CBS Is Making Room for a New Spooky Sitcom, but ‘Ghosts’ Isn’t Going Anywhere [Exclusive]

Though Ghosts fans may have a slightly longer wait for the majority of Season 6, not much is changing behind the scenes. After tomorrow’s hour-long finale, Ghosts will return with an hour-long Halloween special this fall, followed by a Christmas special in December, with the remainder of the season airing in 2027. I recently sat down with showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman ahead of the finale, and while you’ll have to come back after the episode for our full conversation, the duo was able to shed some light on Season 6’s biggest surprise so far.

While they’ll be pulling double duty behind the scenes, Port and Wiseman confirmed that not too much has changed in terms of production. The main reason CBS is playing 3D chess with Ghosts is that the network is working to rebuild its comedy slate with heavy hitters after paring its offerings down to only three guaranteed hits: Ghosts, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, and Elsbeth. The network that was once home to I Love Lucy, Designing Women, How I Met Your Mother, and many, many more, has fewer comedies than ever on its fall slate. CBS intends to give its newest offering the biggest runway possible after cancelling freshman comedy DMV earlier this year. The offering in question? A similarly spooky new sitcom titled Eternally Yours that will be taking over Ghosts’ usual time slot this fall. The series hails from Ghosts showrunners Port and Wiseman and follows a married vampire couple as they attempt to accept their daughter’s human boyfriend.

Offering a little more clarity on why CBS chose to pair the new series with Georgie & Mandy, Joe Port explained:

“The thing was, they have three comedies, and so they like to pair comedies with comedies. They wanted to launch Eternally Yours after George & Mandy, which does well, especially the night of. It gets a lot of live viewers. I think Ghosts is the number one comedy on television in terms of eventual multiplatform viewers, so I think they wanted to give Eternally Yours a big launching pad, and now people will still get to see Ghosts a little bit in the fall, keep their appetites satisfied, and then come back with a whole batch of episodes, 20 more, in the spring. So, we’re excited, and we’re getting to work here. It’s going to be a fun, busy year.”

How Is ‘Ghosts’ Changing Its Production Schedule For Season 6?

Image via Bertrand Calmeau/CBS

Launching a Port and Wiseman comedy behind a Chuck Lorre Big Bang Theory spin-off already worked once for CBS, and it seems the network is confident it will again. However, Port and Wiseman are far from resting on their laurels when it comes to their first sitcom. While Ghosts fellow Thursday night series, Matlock, was moved at the request of showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman for more time to work on the story, Port and Wiseman are already back at work on the new season. “Well, it’s actually not providing us with any additional writing time,” Port revealed. “We started the Ghosts writers’ room this week, and we’re going to start Eternally Yours next week.”

With both shows filming in Montreal and sharing plenty of overlap behind the scenes, Port confirmed, “We’re shooting the shows concurrently, and because we have to have the holiday episodes ready for the fall, we’re getting up and running just as we normally would. We’re still doing 22 episodes. Unlike some of the shows on various networks that are coming out mid-season, we’re still doing a full 22 order.” Wiseman chimed in to also confirm that the two holiday specials do still count towards Season 6’s overall episodes, saying, “It’ll be 18 more because the two specials are going to count as four.”

For fans concerned about the seemingly longer wait, Wiseman was quick to offer some reassurance. He told Collider:

“And I feel like midseason is a little misleading because we’re premiering in late October, which is only about two weeks later than we normally would. By the time the new year comes around, we will have aired four episodes. I know it’s two specials, which is only, like, three or four less than we normally would have at that point, but I get that it’s a different time slot, and so it feels a little different, but it’s not that drastically different than it has been in the past.”

What To Expect From ‘Eternally Yours’

With both shows filming so close together, I had to ask if there’s a chance we might see some cast overlap in the guest star rosters for each show. After all, Eternally Yours is headlined by Allegra Edwards, whom ghosties may recognize as Pete’s (Richie Moriarty) island girlfriend Donna. Rose Abdoo, who plays producer Paula — and is set to return in tomorrow’s finale — has also been cast as a series regular in the new show. “Oh, that’s interesting. Maybe,” said Port when asked if we could expect to see the Ghosts cast in guest roles on Eternally Yours. While it sounds like nothing is set in stone with the writers’ room only just opening this week, Wiseman was also delighted by the possibility, saying, “It’s definitely a fun idea. Obviously, we love the cast, and it would be really fun.”

Port got a little more meta with the concept, saying, “I think it might be more likely to see some vampires coming by Woodstone, but either way, it would be very interesting.” While it’s not confirmed that the shows are set in the same universe, it sounds like they could be primed for a future crossover eventually. This is something the Ghosts cast has been on board with as early as last year, with Asher Grodman telling Collider, “I don’t think there’s a ghost in the house that wouldn’t love a vampire, and think it’s the coolest thing in the world,” at SDCC.

Speaking with Collider last week for her return to Ghosts, Abdoo revealed that she’d love nothing more than to play her roles on both spooky shows at the same time. “I’m very excited for the pilot,” said Abdoo, “the new show from the Joes (Port and Wiseman), Eternally Yours. And I want to make space to do Phyllis and Paula at the same time. Can that happen? I don’t know. Is that greedy?” When asked what she could share about the new series, Abdoo gave a brief rundown of what to expect, and it sounds like a perfect mashup for fans of previous found-family haunted comedies like Ghosts and What We Do in the Shadows.

“It’s super hilarious,” explained Abdoo. “I would hear, ‘Oh, this show is about vampires.’ And I am not a traditional vampire, like, aficionado. I don’t know a lot about [vampires]. But the show is so hilarious. It’s about family. So if you love vampires, you’ll love it. 100 million times. If you’ve never heard of anything with vampires or haven’t ever dipped your toe into that world, you’ll still love it 100 million times because it’s, at its core, a family comedy.” She also had the highest praise for her co-stars, saying:

“And I’m just so delighted with the way the pilot turned out. It’s the most wonderful cast. And it’s just fantastical, but still grounded in reality, which is so difficult to do. I’m so excited about the cast. I’ve worked with many, many casts over the years, and I think this has to be personality-wise, one of my very, very favorites. They’re just wonderful. I think people are just going to absolutely love it. I’m just so grateful that it’s going to get to go on for several episodes. We don’t know how many yet, but we hope it’s a very long time.”

Ghosts’ hour-long Season 5 finale airs on CBS on Thursday, May 21, at 8:30 PM ET and will be available to stream the next day on Paramount+. Eternally Yours will take over the same time slot this fall. Stay tuned at Collider for more updates, including the rest of our conversation with Port and Wiseman.

Release Date

October 7, 2021

Directors

Christine Gernon, Jaime Eliezer Karas, Katie Locke O’Brien, Nick Wong, Jude Weng, Pete Chatmon, Richie Keen, Alex Hardcastle, Kimmy Gatewood, Matthew A. Cherry, Cortney Carrillo

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  Rose McIver

  Samantha Arondekar

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  Utkarsh Ambudkar

  Jay Arondekar