No, it’s not a stand-up comedy act, it’s a new five-issue series from IDW.  Ghost Whisperer the comic hits newstands on March 26 according to an article at TVGuide.com

"The show has become darker, and there are evil forces everywhere, and that makes it perfect for us," says IDW editor in chief Chris Ryall. "The plot of the comic finds a dead teenaged girl (who believes she is the Egyptian god Osiris) trying to wrangle earthbound souls away from heroine Melinda Gordon."

The publisher worries slightly about the fact that most comic buyers are male but Ghost Whisperer is a female show.  Hmm, he should take a look at who’s buying the Supernatural comics — I promise you they’re mostly the female of the species. 

Visit TVGuide for more art.

Wow, that was almost a season finale and what a finale it would have been.  Jus in Bello is the last Supernatural we’ll see for awhile and it was one heck of an interesting ride.

Basically, it was a bottle show — an episode with the main characters confined to a small location.  Ironically, the original introduction of Agent Henricksen was also a bottle show.  In days gone by (and maybe still) bottle shows were used when a series began running over budget.  By limited the locations and the setups, you could film a bottle show much faster than a normal episode.  Hostage situations and natural disasters were natural catalysts for this kind of episode and as usual Supernatural does it with a twist.

I call this, "Fort Apache: The Bronx" Meets "Night of the Living Dead."

The boys break into Bella’s hotel room in order to steal back the Colt but as it keeps happening this season the girls have once again outsmarted the boys.  (Normally, I’m all for that but I’m tiring of it on Supernatural.)  Our guys end up in a small town jail with Agent Henricksen gloating on the other side of the bars.

These early scenes were amazingly tense as both Jared and Jensen did a fine job layering false bravado over "oh crap, we’re screwed."  But things go from bad to okay, that might actually help when Henricksen’s boss (Peter Deluise) shows up and shoots Dean.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week SFI Channel’s "Ghost Hunters" Grant Wilson and Jason Hawes sat down to talk with reporters.  Here’s what Grant had to say about "getting scared on the job."

"Some of these places you’re in you get an uneasy feeling like you got to look over your shoulder. You’ll be startled by things. But, you know what? You were called in by people to investigate this. They called you in as professionals, looking for your help and guidance. If you run out of their house or, you know, you just tell them I can’t do this, I got to leave, then those people are stranded.

And not just stranded, but now they’re even more fearful when the professional that they called in is terrified to be in their house."

Get the full scoop on Grant, Jason and the season premiere of Ghost Hunters at SFUniverse on Monday.

Case File: 2007.01.31F
Code Name: “Beer, Wine & Spirits”

SUMMARY OF PHENOMENA
Case involves bar, owned by Brian in Smithtown, NY. According to Brian, the bar is cursed. No bar owner in the past few decades have been able to turn a profit at the location. Brian and others have felt the presence of a negative entity in the lower level. Brian can’t keep wine glasses at the bar because something keeps breaking them. Brian is convinced that there is a good spirit and a bad spirit there at the bar. He wants the negative spirit gone and to end the curse of the bar once and for all.

NOTES FOR THE DISPATCHED FIELD RESEARCH TEAM
• Heather and Katrina have been trainees for quite a few investigations. It’s time to test what they know. Therefore, this case will be turned over to them. Read the full post at Paranormal Insider

WITH MONEY TIGHT, ALLISON ACCEPTS AN OFFER BY LONG-TIME ADVERSARY LARRY WATT (GUEST STAR CONOR O’FARRELL, “CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION”)

Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble

Allison’s (Emmy winner Patricia Arquette) long-standing nemesis, defense attorney Larry Watt (guest star Conor O’Farrell) decides to use her powers to his advantage — for a change — by hiring her as a consultant. Unfortunately, Allison’s dreams tell her that his client is guilty of killing his wife. Meanwhile, Devalos (Miguel Sandoval) and Ariel (Sofia Vassilieva) individually start new ventures.

As far as Charles Fort was concerned, he was just going to the library to do research. When he began collecting newspaper clippings, stories, and other evidence of unexplained phenomenon, he had no idea that he’d eventually become known as the father of modern paranormalism.

Fort spent much of his adult life in libraries in New York and London, taking notes and gathering clippings on anomalous occurrences around the world. He was interested in alien abductions, psychics, spontaneous combustion and anything else that science couldn’t explain. He took these findings and condensed them into four books over the course of his lifetime: Book of the Damned, New Lands, Lo! and Wild Talents. It was Fort’s opinion that scientists often formulated theories and explanations based on their own personal biases instead of looking at the facts at hand. Fort collected evidence of the paranormal in an attempt to prove that unexplained phenomena did in fact exist, despite scientists’ assertions to the contrary.

In praise of Charles Fort’s expansive paranormal research, his friend Tiffany Thayer started the Fortean Society in 1931 to promote his work. After Thayer’s death, the International Fortean Organization was established, and the Fortean Times was founded. These organizations base their work on Fort’s theory that, “The fate of all explanation is to close one door only to have another fly wide open.” Read the full post at Paranormal Insider

Jus In Bello

AGENT HENRICKSEN CATCHES UP WITH SAM AND DEAN - Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) break into Bela’s (Lauren Cohan) apartment in order to get the Colt back, but she has tipped off Agent Henricksen (guest star C. Malik Whitfield) about their whereabouts and they are arrested. While Sam and Dean are locked in a cell in Colorado, a demon breaks in and kills some of the sheriff’s men and possesses Henricksen. After the guys vanquish the demon, the FBI agent realizes they were telling the truth and prepares to release them, but Ruby (guest star Katie Cassidy) shows up to a warn Sam and Dean that the jailhouse is surrounded by a band of demons with a powerful new leader who wants Sam dead.

