I have to admit that the British TV program, Most Haunted has not been on my top ten entertainment choices over the last several years; when I want that sort of entertainment, I turned to the more mainstream shows like Ghost Whisperers and Medium or even the show based on the adventures of TAPS, Ghost Hunters. My only close encounters with Most Haunted have been late at night, when there isn’t anything on the History Channel or Food Network to keep me amused. 

Of late, I have had numerous enquiries from all sorts of folk asking my opinion of that show; I give them my stock response, “Its entertainment, not research!” which is what I tell anyone about any show dealing with the paranormal these days; the best of them suffers from the whims of their production company and editors.  Last week, I had a conversation with a woman in California, who asked the same question, but didn’t accept my usual answer. She wanted to know why I said that about Most Haunted and added, “The Brits know how to do it right. Maybe you are jealous of their talents.”

 With that, I made a point to sit down and actually watch an episode from start to finish. As luck was to have it, the episode I was fated to review was Most Haunted’s 100^th program, a revisit to the location of their first outing. For anyone who has been spared the experience, this series starts with a good looking, middle aged blonde, escorted by an entourage of British psychics and investigators, who visit haunted places all over England. The show is predictable; it starts off with a brief history of the place, and is usually followed by the blonde stating unequivocally that she is not frightened of otherworldly spirits, followed shortly after by her screaming as if scared out of her wits by one thing or another. Cute perhaps, but I can’t imagine her being invited to join one of my investigations! 

This particular show however, I was a little more attentive than usual. I recorded it, not for posterity, but too look for the obvious, and I found it with little effort. For those who have not seen this episode, I will encapsulate my findings.  There is a harpsichord in one room of the sprawling Tudor manse they are investigating… and you might get to hear it play we are told.  Of course the program is heavily sound-tracked, so you never actually hear the EVP, but they swear it was obvious to those in attendance, moments before.  They set up a remote camera and a recorder and leave the room, light off for some odd reason, only to hear the harpsichord again.  They rush back to the scene, but the tape has recorded nothing, the video nothing and there is a protracted conversation about hearing several notes when in the other room, which the viewer never heard to begin with.  No one looks for a mouse in on the strings, or for any other reasonable explanation.

 Back on track again, one of the cameramen is first pricked by what he said felt like a pin and later put down his camera gingerly while screaming that he had been cut by an unseen hand… conveniently, the editors had great footage of the staffers back before this unseen encounter as well as after….see… one minute no marks, the next what looked like nail scratches. Hmmm. That could be impressive, except for the fact that the second cameraman, who was there to capture the first gingerly put down his expensive equipment, before screaming out also caught his co-worker’s hands now inside his loose fitting shirt, his back turned away. Self inflicted injuries or a real attack?  To me it was all too convenient.

 Next the team goes into another room, our blonde damsel in distress screams as a chair moves about a foot, on the opposite side of the hall.  Nice catch, the camera is right on it, even though there is no team member  in the shot, and oddly there is not one foot of tape that shows the full length of the chair, the bottom third of the antique is always just out of the picture.  Did the chair move? Yes.  On its own?  We can’t be sure. And the screaming blonde makes for a great distraction.

 I could nitpick for hours on the things I see wrong with this program, not the least of which is the lack of investigative skills of the team. The locations are great, I love old mansions and it is just so easy to imagine the goings on in days gone by, just like the shows resident psychics conjure up on camera. But where is the evidence?  Where is the research about the property? There isn’t much except from a tour book style account and the hearsay tales of the property managers.

 If you are watching for entertainment, that’s fine, although I’d personally rather watch Ray Milland chase the ghosts in the 1940’s B&W film, The Uninvited, or even Herman Munster, for that matter.  Of all the paranormal based TV shows out there today, Most Haunted is the least entertaining and for sure the one most likely to be manipulated by the boys in the editor’s booth back at the studio, although I know for a fact that even the best of the paranormal programs are subject to a producer’s idea of what will sell.