Ghost Whisperer Jumps Ahead 5 Years in Season Premiere

Last season on Ghost Whisperer we said goodbye to Rick Payne (Jay Mohr) and hello to Eli James (Jamie Kennedy). Melinda (Jennifer Love Hewitt) finds out she’s pregnant while Jim (David Conrad) is shot and turns into Sam/Jim. The Book of Changes shows up and we learn about “The Watchers.” As the season closes, we find out Melinda is having a boy whose abilities will be greater than her own.

Recap

As the season starts with the episode “Birthday Presence,” we find Jim and very anxious Melinda worried about the birth of their child. As the book noted last year, her child would be born on September 25^th, 2009. (Lucky for us, that is the air-date of this episode.) Worrying about the health of her child, Melinda heads to the hospital where complications arise and her child, Aiden (Connor Gibbs), must immediately be delivered via C-section.

After a commercial and a five year jump, we return to a child’s party. As more is revealed, we find out that it’s Aiden’s fifth birthday. Eventually, we meet up with all our favorite cast members and find out what they’re up to after so much time has passed.

Melinda is pretty much the same, but now a mother. Jim is a full fledged doctor. Ned (Christoph Sanders) is in college with Eli as one of his professors. Delia (Camryn Manheim) is now the belle of the ball with multiple suitors vying for her attention. Sadly, nothing much has changed with Eli.

After catching up with our familiar friends, we’re on to the ghost of the week. This ghost is a female who has been visiting Aiden on his birthday every year to sing “Happy Birthday.” After some “Scooby-doo-ing” from the team, we find that the ghost is of a woman who was pregnant and in the hospital at the exact same time Melinda gave birth. Sadly, the woman died while giving birth.

As the episode continues, we find out that the ghost woman believed her child died at birth and that Aiden had received the spirit of her child. What actually happened was that her child survived and was given to some adoptive parents that she had originally made arrangements with. There was some drama between her and the adoptive father pressuring her to hold up her end of the agreement and give them her child. The episode goes into it some more, but that was generally the gist of it.

The main thing we learn from this episode is that not only can Aiden see spirits, but he is an empath; meaning that he can sense, feel and relive emotions and events of those he connects with. He is also able to project events to his mother, Melinda.  In this episode, he relives the moment of death from the ghost mother which causes him to stop breathing.

Review

Oh, Ghost Whisperer, what has happened to thee. Watching this episode I am hard pressed to find anything that originally drew me to this series. Not only can three people on the show interact with spirits, but now they’re having every child able to interact with ghosts as well. Mix that with the whole “Book of Changes” storyline and the addition of “The Watchers” and I have to make sure I’m still watching the same show. Sure, the whispering to ghost’s aspect is still there, but it feels less that and more of a super hero show.

Touching upon the “Five year jump” – I’m totally comfortable with the television series jumping ahead multiple years and showing us what the characters are up too… but at the end of a series when the show is completely over. The fact that they did it in the middle of the series is just mind boggling.

For the past four years, we’ve follow Melinda through all her ghost adventures. In those four years, we have seen everything and anything happen to her. Now, we’re led to believe that the five year jump in her life holds no interesting stories? She had a friend die, plane crash, evil brother, ghosts trying to killer her… and then all of a sudden her life goes quiet for five years? I’m not buying it and have no idea why they believe I would.

I feel like they cheated and instead of actual character development, they just jumped five years and since anything can happen in five years, they can write their way out of anything they didn’t like previously.

The whole child storyline has me perplexed, but I’ll give it a chance. I feel like the overall Melinda storyline of the show was never finished and now with the addition of her child, it never will be.

I apologize that my overall tone seems to be less that positive, but for the past year I’ve watch Ghost Whisperer go in the wrong direction. With the start of this new season, I don’t feel like that has changed at all, but…

I still have hope.

After watching, what are your thoughts on the season premiere? Do you like where they’re taking Ghost Whisperer? What did you think about the five year jump?

Let’s hear it!