12 Shows Like Ghosts You Should Check Out

Imagine unexpectedly learning that a distant relative has died with no direct heirs and left their grand familial manor to you. It seems like a dream right up until the property taxes start to kick in -– not to mention the undead residents you might have to bunk with. 

In the CBS comedy series "Ghosts," married couple and city slickers Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) and Samantha (Rose McIver) are thrilled to learn they've inherited a grand country estate from Sam's long-lost relative Sophia Woodstone. As a freelance writer and a chef currently between jobs, respectively, they are all too eager to shift gears and renovate the place, transforming it "Property Brothers"-style into a bed and breakfast that would make a perfect income stream. But when a bump on the noggin leaves Sam with the ability to communicate with the undead, they soon realize they got more than they bargained for. 

Faced with the choice of giving up their new home or learning to live with a very busy ghostly household, they open up to the friendly spirits, who accept them in return. A wholesome series with a fantastic ensemble cast, "Ghosts" is a delightful fantasy with plenty of laughs, just like the British series it's based on. If you can't get enough spooky yet lighthearted adventures, here are 12 more shows like "Ghosts" that you should add to your watch list.

Anyone who enjoys the work of Kiwis Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, and Rhys Darby will appreciate the wholesome humor of "Wellington Paranormal." The New Zealand series is set up as a workplace mockumentary with a paranormal slant, as the title implies. It's similar to the American television series "What We Do in the Shadows," a spin-off of the film of the same name that starred Waititi, Clement, Darby, and Jonny Brugh as vampire housemates. "Wellington Paranormal" is a lighthearted and quirky comedy that adds to that universe's mythology.

The series follows the patrol of Wellington police officers Kyle Minogue (played by Mike Minogue) and O'Leary (played by Karen O'Leary), who handle their department's paranormal cases under the guidance of Sergeant Ruawai Maaka (Maaka Pohatu) while working out of a converted storage closet. Much like the fictional Nightvale of the podcast series "Welcome to Nightvale," Wellington seems to be a place where all sorts of supernatural activity originates. Refreshingly powered by buddy-film energy rather than Mulder and Scully energy, Minogue and O'Leary find themselves dealing with alien plant clones, demons, partying ghosts, vampires, zombies, and all sorts of phenomena.

Although it's technically not a comedy, "SurrealEstate" is a drama in the way that "Psych" is a drama. The Canadian series is a show about ghost experts with a twist: they're actually real estate agents. The story follows real estate agent Luke Roman of the Roman Agency, a real estate company that specializes in exorcising ghosts from houses with spooky problems that are preventing the homeowners from closing on a sale. The refreshingly formulaic 43-minute series stars Tim Rozon as Luke Roman and Sarah Levy as Sarah Ireland, both of whom were regulars on "Schitt's Creek." The series has something of a cult following, with fans praising the show in the show's IMDb reviews for its perfect blend of serious mythology, dry humor, charm, chemistry, and camp. The show was originally canceled after the first season, with the network planning to shop it around, but SyFy eventually read the room and reversed their cancellation, as reported by Deadline in May 2022.

A British supernatural comedy series starring Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, "Truth Seekers" is another show about ghost experts who investigate hauntings. The story centers around SMYLE broadband installation and repair technician Gus (played by Frost), who spends his workday listening to numbers stations in his repair van and spends his spare time filming ghost-hunting videos for the web. After he and his coworker Elton John (played by Samson Kayo and with no relation to the singer) encounter and resolve a real paranormal event on the job, they soon realize it's the first of many strange goings-on in the area. Along with Elton's agoraphobic, cosplaying sister Helena (Susie Wokoma), Gus' salty dad (Malcolm McDowell), and Astrid (Emma D'Arcy), a victim of her own ghostly encounter, they form their very own Scooby-Doo-style team. It turns out the truth they are seeking is bigger than any one of them imagined. With a sci-fi twist that calls to mind Walter Bishop of "Fringe," this series is a treat for anyone who loves conspiracy theories and "X-Files"-style adventures. It's a shame Amazon canceled it in 2021 after one season. 

