Ghost Hunters Live Halloween Special Recap 10.31.08 Part 1: Hours 1 and 2

Posted by Ron Martin on 11.01.2008

Six ghost hunters, two international ghost hunters, an actress, a wrestler and a gameshow host walk into a haunted fort on Halloween night...

It's widely known as the spookiest day of the year. A day when the ghouls and the spirits from the unknown freely pass onto our plain and invade our space. A day when the devils laugh at us in glee as we maniacally try to righten all things wrong. A day when it is okay to make up words like righten. Yes, I speak of November 1. More specifically I speak of the trials and tribulations of trying to get discounted Halloween items at your local department store. Good luck with that.

It is November 1. With that being said, I am looking forward to an extra hour of sleep tonight, though I am utterly in hate with Daylight Savings Time. That's all beside the point. Last night was a little holiday I like to call Halloween. The ghouls and goblins did, in fact, come out to play. In fact, having just woken up, I feel like they are playing tennis in my head right now. It being Halloween and all, I heard a rumor about this ghost hunting show doing a live seven hour ghost hunt at some fort in Delaware. Anxious to use the old "Hey, we're in Delaware" joke from Wayne's World, I have decided to recap the show for you – all seven hours. Now, no one wants to sit down and read 80 pages about a ghost hunt all at once. I know there is no way I could write this all in one sitting and Ashish told me he would send people to home to break things if I tried. This is going to come at you in three installments people. One today, one tomorrow and one Monday. However, seeing as I have no control over when the articles are posted, there's a good possibility that Ashish and Chad may follow a different schedule than you and I.

I got home about 3:30 in the AM last night, so I saw all of 0 minutes and 0 seconds of the LIVE Ghost Hunters special. I'm going into this blind people. I'm not checking any websites or even listening to rumors until it's over. It would have been fun to catch the last hour had this thing ran from 11-5 like the first year, but it was also fun falling into my bed and falling asleep before removing my pants.

Bold Predictions:

The best evidence will be found by Jason and Grant.
At some point there will be a long, uncomfortable shot of Kris's ass.
Robb, Dustin and Barry will be the investigators from GHI.
Joe Chin will f*cking rule all!
Kristyn will sit.
Jason and Grant will use the K-2 meter and *gasp* the lights will go off.
Josh Gates will be funny, but wrong – about everything.
The Miz will not scream and run like a third grader.
Steve and Tango will do something silly and make me mock them.

I know those are pretty out there predictions but I'm bringing it all and so should you for…





Are you ready for this? I know I'm not. Seven hours of live ghost hunting begins….


NOW.

HOUR ONE

Josh Gates greets us walking across a spooky bridge. The spooky music has already started and Josh has already dropped Destination Truth on us. He gives a little history of Fort Delaware. He says the entire TAPS team will be here. Whoa! Josh, do you know the entirety of TAPS includes literally hundreds of people? Josh, my boy, are we reverting back to last year where you got everything wrong? He says Dustin and Robb from GHI will be investigating with the team. This makes my happy, I like the GHI crew, though I was wrong on my Barry prediction. He actually calls The Miz a superstar. What wresting is he watching? Josh says we are also ghost hunters tonight (through our TV) and we are ultra-important. He introduces us to his co-host, the host of Estate of Panic, Steve Valentine. I'm betting that isn't his real name. Wow, we are about two minutes in and already have dropped references to five other sci-fi shows and have an unannounced (that I know of) co-host. Steve looks a little nervous as Josh makes an election joke to a man who will not vote because he's English – unless he's American using an English accent.

Let's look at TAPS first investigation of Fort Delaware. I think they should have just announced the link to my recap of The Fort Delaware Show. See Sci-fi, two can play at this whole cross promotional business. Josh calls the Fort a "disease factory." 2900 prisoners died in the POW camp. They show some highlights of TAPS first time here, including the ever-present K-2 meter, ghosts showing how dumb they are by throwing things at Joe MoF'ing Chin, EVPS and the dude walking on the thermal imager in the underground tunnels. Steve and Tango were the only one who got nothing – imagine that.

Hey, even the announcer sounds live. They are even giving us ghost hunter intro of all the team turning to face the camera all dramatic like. It's better than what we usually get. Did Kristyn just start spelling her name like that or have I been spelling it wrong for two years? By far Joe Chin had the best "I will beat your ass into a bloody pulp" face. It scared me. Uhm….where is Kris Williams?

