TV Talk: ‘Portals to Hell’ visits Western Pa.; Hugh Laurie adapts Agatha Christie

Regardless of whether you believe in ghosts, there’s no denying the popularity of ghost-hunting shows on cable. Travel Channel would be more accurately named if it were called Supernatural Channel, given its current programming.

From “Destination Fear” at the Green County Almshouse to “Ghost Hunters” at Pittsburgh’s Church Brew Works, Travel Channel shows are finding plenty of reasons to visit Western Pennsylvania.

This week, Travel Channel debuts a new Western Pennsylvania-set “Portals to Hell” episode — the show previously debuted an episode shot in the area in 2019 with a visit to the McCue Family Estate in Monongahela — with a visit to New Castle’s Hill View Manor (10 p.m. Saturday, same-day streaming on discovery+).

Paranormal investigators Jack Osbourne and Katrina Weidman made their visit last fall, spending a few days and nights exploring Hill View, which regularly welcomes tours and paranormal investigations.

Owner Carrie Triko tells the pair the Lawrence County 1900s poor farm, which was later a nursing home and county morgue, has an area she won’t go in, the timeclock hallway, which she says gives off a feeling of “something dark, something not so great.”

Naturally, that’s where Osbourne and Weidman go exploring.

“I keep feeling unstable in my footing,” Osbourne says in the episode.

“I feel really messed-up in this building,” Weidman adds.

In a phone interview last week, Osbourne and Weidman said Hill View was more active and jarring than their experience in Monongahela.

“Jack and I talk about this a lot that when we’re on an investigation, especially in a big old building like that, where there’s definitely things that can cause noises and things that can maybe cause you to feel strange, we’re always looking for those explanations first,” she said. “But there were times in Hill View where it just seemed like there was no explanation behind the things we were experiencing.”

Osbourne said each location they visit displays a unique personality.

“No one place is exactly the same as the other,” he said. “You never really know. You could have a team go in there the night before and be like, ‘Oh my goodness, the craziest stuff happened!’ And then the next day when we go there, it’s like, crickets, nothing going on. That’s what makes ghost hunting exciting and frustrating.”

“Portals to Hell” isn’t the first Travel Channel paranormal show to visit Hill View. A “Destination Fear” episode taped there premiered in May 2020.

Osbourne said they take into consideration past TV shows’ visits when deciding whether to visit a location themselves.

“There are a lot of ghost-hunting shows — we are one of many — and there are only so many locations in America that you can investigate,” he said, noting if they visit a place that already has been on TV, they’re try to investigate a different element or portion of the place. “Is there enough here to where we don’t feel like we’re being repetitive?”

Weidman said from her interaction with fans, “Portals to Hell” viewers include believers, spouses of believers and those who just want a good scare.

Osbourne quotes his famous father, Ozzy Osbourne, who told him, “There’s only three guarantees in life, you have an (anus), you’re gonna pay taxes and you’re gonna die” as an explanation for the appeal of paranormal TV shows.

“Having a ghost show taps into one of those three essentials,” Osbourne said. “Whether you’re an atheist, an agnostic, a person of faith, someone who’s interested in the paranormal, we’re all faced with this notion of we’re gonna die one day: What happens? And even if you believe nothing happens, nothing is still something. Or if you believe that you transcend to a different dimension, or you go to the pearly white gates, you decide to hang out in an old abandoned asylum, it taps into this great unknown.”

Hugh Laurie’s ‘Evans’

On Tuesday, streaming service Britbox premieres “Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?” — a three-part (60 minutes each) adaptation of the 1934 Agatha Christie novel directed by Hugh Laurie (“House”), who also has a role in the series.

Wittily bantering all the way, amateur sleuths Bobby Jones (Will Poulter, “Dopesick”) and Frankie Derwent (Lucy Boynton, “Bohemian Rhapsody”) investigate the death of a man whose last words are, “Why didn’t they ask Evans?”

“It’s a murder-mystery, but it has a kind of slight screwball feel to it,” Laurie said during a Britbox press conference in February as part of the Television Critics Association winter 2022 virtual press tour. “The real mystery is not who the killer is. That is a mystery and we have to track that down and he or she must be apprehended and brought before the law, but the real mystery is what does the question of the title mean? … You might catch the killer, but until you understand, decipher the question and answer the question, it doesn’t really satisfy. And I think that is (Agatha Christie’s) genius.”

Kept/canceled/reunited

FX renewed “Snowfall” for a sixth and final season.

Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” returns at 9 p.m. May 18 with Cat Deeley returning as host and a new judging panel that includes Stephen “tWitch” Boss, Matthew Morrison (“Glee”) and JoJo Siwa (“Dance Moms”).

“Star Trek: The Next Generation” cast members LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis and Brent Spiner will join Patrick Stewart in the third and final season of “Star Trek: Picard.”

Apple TV+ renewed “Severance” for a second season.

“Donkey Hodie,” the “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” spin-off on PBS Kids, will roll out a second season in spring 2023.

Channel surfing

“Deadliest Catch,” including Westmoreland City native “Wild Bill” Wichrowski, returns for its 18th season at 8 p.m. April 19 on Discovery Channel. … As expected, Murrysville native Jason Kilar will exit his job as CEO of WarnerMedia when its merger with Discovery completes in the coming week. HBO Max executive vice president and general manager Andy Forssell — a 1987 Carnegie Mellon University graduate who previously worked alongside Kilar at Hulu — also will exit the company.