Ghosts Producers Talk Shortened Third Season, Sas’ Power, and U.K. Guest Stars
There are only eight episodes left to go in Ghosts season 3. Showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman tell us what to expect.
This article contains spoilers for Ghosts season 3 episode 2.
Last week, CBS comedy Ghosts resolved an enormous cliffhanger in its season 3 premiere. Now episode 2, “Man of Your Dreams,” provides the answer to another long standing mystery. Tonight, Sas’ special supernatural power is revealed and it raises some ethical questions as to how he can alter the actions of the living.
“Man of Your Dreams” also serves as the transition point between the shock of the premiere and the plotlines that will dominate the remainder of this third season. Den of Geek spoke to Ghosts showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman to discover why they chose to reveal Sas’ power and what fans can expect for the rest of this shorter-than-usual season.
“We still have a few big unanswered questions on the series,” Wiseman said. “We don’t know Pete or Hetty’s power, and we also don’t know how a couple of the ghosts died.”
Fans can cross Sas’ (Román Zaragoza) power off that list as we now know he can insert himself into Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay’s (Utkarsh Ambudkar) dreams and interact with them while they are asleep. Jay bought a new big flatscreen TV but Sam doesn’t like where Jay wants to place it in the living room. We then see Sas enter Jay’s dreamscape (which includes him playing professional basketball and traveling to outer space which is a clear nod to the Star Trek universe) so that he can tell Jay which side of the room to mount the TV on.
“It’s fun for us to try to think of episodes that wouldn’t be easily done on other shows,” Port said.
“A challenge on the show is getting Jay involved in the ghost stories,” Wiseman added. “I’m proud of what we have been doing and what we continue to do to get him involved. Jay does care about the ghosts. This felt like a concrete opportunity to have him in scenes with Sas in particular and to tell future stories down the road. We get to go to any place that Jay can dream about. It opened the show up in a cool way, but it also doesn’t break the premise.”
After “Man of Your Dreams” there are only eight more episodes of Ghosts season 3 set to air. A 10-episode season is much shorter than the previous two outings and this is due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes and negotiations taking much longer than expected to be resolved. Although Port and Wiseman had more time to pre-plan the season, there was a shorter amount of time to film each episode. This has meant that season 3 may be missing some elements fans were looking forward to. One of these is the return of another guest star from the Ghosts U.K. series.
“We want to have everyone on, but we also want to make sure the part is right and everything. So it won’t happen this year, but it’s something we want to continue to do,” Wiseman said.
While there won’t be any U.K. crossovers this season, the rest of the season will feature several fan-favorite guest stars returning. Port and Wiseman have confirmed that Punam Patel, Andrew Leeds, Caroline Aaron, Odessa A’zion, and Betsy Sodaro will reprise their roles from past seasons. Along with these guest stars, there are also opportunities for fans to explore more of Woodstone Manor’s surroundings.
“There are parts of it that we are going to see that we haven’t seen before,” Wiseman said.
There will also be a Halloween-themed episode during season 3 even though winter is transitioning into spring.
“We always feel the Halloween episodes are big and fun and lean into the theme of our show,” Port said. “We’re also going to meet a couple of other ghosts who make their way to Woodstone in various ways.”
In addition to these themed episodes, last week’s episode featured the beginning of two ongoing plotlines this season.
“Isaac and Nigel’s wedding will be building throughout the season,” Wiseman said. “At the end of last season, Jay started plans for a restaurant which will also be an ongoing storyline, including possibly having one of the ghosts as an investor.”
We don’t know yet if any of the ghosts can predict the future, however, there are plenty of things for Ghosts fans to look forward to in season 3.
Ghosts season 3 airs Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS and streams on Paramount+.