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The first season of A & E’s show documenting the findings of Penn State’s Paranormal Research Society is a mixed bag of trick and treats. 

Mostly Tricks.

I have a problem as a fan of shows about the supernatural, as most of them are hard to take seriously because they get so overblown with added music and ‘spooky’ manipulations of light/sound.  A & E’s Paranormal State falls somewhere in the middle ground of things, as the show has numerous problems but is still slightly more compelling than other shows I’ve seen that rely strictly on re-enactments of previous events.

Ryan Buell is the host of the show and the founder of the Paranormal Research Society, which he formed at Penn State.  He is accompanied on his investigations by Sergey (Tech Department), Eilfie (Resident Pagan and occultist), Heather (PRS Documentarian and Tech help) and finally Katrina (Trainee). 

I approached this show with a great deal of apprehension.  I am a fan of Sci-Fi Channel’s Ghost Hunters, a show that I watched several times before it won me over, simply because they approach things with a much more skeptical view of things, and rely on (in my opinion) a much larger battery of scientific testing before they declare something haunted, so I was hoping for something more in that vein with this show.

Ryan and his group seem to enter each scenario with much more optimism for the supernatural, and the general approach seems less scientific and much more faith based, as they hand out blessed St. Christopher medals like Tic-Tacs to anyone who wants one.

It’s very hard to take the show seriously when the heavy handed narration over the opening credits contains lines like: “We are Students, we are Seekers, and sometimes…We are Warriors.”(Emphasis mine)  Seriously?  I’m sitting there waiting for Hellboy to burst in and do battle with some sort of Lovecraftian beastie and all I get is college kids wandering around a haunted trailer house for 20+ minutes.

The show also had me rolling my eyes when they refer to their late night not-quite-a-séance gathering as Dead Time.  Conducted at 3:00AM, “believed to be the time of night when supernatural energy is strongest”, it’s really hard to take something seriously when they give it such a cornball and comically cryptic name.

They do manage to get some momentum rolling as the season goes on, the crew personalities become more evident and there are a few cutaways to the crew playing around behind the scenes, etc., little humanizing moments, but it’s still very hard to take the show seriously, as there are 20 episodes contained in this set, and common things happen so often it defies all logic.  Every other episode seems to involve someone in the afflicted house having some sort of latent psychic ability, which the team helps to nurture, and virtually every one of the typewritten wrap-ups at the end of the show assure the viewer that once the PRS crew was there, the homeowners have had no more evidence of the supernatural.  I find this a little far fetched, considering the age of some of the homes and what went on inside them, yet two days with a handful of college kids completely clears the house of any negative energy?  I just don’t buy the majority of their cases being so easily wrapped up with a little bow on top.

How sad is that?  I don’t dispute the ghosts, but rather the banishment of them in such pedestrian fashion week after week.  There are interesting recurring appearances by somewhat notable psychics or mediums like Chip Coffey and Lorraine Warren, the lead investigator of the Amityville case, but they do little but egg Ryan and his crew on.  I wish there was at least one dissenting voice in this group, but it’s just not there and I think the show definitely suffers because of it.

Visually speaking, very little evidence is captured on film, most supernatural involvement is evidenced by a medium describing what they are seeing or being told, which doesn’t make for very compelling television.  The show is over-produced, in that a lot of the sounds added in to presumably increase the tension end up confusing the viewer’s ear. Is that breathing we’re hearing what the crew is talking about, or something added in post production?

The DVD set of Paranormal State contains all 20 episodes of the show on three discs, as well as commentaries on three episodes by Ryan and members of the crew.  Supplemental materials also include a behind the scenes featurette, a guide to the members of the PRS Crew, an overview of the guest paranormal experts and a selection of additional footage, all of which run between 3 to 12 minutes in length.

I think this show might be fun for some folks who aren’t necessarily interested in facts, but would rather be entertained, but if you want a straight forward (or even scientific) look at the world of the supernatural, you should probably look elsewhere.

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