Irish Ghost-Hunting TV Series - To View Or Not To View?

MrMojoRisin

Seeing as last night's airing of 'Spooked' has got the ball rolling, I said I'd throw a question out to people, accompanied by a poll...

Picture this: A TV series about ghost-hunting, paranormal investigation of allegedly 'haunted' places around Ireland and the like on Irish television. Ideally, it would not be along the lines of the infamously crap and, franky, farcical 'Most Haunted'.

Hopefully, it would feature a professional team conducting the investigations, which might be attended by 'ordinary', everyday people, and it also would not feature any convenient 'special effects', biased editing, actors or 'plants'.

But whatever about the possible format of the show, the golden question is...

Would you tune in to watch the show regularly?

Major Lovechild

The truth may not be to everyone's liking.

maccored

i think there needs to be a more thought out format for a paranormal show on telly.

MH has done the 'oh noes! it's a ghostay!' to death (pardon the pun), it'd be hard to compete with ghost hunters for the investigation technique idea, ghost adventures has covered the 'doing it for the buzz' angle and ghost hunters academy has covered the 'teaching people how to investigate' angle so imo, you'd really need some kind of show with a difference of some kind.

Riamfada

There is one being done at the moment thats not Spooked. Already comissioned for a series & looks at the paranormal seriously without branded clothes and mediums.

Also the Poll will be very bias on this forum, try sticking it on after hours for an accurate response.

daredevilfan

i reckon it would be successfull folks.
Imagine your town is on tv and it was showing you haunted places your familiar with i reckon curiosity will take people over to watch they're area to see what is found.
i personally would love to see more haunted places around ireland instead of Leap Castle and wicklow gaol.
Go for it and do something that is fact and not fiction im very skeptical about ghost hunters and even ghost adventures.
the three lads have film school education and may be up to a sneaky edit here and there!

BluesBerry

I would like to see a series done on haunted Irish sites , hope its not like spooked turning it into a big joke but actual serious investigations on places that would be familiar to us

Major Lovechild

Did I ever tell yez the story of "The Old Empty Barn"?

paranormal

i think it would be very hard to make a series of serious investigations interesting as alot of the time nothing happens and most of the shows have to make the mundane parts look scary or exciting for tv .i think that is why people who do investigations are very critical of these kind of shows as they know from experience that it is not as exciting as it looks on tv.but this is just my opinion

Oryx

Mostly, those shows make me swear at the tv, so I doubt Id watch a 'serious' Irish version. Unless I knew the participants and wanted a gawp, or it was funny, like Spooked.

MrMojoRisin

Major Lovechild wrote: »

The truth may not be to everyone's liking.

Yeah, but you can’t please ‘em all. Sometimes people watch shows even though they don’t like them, or if they find them irritating. It’s like how some people say how much they hate reality shows, yet they still watch things like The X Factor. I know people who think Jedward are dopey little langers, yet they still know what happened in a recent episode of that documentary thing they’re doing atm.

It was the same love/hate thing with the Late Late Show when Prat Kenny was presenting it (possibly the same thing now that Tubridy is at the helm!). But its viewing figures haven't ever suffered greatly, AFAIK.

A polarised reaction is better than a luke-warm one, for love and hate are but two sides of the same coin.

maccored wrote: »

i think there needs to be a more thought out format for a paranormal show on telly.

MH has done the 'oh noes! it's a ghostay!' to death (pardon the pun), it'd be hard to compete with ghost hunters for the investigation technique idea, ghost adventures has covered the 'doing it for the buzz' angle and ghost hunters academy has covered the 'teaching people how to investigate' angle so imo, you'd really need some kind of show with a difference of some kind.

Yeah, that’s true but I think daredevilfan and BluesBerry hit the nail on the head with where the appeal for a show like this would lie:

daredevilfan wrote: »

[...] Imagine your town is on tv and it was showing you haunted places your familiar with i reckon curiosity will take people over to watch they're area to see what is found.
i personally would love to see more haunted places around ireland instead of Leap Castle and wicklow gaol.
Go for it and do something that is fact and not fiction [...]

BluesBerry wrote: »

I would like to see a series done on haunted Irish sites , hope its not like spooked turning it into a big joke but actual serious investigations on places that would be familiar to us

From a personal P.O.V., I would be very interested to see areas I know that have so-called ‘haunted’ sites.

Grimes wrote: »

There is one being done at the moment thats not Spooked. Already commissioned for a series & looks at the paranormal seriously without branded clothes and mediums.

That sounds good.

Grimes wrote: »

Also the Poll will be very bias on this forum, try sticking it on after hours for an accurate response.

Will do. I knew that the poll being placed here would attract the usual paranormal heads (no offence like – I’m one myself), but I just wanted to test the water in more familiar waters first. I’ll try After Hours but I’d say it’ll be like taking a gay pride parade through bible belt America.

daredevilfan wrote: »

[...] im very skeptical about ghost hunters and even ghost adventures.
the three lads have film school education and may be up to a sneaky edit here and there!