Kim Manners directed the episode written by Sera Gamble.

Laura Leuter is the co-founder and president of The Devil Hunters, an organization dedicated to uncovering the truth behind New Jersey’s infamous cryptid. I spoke with her about the legend, sightings and her own personal beliefs regarding the creature.

Emily: What is the Jersey Devil?

Leuter: The Jersey Devil is a creature that has been thought to terrorize the Pine Barrens of New Jersey for over 250 years. It is often described as having the face of a horse or deer, standing upright on two legs. It has large, bat-like wings, and makes a high pitched inhuman screeching sound. The creature was witnessed by the Lenni Lenape Native Americans, as well as original settlers of the state. It gained a large amount of notoriety in January of 1909 when it was sighted over 100 times in a week later dubbed “Phenomenal Week.” Hundreds of people throughout the Delaware Valley encountered the creature in some form.

The most popular legend surrounding the Jersey Devil is that it was the 13th child of a woman known as Mother Leeds, who cursed her child during labor by screaming, “Let this child be a devil!” The baby was born but quickly morphed into the deformed hideous creature originally known as the Leeds Devil, later to be renamed the Jersey Devil. Read the full post at Paranormal Insider

"We first want to note that the strike is over and that the GHOST WHISPERER crew, writers and actors are gearing up to start shooting new, original episodes for this season which will be broadcast as soon as we can get them to CBS. Coming to work this morning was very exciting — it’s the first time in many weeks that the Universal Lot (where we shoot GHOST WHISPERER) was populated with people instead of a bunch of parked production trucks and vans. There were people going through the main gate, people on bikes doing production runs, people in crew vans scouting locations, people towing and driving rigs with gigantic artificial trees (for Clint Eastwood’s movie — keep an eye out in theatres for it) and wardrobe racks being rolled through the streets. The CSI crews opened up their stages, and Desperate Housewives began putting Wisteria Lane back in order (after their tornado). The hustle and bustle of Hollywood is back and it was really wonderful to experience it first hand."

It’s music to my ears!  Read everything Kim Moses and Ian Sander had to say at their TV Guide Blog.

Yes, it’s another musical clue and this time it was dueling episodes of Supernatural and Torchwood.

On Supernatural, Sam and Dean are on the trail of a man who disappeared while visiting "The Mystery Spot", one of those typical tourist attractions where the laws of physics don’t apply. And though the episode aired on Valentine’s Day, it should have aired a few weeks earlier on Groundhog Day because Sam was caught in a time loop to end all time loops.

It’s Tuesday again and again and again and to make matters worse, Dean dies at the end of every Tuesday just before Sam wakes up and does it all again.  Now, I was pretty spoiled coming into this episode so I had it all figured out in my head, but boy was I wrong.  I expected the show to start with Sam angsting over Dean’s death only to find out twenty minutes in that it was all going to happen all over again.  I knew the episode was going to go all Wylie Coyote by the middle but I didn’t expect the nail-biter that was the end.

Turns out Sam never had a chance to grieve for Dean as every death led directly to a wake-up call - Asia’s Heat of the Moment.  Loved Dean rocking out and the slice of life as the boys brushed their teeth and prepared for the day.  The banter in this episode was top notch - but how the actors remembered which slight variation they were on take after take was beyond me.  And when it came to synchronized sibling arguments — that blew me away.  Turns out our old friend The Trickster from Tall Tales was behind it all but his quick fix only makes things worse.

It’s Wednesday, and this time Dean is killed and Sam doesn’t wake up.  The montage that followed showed us a glimpse of Sammy turning into Daddy John complete with obsessive compulsive behaviors and a lonely lifestyle.  But did you have to show us him sewing up his own chest wound! (Shivers)

Sam without Dean is a sad sad sight and when the youngest Winchester agrees to murder the man who is like a father to him just to get his brother back. . .well, that’s more than even he can handle.  After some tremendous puppy dog-eyed pleading from Sam, Dean is returned but it’s a lesson learned.  Sam hugs Dean to within an inch of his life but the joy is short lived as the reality of the situation hits Sam hard.   Life without Dean is a given and it’s coming up very very soon unless Sammy can find a way to make a deal with the devil.

Over on BBC America (thanks to my DVR) was the Torchwood episode titled "To the Last Man."  It’s wake-up day for Tommy, a soldier from WWI who’s been frozen by the team for use in the future.  Once a year they wake him up and he gets to spend the day with Tosh, walking, talking and having a beer.  But this year his number is up and it’s time for Tommy to do what he was meant to do all along — keep time from collapsing in on itself. 

The most fascinating thing about this episode is the scifi explanation for paranormal phenomena, ie ghosts.  Back in 1918, the hospital staff things they’re seeing apparitions when what they’re really seeing are people from the future coming through a rip in time.  It’s a fabulous concept to explain all things ghostly and yet the very idea rattles my brain.  Like John Connor sending his own father back in time to become his father, young Tommy must go back to meet his ownself in order to close the rip.  Logic would have it that once he does this, he will again be taken by the Torchwood team, but into frozen suspension until 2008 when he’ll wake up and do it all again.  It’s all very chicken or the egg and I think I prefer to believe in ghosts.  Easier on my brain.

You know what else was hard on my brain?  Watching Ianto and Jack in that liplock!  Lollapalooza!  Couldn’t think straight for a full two minutes after that one.  Hey, if Tosh can end up in bed with frozen soldier from the past, surely Ianto and Jack can have a game of stopwatch between the sheets!  Gimme gimme.