Show you should be watching: Ghosts (CBS)

Utkarsh Ambudkar and Rose McIver star as a yuppie couple from the Big Apple who inherit a mansion that’s inhabited by eight ghosts of different eras. There’s a Viking who grunts a lot; a Native American; an effeminate Revolutionary War captain; a 19th Century schoolmarm with aristocratic roots; a sassy flapper from the Prohibition Era; a flower child who is permanently tripping through the afterlife; a square scout leader from the 80s; and a Wall Street playboy from the 90s. The octet makes for a brilliantly strange found family of people whose only commonality is that they died in the same spot and as the season continues, it’s revealed how they all seemed to die in comic ways.

Before the arrival of Sam, the ghosts simply had little choice but to entertain each other and passively experience the house’s occupants. However, when Sam has a near death experience, the ghosts are suddenly able to communicate with her and suddenly the living and dead residents of the house have to renegotiate a living arrangement between them.

While there might not be a clear stand-out character among the ghost crew, the contrasts and dynamics between them add up to making them more than the sum of their parts. This a clever premise that’s executed with just the right light-hearted tone. There’s a certain urgency stemming from the couple’s financial uncertainty regarding their plan that adds some stakes but mostly it’s a lot of fun.