I find it difficult to take those shows seriously – there’s a fair bit of posturing going on and not enough serious and balanced coverage of the areas into which they take their teams. It’s as if they’re in that TV series ‘Supernatural’. The only ghosthunting show I like is Ghost Hunters International (GHI).

paranormal wrote: »

i think it would be very hard to make a series of serious investigations interesting as a lot of the time nothing happens and most of the shows have to make the mundane parts look scary or exciting for tv .i think that is why people who do investigations are very critical of these kind of shows as they know from experience that it is not as exciting as it looks on tv.but this is just my opinion

That is very true, but I think what would make for exciting, or at least watchable, TV would be for the team to speak to locals in the areas beforehand and hear their stories as part of visible, pre-emptive research. If people know that John-Joe Hurley or Cait Ni Riordain, or whoever the bleedin’ hell lives down the road from them, is gonna be on the telly, they’d all be eager to tune in to have a look (and a laugh probably). The human interest side of it would make it watchable.

On this note, if there were any ordinary Joe/Josephine Soaps drafted in to partake in investigations, I guarantee you that, despite the absence of convenient trickery for the purpose of good TV, people would still lapse into histronics about feck all. You’d still get people like that, which would be a good laugh in fairness.

Next in line for drawing interest would be the ‘I wonder if the team will find anything paranormal?’ curiosity, and the stone cold reality of how proper paranormal investigation is really carried out. Grand, the latter might seem dull and banal to the investigators themselves, but kids and teenagers love gadgets and exploration of old and ‘forbidden’ buildings. Dark tunnels, passageways, ancient castles with bloody and notorious histories. That’s cool stuff to the younger generation (and possibly beyond, too). What young fella (or girl) doesn’t like that sort of thing? I did a fair amount of, er, ‘liberal exploration’ of various buildings and sites with a group of lads (and a few girls) when I was younger...

The team could run through the equipment they’re using for the investigations. The likes of TomsGadgets or whatever other paranormal gadgetry shops there are would probably see a surge in sales as a result of the success of the show. Actually, it’d be handy if a place like that sponsored the show, or else Halford’s or Woodie’s because they have a lot of practical tools like decent flashlights and ladders, etc.

Another point of attraction would be the confirmation or quashing of long-standing ghostly myths attached to ‘haunted’ places around Ireland. It all sounds good to me, but I’ll see what the dragons in After Hours have to say about this nevertheless...

maccored

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

Yeah, that’s true but I think daredevilfan and BluesBerry hit the nail on the head with where the appeal for a show like this would lie

personally those reasons wouldnt entice me to watch. not every show would be about your local town and the likes of MH, GH etc have already covered most of the spots like leap etc. Plus the two arent really comparable when you consider not every town has an old building like leap/charleville etc.

KeithAFC

One of them is extremly sexy lol.

MrMojoRisin

maccored wrote: »

personally those reasons wouldnt entice me to watch. not every show would be about your local town

You never know which town will pop up - it depends on where the investigation team decides to go. Well, if the possibility of seeing somewhere local doesn't entice you, sure that's grand. I know that, even if my locality didn't get shown, I'd still be familiar with most towns around Ireland anyway because I've seen most of them. Ireland is such a tiny place, in fairness.

maccored wrote: »

and the likes of MH, GH etc have already covered most of the spots like leap etc.

Who cares what MH and GH and all the other ones investigated when people have a poor opinion of those shows (especially MH)? An Irish team as part of an Irish-made show has not done Leap Castle yet. Jesus though, you'd think Leap Castle, Ross Castle, Charleville, etc, were all there were to investigate in this entire country.

maccored wrote: »

Plus the two arent really comparable when you consider not every town has an old building like leap/charleville etc.

Every town may not have castles, but they would have other ancient or antiquated settlements and buildings. There are plenty of other places to investigate besides elaborate castles (I know this from speaking to investigators here), for God's sake. :rolleyes:

Oryx

The abbey in the grounds of Muckross house has a great atmosphere, we have lots of ancient places like Newgrange, the Theatre Royal in Wexford has a resident ghost, as Im sure many other old and not so old public buildings do. So you dont need to stick to the usual castles to investigate stuff. Leap Castle was a lovely place, but in terms of spooky stuff, not the worst place Ive come across. (That was a private residence in Wexford).

