Two Petes are better than one as Ghosts haunts up a hilarious second season

Ghosts is ready to have you howling with ghoulish laughter when its second season premieres. And this time around, a familiar face from across the pond is making his ectoplasmic presence felt.

Last year, this cheeky series about the undead was among the crop of new shows proving that there's still life left in the network sitcom. Based on the UK series of the same name, Ghosts stars Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar as lovable newlyweds Sam and Jay Arondekar, who are trying to open up a bed and breakfast only to be faced with eight ghosts intent on keeping their haunting ground to themselves.

When Sam has a near-death accident and gains the ability to interact with the ghosts, shenanigans ensue, friendships are formed and most importantly, jokes are made. Lots of 'em. Combined with one of the breeziest casts on TV, Ghosts supplies just the kind of low-stakes, effervescent charm that's been otherwise sucked out of television.

This season promises more backstory on the ghosts including Román Zaragoza's Lenape storyteller Sasappis, Rebecca Wisocky's Victorian dowager Hetty, and Danielle Pinnock's snazzy jazz singer Alberta. "Everybody here has a really juicy story that delves into their past," Ambudkar told EW at San Diego Comic-Con.

"Danielle has a wonderful flashback that we've all been waiting for," Wisocky chimed in, with Ambdukar adding, "We learn about Alberta's past as a singer and how she got there." We'll also get to meet someone "really special," from the past of Devan Chandler Long's sad Viking Thorfinn.

This season, Ghosts has even managed to snag a cameo from one of the U.K. original's co-creators and stars, Mathew Baynton. Baynton played Thomas Thorne, the ghost of an overly dramatic Romantic-era poet, who was fatally shot in a duel over the woman he loved. He then fell in love with the very alive, very married Alison (the U.K. Sam), played by Charlotte Ritchie, even though she was distantly related to him.

"We'd been looking for a chance to have one of the U.K. ghosts on, so we were thrilled when Mat said yes, and not surprised at all when he knocked the role out of the park," said showrunners and executive producers Joe Port and Joe Wiseman. "Our main goal when we set out to adapt Ghosts was honestly to make something that the British creators liked, so to have this stamp of approval from someone we admire so much, was a huge validation for our whole team."

Baynton will play Actor Pete, an English method actor who becomes obsessed with "getting to the truth" of Pete Martino (Richie Moriarty's arrow-necked travel agent forever in Scout guise) when he is hired by the TV show Dumb Deaths to recreate the day Pete died.

"When I was invited to play a guest role in the CBS version of Ghosts, I was a little concerned that the two universes colliding would tear a hole in the fabric of time and space," Baynton says. "Thankfully, that didn't happen and instead I had a lot of fun playing with a bunch of very lovely funny people."

Ghosts premieres Thursday at 8:30pm ET/PT on CBS.

Make sure to check out EW's Fall TV Preview cover story — as well as all of our 2022 Fall TV Preview content, releasing over 22 days through Sept. 29.

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