This week the Reduced SFX Company presents: How To Write An Episode Of Ghost Whisperer , Season Five
Season Five step-by-step writer’s guide
SCENE ONE
MEL is in her antiques shop, wearing something that normally any woman would only wear on date with GEORGE CLOONEY . She looks mildly puzzled. Enter best friend DELIA .
DELIA: There’s a new family in the old house by the graveyard. I know this because I am a realtor. Oh, and stop encouraging my son NED to be a ghost hunter. He’ll end up dead. MEL: I’m sorry DELIA, but he needs to be in on the action because all the middle-aged women who watch the show think he’s adorable.
ENTER NED , peering adorably from under his fringe.
NED: Hey, Mel. Hey, mom. DELIA: Have you finished your homework? NED: No, I’ve been snogging the daughter of that new family in the house by the graveyard. She’s hot, but kinda odd. MEL: In what way? NED: I think she’s haunted. DELIA: What makes you think that? NED: Because every girl I date is haunted.
SCENE TWO
MEL , wearing a different dress, approaches the house by the graveyard. She looks mildly puzzled.
Enter the GHOST OF A TEENAGE SKATER DUDE . He is BLUE
MEL: What do you want? Why are you haunting this girl?
GHOST: Slush puppies!
GHOST vanishes. MEL looks mildly puzzled, changes into another dress, then knocks on the door of the house. A middle-aged woman opens it. She’s crying.
MEL: Is your daughter haunted? Has anyone close to you suffered a horrible, grisly death lately?
WOMAN: No. Go away you mawkish freak.
MEL: I talk to ghosts.
WOMAN: Oh, that’s okay then. Come in and have a cup of tea.
MEL looks mildly puzzled and enters the house
SCENE THREE
The living room of the HOUSE BY THE GRAVEYARD . ENTER MEL (looking puzzled) and WOMAN (crying).
MEL: Why are you crying?
WOMAN: I’m not. No, I’m really not. Because nothing so bizarre as my daughter’s boyfriend being accidentally killed by my husband’s secret gay lover in a vat of slush pu… er, cotton candy has happened to make me cry.
MEL: Oh okay. But if you do remember anything that might make you cry, here’s my card.
ENTER GHOST . Only MEL can see him. She looks slightly puzzled.
GHOST: Slush puppies, blue hands!
MEL: Blue hands? What do you mean?
GHOST: Oh come on. It’s far too early in the episode for me to start making any sense yet.
SCENE FOUR
MEL is at home. She is in a new dress. Her son, AIDEN , is playing in the corner.
AIDEN: I see dead people.
MEL: Get your own act.
AIDEN: I see shiny dead people.
MEL: What? Gasp! Oh my God. You’re developing… an arc plot. There must be pills for that.
MEL ’s husband Jim arrives home. He avoids mirrors. MEL looks slightly puzzled.
[caption id="attachment_27142" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Note to writers: Jim should look like this now, but you can ignore all that…"] [/caption]
MEL: Why are you avoiding mirrors?
JIM: Because even though the writers seem to have forgotten all about it, last season I died and my spirit entered the body of another guy. So I don’t really look like this any more. And I’m not actually called Jim but Sam now. And you married me when I was Sam. But the middle-aged women in the audience think I’m a hunk, so they didn’t want to replace me permanently and the we just ignore all that now.
MEL: Oh. I’d forgotten that too. That probably explains the lack of wedding photos around the house. Good day at the hospital?
JIM: Yeah. You know what was really strange? A man came in suffering from chilblains.
MEL: What’s strange about that?
JIM: Because his hands were also stained… a BLUEBERRY colour!
ENTER GHOST
GHOST: Wooooo-ooooooo! Blueberry slush puppies!
EXIT GHOST . MEL looks puzzled
MEL: Oh my God. She was lying about the candy floss. It was slush puppies! I must phone ELI !
JIM: Why?
MEL: Because the writers think massive infodumps are slightly less dull if they’re done on the phone.
SCENE FIVE
ELI ’s office at the university. ELI is on the phone to MEL . He eats takeaway while he talks, because he’s quirky like that.
ELI: You think he killed him by drowning him in slush puppy? That’s not ice. Is he a cool customer? That’s some kind of puppy love. You know, I read something once about ice spirits. Apparently if someone is violently killed in a bizarre frozen beverage accident, their ghosts can be really chilling. Geddit? Chilling? Okay, I’ll shut up now.
SCENE SIX
MEL , having changed into a wedding dress, confronts the FATHER of the NEW FAMILY who’ve moved into the HOUSE BY THE GRAVEYARD
MEL: Did your gay lover accidentally kill your daughter’s boyfriend in a bizarre frozen beverage related accident?
FATHER: No. How dare you?! Don’t you know that at this point in the episode there has to be a really contrived twist?
ENTER GHOST . He is now GREEN . Mel looks slightly puzzled.
MEL: Can you fill us in on the plot now?
GHOST: Yeah sure. We’re five minutes from the end of the episode. Y’see the problem is I forgot I was colour blind. I thought I was killed in a vat of blue slush puppy, but in fact it was a vat of gooseberry slush puppy.
FATHER: And my gay lover is allergic to gooseberries.
GHOST: That’s right. I remember now, it was your wife who murdered me!
MEL: So now you’re reconciled with your girlfriend’s father, we can all cry a bit and you can walk into the light.
They all cry a bit and the GHOST walks into the light.
SCENE SEVEN
MEL is at home, now in one of Widow Twanky’s cast-offs, playing with AIDEN
AIDEN: I want a slush puppy.
MEL (tutting): I don’t think so dear. I’ve had enough of slush puppies for one day.
AIDEN: Okay. I won’t argue because I’m insufferably well behaved. But I will mention the shiny people again, just to make the end of the episode sound intriguing.
MEL looks slightly puzzled.
THE END
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