The Would You Believe crowd in RTE have done shows on ordinary houses and even just people who felt they were haunted. So it would be possible to come at a paranormal show from a fresh angle that steers clear of the obvious cliches.

maccored

you cant base a tv show purely on the novetly of seeing people or places you might know on it. f or a start, it'd get boring pretty quick and secondly, only friends of the participants and people from the local area would be arsed watching (purely imo of course)

Certainly wouldnt be something I'd be interested in watching

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

You never know which town will pop up - it depends on where the investigation team decides to go. Well, if the possibility of seeing somewhere local doesn't entice you, sure that's grand. I know that, even if my locality didn't get shown, I'd still be familiar with most towns around Ireland anyway because I've seen most of them. Ireland is such a tiny place, in fairness.



Who cares what MH and GH and all the other ones investigated when people have a poor opinion of those shows (especially MH)? An Irish team as part of an Irish-made show has not done Leap Castle yet. Jesus though, you'd think Leap Castle, Ross Castle, Charleville, etc, were all there were to investigate in this entire country.




Every town may not have castles, but they would have other ancient or antiquated settlements and buildings. There are plenty of other places to investigate besides elaborate castles (I know this from speaking to investigators here), for God's sake. :rolleyes:

caseyann

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

Seeing as last night's airing of 'Spooked' has got the ball rolling, I said I'd throw a question out to people, accompanied by a poll...

Picture this: A TV series about ghost-hunting, paranormal investigation of allegedly 'haunted' places around Ireland and the like on Irish television. Ideally, it would not be along the lines of the infamously crap and, franky, farcical 'Most Haunted'.

Hopefully, it would feature a professional team conducting the investigations, which might be attended by 'ordinary', everyday people, and it also would not feature any convenient 'special effects', biased editing, actors or 'plants'.

But whatever about the possible format of the show, the golden question is...

Would you tune in to watch the show regularly?

So long as its on at the right times

666th

I think a paranormal show based in Ireland would be a good idea as long as they got the right people to do it. I do know a show is in the making at the minute but it has a completely different feel compared to what we see on T.V as far as paranormal shows go.

I have met a lot of people in the paranormal community here in Ireland and there are only a small few that i would personally put into a show. You would need them not only to be very charismatic but also kinda easy on the eye. I know that how people look is not that important in the real world but unfortunately for T.V i think it would be a factor and would help get the viewing numbers up.

So if there were a team put together who had experience in the paranormal field, not too dam ugly and a medium who didn't wear a cape and bull**** i think we would be onto a winner.

daredevilfan

Right easy on the eye??
Get georgia Salpa and Nadia forde as celebrity guest investigators
THAT would draw people to watch it

Oryx

daredevilfan wrote: »

Right easy on the eye??
Get georgia Salpa and Nadia forde as celebrity guest investigators
THAT would draw people to watch it

Or me and 6th. 'Dead' handsome, the both of us.

That right, 6th?

666th

Oryx wrote: »

Or me and 6th. 'Dead' handsome, the both of us.

That right, 6th?

Oryx i would not insult your gift by putting you onto a T.V show even though you are certainly easy on the eye's. As for 6th......well I'm sure his wife thinks he is adorable.

Oryx

666th wrote: »

Oryx i would not insult your gift by putting you onto a T.V show even though you are certainly easy on the eye's. As for 6th......well I'm sure his wife thinks he is adorable.

Have we met?

I promise, I was joking, by the way. Anonymity rocks.

Riamfada

666th wrote: »

Oryx ... you are certainly easy on the eye's..

Flattery will get you everywhere. Also is this a good time to mention my "Chicks of the Paranormal" charity calender Im doing for Christmas. Everyone expect a PM, if you dont get one please be offended.

Also before anyone asks, the charity is the Grimes foundation for Grimes.

Allisson

I'm new to Boards and have had to catch up on a lot of threads, Very informative, It's interesting to hear that there could possibly be another New Paranormal TV show in the pipe line....

Major Lovechild

Grimes wrote: »

Flattery will get you everywhere. Also is this a good time to mention my "Chicks of the Paranormal" charity calender Im doing for Christmas. Everyone expect a PM, if you dont get one please be offended.

Also before anyone asks, the charity is the Grimes foundation for Grimes.

If you're ever thinking of doing a "Hunks of the Haunted" I'd be very happy to model for you.

Oryx

Major Lovechild wrote: »

If you're ever thinking of doing a "Hunks of the Haunted" I'd be very happy to model for you.

Pics or gtfo.

Major Lovechild

Oryx wrote: »

Pics or gtfo.

You first!

daredevilfan

i'll do the chicks of the paranormal ive got a good set of moobs lol

Riamfada

daredevilfan wrote: »

i'll do the chicks of the paranormal ive got a good set of moobs lol

now all I need is a forest, a smoke machine and an EMF meter to cover your shame.

Major Lovechild

You'll need an industrial gas meter to cover mine.

Greasemonkey79

Howdi,
I think it would be excellent providing it was done right without the bull effects, noises etc. If conducted by a professional team and in good locations and without some loony psychic which makes it all look ridiculous. Imagine for example that Derek Acorah plank from most haunted on an Irish ghost show!!!!!!! **** that!