I’m a few days behind on this because I’ve been fighting off a cold all week but this week saw the premiere of the new show from TAPS, “Ghost Hunters Academy“. This show is unique among the paranormal programs out right now because it’s not just about the hunt but about how it’s done and what makes a good paranormal investigator as well as a good investigation team. While it’s true that this show may has a little less appeal to the “ooh and ahh” audience that watches these shows, this show is sure to pull in a lot of other viewers who are either interested or involved in the field of paranormal investigation since it’s gives a bit of that inside look into what goes into the work of an investigation.

This Ghost Hunters show gives us a bit of a behind the scenes look at what goes into being a member of TAPS. Steve and Tango fill the roles of teacher foe the academy, leading and guiding 5 individuals hoping to graduate and be given a spot on the team as a new investigator. Talk about job placement! As the semester (i.e. season) rolls on, if someone isn’t making the grade, they will be eliminated and a prospective student on the waiting list will be called up to fill the shoes of the dismissed member. In the end it all comes down to finding someone that will make a great investigator and be able to fit in with the TAPS team.

On the first episode Steve and Tango took the students to Fort Mifflin in Pennsylvania. Fort Miflin has long been known as an investigation destination for teams and individuals in the paranormal. This was certainly an exciting place for the team to go to for their first investigation together. There are five prospective team members right now:

• Heathyr- a 24 year old medium who leads her own paranormal team back home, the Arizona Research and Mediumship Society.
• Chris – a 24 year old science student who has mainly an interest in the scientific side of things in an attempt to gather concrete evidence of paranormal activity.
• Karl – is a 20 year old recent member of the Northern Colorado Paranormal Society and amateur investigator.
• Susan – is a 22 year old aspiring DJ who is a member of the League of Paranormal Investigators.
• Ben – is a 20 year old amateur investigator who has a big love for using the gadgets and equipment for paranormal investigation.

In this first investigation all five came up against some challenges and Steve and Tango weren’t easy on the, Heathyr opted to not participate in the pre-investigation walkthrough because she felt that it would compromise her ability to use her psychic gifts on the investigation. While that could certainly be true, I found that to be one big strike against her; she’s there to be an investigator, not a medium. When you’re an investigator who has psychic ability, that’s great, but you’re there to be an investigator first and foremost. It also puts the rest of the team at a disadvantage because now at set up and during the investigation you have a team member that doesn’t know the hot spots, doesn’t know about the predetermined set up and so on. Chris found himself getting a lesson in the power of suggestion from Steve and Susan learned the hard way about keeping secrets from your team mates.

It was a really interesting episode and shows that this could be a promising series from TAPS and the Ghost Hunters franchise. If you missed this episode catch it in replay or OnDemand and be sure to catch the next episode. The show airs Wednesdays 10/9c.

Mood: working