YOUR TEAM:




Josh is with Jason, Grant, Steve and Robb. That's kind of an odd combo unless they are just talking with the guys who get to go on the "tours" from the two shows. Josh is speaking in the ever prominent "echo" tone. Eh, live shows – what you gonna do? Can I just say that the GHI hats are much better than the GH are. And….the cable scrambles for about 30 seconds. Live TV – Whatchya gonna do?!! Josh and Valentine ask some cardboard questions before we take a look at earlier when Jason and Grant took a tour with history Lee.

And we get another version of the first show at Fort Delaware with a Josh voice over. Nothing of a tour or of historian Lee Jennings.

We're back with Josh in what either was an obvious screw up by production or by Josh. I can never tell because both happen so much in these live shows. What ya gonna do?

Now we get the tour complete with Robb and History Lee. Lee tells us of a guy who died by falling down the steps. Why does TAPS need this tour again? The "tunnels" are also referred to as dungeons. They here a lot of footsteps of a lot of people. This is where they caught the thermal image. Lee says there has been an increase in activity since TAPS was there. A black woman sometimes randomly walks in and around the kitchen, looks at people and just walks through walls. They got loud bangs in here during the first go round. Lee points to a lamp that was supposedly thrown at someone in the officer's bedroom and smashed into a thousand pieces, though the lamp he pointed at was in one piece and sitting in a window. That History Lee – he so crazy! Re-enactors hear a lot of conversation in an area that TAPS didn't investigate last time. They caught an EVP in the mess hall where there has been apparitions, but Jason bitch smacks History Lee by telling him that there needs to be a lot of setup and they gots to go.

Why do I feel like no actual ghost hunting is going to take place until 8 and this "added hour" was just for hype? Why do I also get the feeling that all these pre-produced packages are also just to buy time until it gets dark in Delaware? A commercial runs for the live ghost hunt that prominently features Kris and Donna, neither of which are there (unless they just left out Kris's turnaround picture). Donna is supposedly retired from the paranormal, hasn't been mentioned at all and has quit GHI. But she was mentioned by name as being there on the commercial. Wow.

I have decided to give this Estate of Panic a chance, but I don't know about this Valentine character. Is he the guy from Doctor Who? They cut to him a few seconds to early as he's waiting for his cue to send us to a "TAPS technical side" package. It's just a minute of TAPS setting up equipment.

Josh is with Amanda Tapping and The Miz. Josh tries to seduce Amanda by telling him that Fort Delaware is his summer home. She doesn't seem impressed. Everyone is dressed pretty heavily; it must have been really cold out there on the ocean. It was nice here where I am. I was willing to forgive the static sound on the mikes, but I can't forgive the awful echo/reverb. Josh warns Amanda that The Miz is also known as the Chick Magnet and also reminds me that Elijah Burke was the one who faked being scared last year, which is good because I couldn't remember his name. The Miz claims his voice can't get that high. Amanda admits to being scared, but is exciting to get script ideas. The Miz declared that Elijah taught him how not to be cool at a haunted location.

Updated Ghost Hunters schedule:

Nov 5 – New investigation, The Reveal for Fort Delaware and winner of the Great American Ghost Hunt contest

Nov 12 -- Ghost Hunters Q&A, highlights and clips from first ever ghost hunt.

The search for America's most haunted house continues. The three finalists will be announced. They do have a really good spooky shot of the fort to take us to commercial.

Back from commercial, Valentine is in the state-of-the-art control center complete with poster sized pictures of the fort. You can hit the panic button as always, text as always and on the website are updated digital images from the investigation. Well, that's all over now so don't try to do it. Guess who is there answering questions on the Sci-fi website – Amy from the last episode. She says she is happy to help out in this way, but you have to think she has to be pissed to be there and not investigating. The picture cuts out freezing Valentine's head looking like a bad Picasso painting as he tries to throw it to a "this is how we set up an investigation" package.

"This is how we set up an investigation" package. They had to float everything the team could need to the fort by a barge. That's pretty much it. They drag it out for like five minutes, but really that's it. If I tuned in for the ghost hunt at 7, I may have turned the station by now. The crew works really hard to make the show happen. I understand and appreciate this. I don't know that it needs a chunky segment in the first hour.

