Okay, that’s an exaggeration, please forgive the bad pun.
But the Ghost’s finale really did leave me with a hollow feeling that I’ve been struggling to put into words. Hopefully I can express that now.
We love Ghosts in our house, we tout it as one of the best-written shows out there and recommend it to everyone we can. There’s not a single episode that falls below a 4/5 for us. We look forward to each new release and always wait until we have time to sit down and watch an episode without any interruptions. It’s had an unquestionably positive influence in our lives.
With that being said, I was disappointed with the tone and conclusion of the final episode. I feel it fell down in some ways as both a Christmas special, and a grand finale. I think this is because:
- Too much time spent on Mike’s mum. That subplot would have worked mid-season, but here she took vital screen time from the main characters.
- Alison spent the whole episode grey-faced and harrowed which, aside from not being fun to watch, made their decision to leave feel driven by temporary burn-out rather than sound decision-making.
- Speaking of which, ten minutes of screen time to do a complete about-turn on last season’s decision to stay at the house was jarring. It felt unexplored beyond “the ghosts are annoying and I’m tired”.
- Button house is now owned solely by a French multinational who presumably don’t care for the house beyond its profit-making potential. And the only people who can benefit from the house are the wealthy elite (which, to be fair, was the case since it was built, but a pair of normies like Alison and Mike could have changed that). Business seemed healthy at the end, but there was no guarantee that the golf chain wasn’t going to abandon it or sell the building for office space or something equally depressing if things got rocky. Not a very Christmassy end for a house that was as much a main character as any of the Ghosts. I hoped Alison and Mike would find a way to generate revenue without selling the house they’d come to love, and without changing its innate character. One wing could have become Britain’s Most Haunted pub or museum (or golf member’s bar) and the ghosts could have agreed to stick to the side with the guests to contribute to the house’s spooky reputation while selflessly giving Alison and Mike the rest of the house to live in. This would have helped secure the house’s future as a beloved cultural landmark and solvent business, while respecting the house’s legacy and keeping our beloved family together with a healthier dynamic.
- I wanted Mia to be shown to have inherited the gift of sight, so we could be sure the ghosts wouldn’t end up bereft of a connection to the living world again. Heck, if they had to go with the selling-up plot, I would have preferred the episode be set almost entirely in a future where Alison, Mike and Mia have helped the Button House ghosts get sucked off, and now go round helping ghosts move on from haunted places. It’s corny, but would still be more meaningful and in the “spirit” of the show to me.
- In the end, it felt like Alison and Mike were abdicating their responsibility to help the ghosts move on in favour of money. By pure chance, a one-in-a-million inheritance granted them an opportunity to die for, and whilst selling up for an easy life might have been the realistic choice, it didn’t feel like a Christmassy one. From a show that has focused on heart-warming values such as celebrating history, honouring your legacy, accepting your found-family with all their flaws and strengths, learning to find the good in your circumstances, and even playing a part in divine providence, in the end the greatest gift Button house imparted to our protagonists was… cash. Merry Christmas!
I sincerely hope they film another special in the future, with a more wholesome story that helps put the stories of the button house ghosts to rest, or at least tells more about how they are getting on with the hotel set-up, and what will happen to them when Alison is no longer around to visit.
Having said all that, I want to emphasise that the series is still one of my all-time favourites and I don’t regret a single minute spent watching it. It’s been such a joy to experience and I’m sure my family will rewatch many times in the future. But I think I’ll personally skip the final episode, pretending instead that the Buttons happily presided over their old house for many generations to come.