Like many of the best shows on TV, from "The Office" to "Shameless," "Ghosts" is an American adaptation of a British television series by the same name. The UK series, which first aired in 2019, features the same storyline as the US version. Like her American counterpart Samantha, Alison Cooper inherits an aging but beautiful estate from a distant relative. And like Sam and Jay, Alison and her husband move in with the intention of transforming it into a hotel, only to find the place overrun with ghosts from various periods throughout the estate's history. The geographic differences between Sam and Alison's ghosts strip away any redundancies between their stories. The Coopers' main house ghosts include a Georgian noblewoman, a former MP disgraced by a scandal, a melodramatic Romantic poet, a caveman, and a World War II officer. Only one character — a scout leader who was accidentally killed with an arrow — is almost identical to his U.S. counterpart.

Although it only aired for one season, "Ghosted" is a wacky sci-fi and paranormal series about two men who are recruited to a secret US agency called the Bureau Underground, which investigates paranormal events. The series stars Craig Robinson as disgraced LAPD officer-turned-mall cop Leroy Wright and Adam Scott as Dr. Max Jennifer, a Stanford astrophysicist-turned-book store employee who's convinced his wife was abducted. In the line of duty, the two cross paths with zombies, aliens, and a sentient and predictably sketchy A.I. With a secret lair, ambitious mythology, and plenty of fun chemistry between Robinson and Scott, the trope-heavy series was off to a promising start before production team changes (per Deadline) foreshadowed the show getting dropped. Although the show is a bit all over the place, the monster-of-the-week sci-fi shenanigans will make it enjoyable for most fans of the genre.

It's hard to even begin to define HBO's "Los Espookys." On the surface, the series follows a group of four friends who run a horror technician business. They stage elaborate shows with special effects and Hollywood-quality prosthetics for various events, from dinner parties and quinceañeras to fake exorcisms and tourist traps. The world they live in is filled with odd, magical, and unexplainable moments, all of which the Espookys casually live with and around. The Espookys consist of the easygoing goth leader Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco); his best friend, the blue-haired and amulet-wearing chocolate heir Andrés Valdez (Julio Torres); dental hygienist Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti), and her oddball sister Tati (Ana Fabrega), whose jobs include work as a human Fitbit and breaking in other people's shoes. And then there's Renaldo's uncle Tico (Fred Armisen), a parking valet employee so skilled he can park two cars at once. 

The story is set in a quirky bilingual world that doesn't exist anywhere on a map. In an interview with Slate, Armisen explained that they couldn't decide where to place the story and eventually landed on keeping it vague in a place Torres referred to as "the limbo that we have created." The series is produced by Lorne Michaels, Armisen, and Andrew Singer and boasts a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Starring Courteney Cox and Greg Kinnear, Starz series "Shining Vale" is a comedy/horror show with a familiar premise for fans of "Ghosts." The series finds writer Pat Phelps moving to a small town with her family in an effort to save their marriage. Shortly after the family takes up residence in the large manor, wife Pat begins to see people and things that no one else can. Like a darker sibling to "Ghosts," the series is infused with horror elements and plenty of genuine scares. The show invests in the psychological aspect of the horror genre by using the supernatural as a mirror for personal and familial turmoil. A thread of sardonic humor woven through the tale defuses some of the tension in a strange, but pleasingly Lynchian way. It's a heavier series that deals with mental health topics and family gender dynamics. Critics especially praised Cox's performance, with The Wrap suggesting that the series could land the actor an Emmy.

A sequel series to the film of the same name, "What We Do in the Shadows" is a mockumentary horror series set in the same world but following a set of vampires living in Staten Island, where they share a home. The roommates include traditional vampires Nadja, Laszlo, and Nandor; Nandor's familiar, Guillermo; and an "energy vampire" named Colin Robinson. Nandor is a warrior from the Ottoman Empire, and the married Laszlo and Nadja are a pervy 18th-century British nobleman and a medieval Romani peasant, respectively. Like the film, the story revolves around the vampires' daily lives. Over the course of the series, they get caught up in various vampire politics, open a vampiric nightclub, socialize with mortals, feud with werewolves, join fitness clubs, and dine on loads of human flesh. The brilliant chemistry and banter between the colorful cast of characters make this quotable series one of the rare few that can be watched over and over again.

One of the best episodes of "Black Mirror" and arguably the only truly optimistic one — even if it's only optimistic if you don't think too hard about it — is "San Junipero." Its plot imagines a world where human consciousnesses are uploaded into a virtual world after death. "Upload" is a comedic take on this sci-fi premise that manages to turn this rather dark and arguably dystopian concept into a rare rom-com that doesn't feel overly sappy or devoid of intelligence and nuance. The story begins with the untimely death of pretty boy computer engineer Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell), who awakens in the digital afterlife — a vast resort called Lakeview that's similar to a timeshare — to find pieces of his memory have been wiped. As his tech support and afterlife concierge Nora Antony (Andy Allo) gets to know him, they both begin to realize there may be a sinister plot afoot and his still-living girlfriend is connected to it.

Starring Alan Tudyk, "Resident Alien" tells the story of an alien who gets sent to Earth to destroy humanity and instead ends up befriending the townspeople in the small Colorado community he lands in. Based on a popular Dark Horse comic, the series finds the alien — whose name is beyond human pronunciation capabilities — killing Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle, taking on his form, and generally failing to blend in while he waits to be rescued by the others of his kind after his ship crash-landed before he could eradicate the human race. Unfortunately for Harry, despite his best efforts, he begins to connect with others within the community, especially Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko), D'Arcy Bloom (Alice Wetterlund), and local kid Max Hawthorne (Judah Prehn), who can see him for who he really is. As heartwarming as all of this is, Harry is still hoarding a corpse in his basement and ultimately planning to finish the job he first came to Earth to perform, even if it's no longer as easy as it once would have been.

The two-season TBS sci-fi comedy series "People of Earth" has a similar overall vibe to "Resident Alien." The story revolves around a group of alien experiencers who meet regularly in a support group. When big city writer and skeptic Ozzie Graham (Wyatt Cenac of "The Daily Show") comes to check out the group and write a feature piece about them, he gets more than he bargained for, as memories of his own childhood encounter with a reptilian-looking alien come back to haunt him. 

Graham sticks around to try to learn more, getting to know the rest of the group in the process. Together, the group begins to slowly unearth a vast conspiracy involving multiple alien races involved in an alliance to take over and enslave the planet. The ensemble cast includes Luka Jones ("Shrill"), former "SNL" cast member Ana Gasteyer, and Alice Wetterlund, who plays D'Arcy on "Resident Alien." While it's not the most laugh-out-loud sci-fi comedy series, the show is a creative science fiction take on the modern American Roswell mythology and will definitely be enjoyed by fans of the genre.

Airing from 1996 through 2001, "3rd Rock From the Sun" was a rare successful sitcom featuring a quirky and often absurd story, like "Mork and Mindy" and "Dinosaurs." Starring John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Jane Curtin, the series revolves around an exploration crew of four aliens posing as a human family renting an attic apartment in Rutherford, Ohio. High Commander Dick Solomon (Lithgow) leads the crew and also teaches physics at a local university, where he eventually becomes entangled with the buttoned-up anthropology professor Dr. Mary Albright. The group's senior-most officer inhabits the youngest human body, appearing as teenager Tommy (Gordon-Levitt). Their security officer is Sally (Johnston). Fittingly, William Shatner portrays the officer the crew reports to, transmitting messages through Harry's body (French Stewart). Like many of the best alien comedies, the story finds humor in the characters' ignorance of human ways. They gradually become more invested in the human experience, taking on earthling characteristics themselves.