• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 10 hours ago

Five years ago, I declared in a TV Blog that “Ghosts” on CBS “didn’t stand a ghost of a chance.”

Pretty clever writing, right? But it was way off the mark. “Ghosts” starts its sixth season early next year. 

“How the makers of this show will keep this absurd TV show going each season for up to 22 episodes is a mystery to me,” I wrote in October 2021 when the show premiered.

Oops. Not counting the upcoming sixth season, 94 episodes of “Ghosts” have been produced since 2021. 

That is enough episodes to qualify for lucrative off-network syndication (although when that might start was difficult to pin down in a Google Gemini search).

The point of this nostalgic journey down memory lane is that a new vampire-based sitcom from the same creators/producers of “Ghosts” -- Joe Port and Joe Wiseman -- arrives Thursday night on CBS.

Their new one, “Eternally Yours,” shares similarities with “Ghosts” -- starting with their paranormal plotlines.

In “Ghosts,” a young couple inherits a haunted mansion filled with comical restless spirits.

In “Eternally Yours,” a family of vampires lives in a Seattle neighborhood in a mansion that is a mashup of the famous TV homes of “The Munsters” and “The Addams Family” in the 1960s.

The title of “Eternally Yours” refers primarily to the marriage of Charles (Ed Weeks) and Liz (Allegra Edwards).

They were married 500 years previously in a moment of passion in which the non-vampire Liz begged vampire Charles to turn her into a vampire so that they could live together forever.

Unfortunately, since vampires are prohibited from divorcing (according to the show), the two have been together for an eternity with no end in sight. 

As a result, passion has long been replaced by passive-aggressive bickering.

Unlike the ghoul families of 1960s TV -- the Munsters and the Addams Family -- the vampire family members of “Eternally Yours” masquerade as mortals as they try to conceal their true natures from their neighbors.

The issue obsesses them. Among other contrivances, their daughter is dating a well-meaning mortal who will pay dearly for this relationship, which is opposed by her father.

The mortal man (Jaren Lewison) is an investigator for the Social Security Administration. 

In addition to his role as the daughter’s boyfriend, he also provides a sing-song narration for the show. 

For the TV Blog, narrators have long been considered a kiss of death for sitcoms, although not as fatal as a deep, gory bite on a mortal’s neck.

One such toothy tapping of a jugular vein is played for laughs in Episode One of “Eternally Yours.”

The TV Blog realizes that to go on for a few more paragraphs about the weaknesses and shortcomings of “Eternally Yours” would be an exercise in futility.

The odds favor success for this ludicrous vampire comedy. Just don’t ask me to explain why. 

“Eternally Yours” premieres Thursday night (October 8) at 8:30 on CBS.