Josh is with Jason and Grant getting ready to do the investigation. Jason and Grant don't seem as enthused, maybe a little nervous after what happened last year. Jason actually says they don't come in expecting anything. I don't know what it is, but whenever Josh speaks, the mikes go nuts.

Josh promised us investigating will begin when we come back, instead we get a mess up with film speed, then about half a silent second of Josh doing nothing before we cut to Josh in a different location and hear some dude off camera say "Are we about to do this?" Josh is in the command center. Josh wants to take a look at the tunnels and dungeons and we hear "Cue something" from offscreen…and finally run the clip. The clip that runs is the one they already ran when they were supposed to cut to the History Lee tour earlier. It's the exact same clip, so you know they screwed if up earlier.

Josh is with TAPS in the command center. They want you to think this is live, but it's not. The first half a second of this segment played in silence before they cut to Josh in the last segment, so we know it was taped. I am getting perverse pleasure of just how terribly produced the first thirty minutes of this show is. All the ghost hunters are there (No Kris). Amanda tries to beg off, and the ghost hunt is about to begin.

Scene I will not mention that they are trying to pass off as live, but is actually recorded. They need to bring the guy who won the contest last year in here to investigate. How much of a mess was that whole thing?

Jason and Grant split up teams. Robb and Dustin get Amanda; Steve and Tango get Steve Valentine; Joe Chin and Kristyn get The Miz, Jason and Grant get each other. A cannon goes off and we are supposedly underway. I had no idea Valentine boy was going to be investigating. Now I got to go find a picture of him.

They have a pretty cool computer 3-D image of the fort. Cut to Jason and Grant looking at a camera, waiting for their cue – they get it. They give shout outs for their kids. I like that.



We are with Jason and Grant as they try to walk through the tunnels, but the feed keeps cutting in and out an they are frozen for long periods of time. Maybe it's time to cut to another camera; I mean you do have four teams. Grant mentions that Jason looks like a ghostbuster. Nothing wrong with that. They immediately run into an angry man-eating bat. Sci-fi is declaring this area "The Dungeons." Ghost hunting actually began about 45 minutes into the first hour. They are going towards where they got the thermal image last time, but start to hear screeching noises. I wouldn't know, all I hear is spooky music. We get a split screen with the thermal imager which keeps freezing up. Grant mentions ambient light would allow them to see shadow on shadow. That's a good explanation of how they see shadows actually. Jason is looking forward to sitting down – he corrects himself, he wants to stand around. I got to admit, the spooky music works better with the live stuff than the recorded episodes. Jason fricking hates bats. Grant consoles him by telling not to think of it as a bat, but as a flying rat. And Steve should think of a spider as a large hairy ant with eight legs. Pilgrim Films is breaking new technological ground by showing us not only a frozen screen, but two screens frozen in splitscreen! Woohoo!




We get an abrupt switch over to Tango, Steve and Valentino in the kitchen. They too, wait for a cue around the corner with flashlights. There some odd sound things going on. Steve says Valentine will remember the kitchen from the tour – but he wasn't on the tour which leads me to believe there was more than one tour. Valentino immediately goes into "let's show the new viewers how to ghost hunt mode" by asking what equipment they're using. They have IR equipment and EMF readers. Steve gives us a live version of the EMF speech. This is the most Steve has looked like a ghost hunter in about two seasons. They start an EVP session. They introduce themselves to the ghosts and try to be all friendly. They're getting no EMF stuff as they're going with the basic EVP questions, which is alright. Steve and Tango start with the goofiness by trying to make music with various kitchen items. Why do I think this was somehow pre-planned? It doesn't sound too bad actually.

We cut to Josh who tells Tango and the Steves first CD will be out soon. He says "Join the Hunt" is now online. It is for ghost hunters to get together and work together. They are privy to Ghost Hunters tips and lists of books to read. They call it a ghost hunter social network. That's a pretty good idea actually. I might check it out to see what it's all about.

We're back with Valentino who I can't tell if he's live or not. At first I thought he wasn't as he said he was going "back into the kitchen" to investigate with Steve and Tango, but then he mentioned the music. Unless the music was pre-planned like I suggested, then this could be pre-recorded. He kicks us to Jason and Grant in the dungeons.



