so she can get a good night’s sleep, and comes to find that this Vietnam vet left a son behind but never got to say any last words to him. Last words seem very important to these ghosts.

She helps out the soldier ghost, even while being met with angry skepticism by the solider’s son. (The show is said to be based on cases of famous charlatan psychic James Van Praagh, and this part, the angry skepticism, is the part I imagine Van Praagh is well-acquainted with.) The show wraps up nicely, as you’d expect, and forced in a few more platitudes than it needed (when the JLH’s husband has a crisis of conscience and thinks about quitting, since he doesn’t want both of them to be in the “death business,” he’s reminded that they’re actually in the “life business… death is just a part of that.” And the final scene with the soldier ghost and his now-grown son is a bit groan-inducing. But… maybe it’s the JLH factor, who now looks more grown up (or surgically altered a bit in the face? Not sure which, but her appearance is subtly different, in a good way. She seems more than just the goofy girl she usually plays.), that has me somewhat interested in the show, but I liked the show more than I expected to. Sure, its sub-GHOST stories will feel the same each week, but a familiar show that slightly tweaks its format each time around so people know what to expect isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s not the kind of show that demands your loyalty each week, but it is the sort of thing that you might come across or set your DVR for and not mind sitting through when you have a free hour. Kind of like JOAN OF ARCADIA was.

Next Time: UPN's EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS