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Jennifer Love Hewitt and her breasts star in this mildly engaging, vaguely spooky show about a woman whose life work is to help the restless dead find peace.

At the end of season two, Melinda (J.L. Hewitt, Party of Five) was technically dead with Gabriel (Ingacio Ariel Serriccio) smirking over her body. In her few moments of death, her father appeared to her with a warning – she must live in order to fight what’s coming.

So Melinda does, of course, live. Gabriel leaves town, and life goes on as normal. Ghosts come and ghosts go. She’s helped by her husband, Jim (David Conrad, Wedding Crashers) and her professor of the occult friend Rick Payne (Jay Mohr). Camryn Manheim also returns as Delia, Melinda’s friend and a non-believer.

The focus of this season is the “underground” a Grandview that existed before the current Grandview that Melinda lives in. Things went terribly wrong in that version of the city, and the new one is literally built on top of it. Ghosts stuck in this world are trapped there, as well as some powerful beings that aren’t really explored. The underground element of the season is, by far, the most intriguing thing, but it isn’t explored as fully as it could be. One can hope that the reason for this is the writers strike, and in season four (which begins October third) the underground will return and all of the promise shown in season three will be fully recognized.

Jennifer Love Hewitt is pretty good as Melinda, though there are often times that the Hollywood-ness of the show gets in the way of the actual story. In one scene, Melinda goes crawling around in the underground in a white designer pants suit. I screamed at the television in protest, and my husband, ever the smartass, pointed out that it was a show about ghosts, so I should just calm down. Truth be told, though, I would believe a person could speak to the dead before I’d believe that a woman would go into a dirty, cobwebbed tunnel in white clothing.

Jay Mohr has always been a favorite of mine, though after watching this show, I can’t, for the life of me, remember why. He seems to have lost so much of his edge that it’s jut sad. Camryn Manheim has no purpose in the first half of the season, but luckily she redeems herself in the second. David Conrad is excellent (and quite fun to look at to boot).

Bonuses on this set are aplenty, but beware: watch the whole series before venturing into any of the featurettes (or any of the bonuses, for that matter). The bulk of the extras are on the first few discs, and all reveal plot points to come. It’s almost an unforgivable sin to me, and yet DVD production companies insist on doing it.

There’s commentary on a handful of episodes, as well as the animated shorts that take place between seasons two and three. You can explore the official website from the eyes of a ghost, play with an interactive haunted house, design a cemetery, play with Melinda’s fashion, read Melinda’s diary, as well as featurettes about the underground and Prof. Payne featuring the once funny Jay Mohr. That’s a lot of goodies to keep a fan company.

Before watching this season, I was mildly interested in this show. And while it wasn’t the best thing I’d ever seen, it did remind me a little of the cultish horror shows I’ve come to love – especially Buffy (though to be fair, that might have been because Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar seem to have had the same feature-erasing plastic surgery). I’m also a sucker for a ghost story. But now my tivo is set for season four, and that’s a pretty good compliment coming from me.

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