A computer graphic shows us where the dungeons are located. I hope they got the technical issues worked out. We get lots or shots of Jason's butt. They split up to try and catch whatever Grant thought he saw walking down a tunnel. Jason's getting nothing on the thermal. He's going to have to bitchsmack Grant. Maybe he did. We'll never know because the picture keeps locking up. Grant thinks someone is going down the stairs they just came up. Grant checks to make sure it's not a crew person. Grant says he feels like something is up here with them. The picture goes out so we cut to…

Hour Two



Robb, Dustin and Amanda somewhere in the fort. Amanda asks about residual haunting to which Robb describes what the ghost does and why it's residual. Robb thinks the best idea might be to start with an EVP session. The group is in the Mess Hall. Robb tells the woman it's okay to do what it is she likes to do. Dustin wants a knock. Robb hears footsteps and wonders if it's Steve and Tango (what happened to Valentino?). Robb tells the ghost that if it wants to be known, it needs to make a noise regardless of what the message is. For those wondering, Dustin is minus upside down visor. My guess is that he didn't have an orange and black Halloween themed visor. Robb tells Amanda that with the ghost being residual, it will do it's thing regardless of who's there. They keep hearing footsteps above them so they go to investigate. There is no spooky music at this point. No one is above them where they keep hearing the footsteps. Amanda is scared crapless. Did you see something?!! Hi the Panic Button! Robb says for the ghost to make a sound and there's a loud bang, but they pay no attention to it, so I am assuming it was a crew thing. Robb says that sometimes there's up to 50 people see this lady appear at once. It's 50/50 at this point that Amanda runs out of the fort crying at some point. We get a pop up reference to a sixth sci-fi show, and that's not counting Ghost Hunters. They're hearing all kinds of noises from upstairs, with the spooky music off we can actually hear some stuff as well.

Josh immediately becomes my favorite person ever by calling Dustin a "hair spray enthusiast." Josh screws up by calling Steve, Steve and Tango, Steve and the two Daves. He corrects himself and kicks us to a segment about the haunted kitchen, including TAPS loud bang evidence from their first trip.



Steve, Tango and Valentino are in the kitchen, so goes the 3-D image through the window. The EMF is flat so Valentino has an idea to get a ghost's attention. He wants to turn a cup upside down and see if it will move. This is all very played out and sounds pre-planned if not rehearsed. Valentino keeps saying things that sound like a producer is in his ear making sure he hits certain points. Steve gives the ghosts permission to use energy from them or their equipment to move objects. Nothing is happening, but at least the spooky music isn't playing. They offer to help the ghost. Why don't they act like their cooking? That's when the ghost has shown itself, when people were cooking in the room. Nothing is happening and I am getting flashbacks of Waverly Hills from last year. Did they even put out a DVD for that stinkeroo? Steve sees a watermelon in the pantry which freaks out Tango. We have no visual proof of a watermelon. I believe there is no watermelon. Dave sees a big spider and a centipede. Steve literally looks like he is going to cry. Valentino hauls ass out of the room and looks like someone just kicked him in the nuts. He looks like he saw a ghost – but it was a spider. It must be a Steve thing. They go to commercial and you can hear chuckling in the background.

We are back at the interactive center with Amy. Man, isn't it good that she was in the episode that just aired on Wednesday? What incredible luck. Josh says there have been 60,000 panic button hits so far. This is probably why the panic button is a bad idea. Josh tries to bring the funny by acting like he is reading actual reader comments.



Jason and Grant III. Let's see if the money men can bring the goods this time without the picture freezing up. Grant tells the ghosts that they are just plumbers and will not hurt the ghosts but also don't offer them plumbing advice that they could probably use down in the dungeons, you know. Grant keeps thinking he is seeing someone walking around. Jason is trying to catch it on thermal. You know what would be awesome? If someone was just walking around with a sheet on their head. I would give this show a 10 out of 10 if that happened. Unlike Tango and the Steves, Grant says they will not help the ghosts so the ghosts are free to push them around. Grant gets Jason to shine the thermal down a tunnel and Jason hears a voice. And the picture starts cutting out again. Out of nowhere, a demon like voice says "You're not supposed to be here." It sounds really fake. For their sake, I really hope it is not, but it sounded very mechanical. Jason downplays it a bit and it plays again, but a little lower in volume. Jason is not excited at all. Maybe because he knows that the picture is totally going to freeze up, so we randomly cold cut into Jason's explanation of a thermal imaging camera. Impatient Grant wants to check the digital audio right away as Jason walks away from it all. The battery in Grants audio recorder goes dead as he is checking. That's what he gets for being impatient. Jason has been checking for footsteps. The thermal imager's battery is also close to dead. I am assuming every piece of equipment got brand new batteries to start the show. They are hearing stuff and Grant wants Jason to egg whatever their hearing on. Grant keeps talking about the voice while Jason still hardly acknowledges it.

Back from commercial, Josh is with the Great American Ghost Hunt finalists. They are looking for the most haunted house in America. TAPS will investigate the winner's house next season. Josh cuts to a segment about how haunted the mess hall is. It's mostly about the ghostly cleaning woman Robb and Dustin were talking about earlier.



Robb, Dustin and Amanda are still in the mess hall. Robb is saying he hasn't heard knocking so clear as he heard tonight. Apparently they asked for knocks and got five of them. Robb even mentions that the ghost must be tired of being told to knocking. Robb tells the ghost that he promises to not ask for more knocking if the ghost knocks one more time. Dustin takes the role of bad cop and explains provoking to Amanda. Dustin tells the ghost to stop being a pussy and knock, a member of the military should be proud of himself. Robb was trying to talk the ghosts when there is a huge commotion, but it's just Steve and Tango. Robb tells the ghost that if he was a prisoner at the fort, his side loss and it was all a waste. There is some commotion on the other side of the room. Dustin tells the ghost that he loves the South, but the prisoner loss his life and it was for nothing because he loss the war. The ghost should use his anger to move stuff. This is good ghost hunting. Robb asks the ghost if it still believes that what it was doing was right. Amanda notices that the room is getting colder. There are random knocking sounds. There is a loud sound that is not Tango and Steve and the picture goes completely black for half a second. Dustin talks about Southern pride and tries to get the ghost to show his pride. Robb asks the ghost which side he was on and gets banging at the mention of both sides. There are loud noises, but I can't tell if it's a ghost or Steve and Tango in an adjoining room. Amanda asks the ghost is her presence is bothering the ghost. I think it's because she's a girl. Robb mentions they have to demonstrate stuff to the ghosts because he and Dustin are so used to being in foreign countries. Amanda is not liking this at all.

Even though Valentino promised us Kristyn and Joe after the break, Josh sends us to Jason and Grant in the officer's quarters, I think. I don't know for sure because all the sounds was broke up and at one point nonexistent.



Jason and Grant are in the officer's quarters. They have new batteries and Impatient Grant can't wait to hear the "disembodied voice." He presses play and happens to have rewinded just enough so that the first thing we hear is the voice telling us that we are not supposed to be here. What good rewinding. Once again, Grant is more excited than Jason about it.

Fin Hour Two.

So Far…: I'm a little skeptical about the disembodied voice. It was way too clear and sounded like it came from some sort of player. I'm not making accusations, just observations. No Joe Chin in the first two hours makes me a sad panda. We've always known that Pilgrim Films had major problems when it comes to production and they are living up to their reputation here. I am sure a live show is hard to pull off and I can forgive some reverb on the mikes, a frozen picture here and there or whatever. That being said, this stuff isn't getting fixed, there are constant miscues, running of the wrong pre-recorded segments and mistakes. Oy. The first hour was entirely filler and completely missable. I'm okay with using the show to plug all the other shows. They've built this thing up to become an event, so plugging their other shows is the smart way to go. In two hours Josh has only gotten a couple of things wrong, as compared to last year's debacle. I worry that with last year's Halloween investigation being such a bust that maybe Sci-fi and Pilgrim are "overcompensating" a little bit. I do like the more simple format of just letting them ghost hunt. We don't need Josh Gates telling us (mostly errantly) where we're going next, nor do we need constant "control room" updates. Just show the ghost hunting, man! Then there's a little issue that Pilgrim Films has of ghost hunters randomly appearing and disappearing off and onto their shows without any explanation whatsoever. Kris isn't on the show. Anyone who watches the show regularly noticed this. For the love of the good Lord, himself, just tell us why she isn't there. Did she quit? Is she sick? Family emergency? Did she get an acting gig and decide that this damn ghost hunting show wasn't worth the time? The audience deserves an explanation. Other than that, an uneven first two hours. Let's see were they take it – tomorrow.

See you next hour.