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Ghost Whisperer, the CBS Friday night savior, officially sucks. Tonight, writers killed off Jim (David Conrad), Melinda Gordon’s sexy, loving husband.

The episode, titled “Imaginary Friends and Enemies,” was pretty good. However, the twisty plot was overshadowed, though by ads over the last two weeks alluding to Jim’s death. The explanation, according to people trapped in the town beneath Grandview,  is that those who see the dead rub death off on those they love. It was a terrible ending to a happy couple trying to conceive.

Writers have been pushing to do this since the introduction of Jay Mohr as a sarcastic professor of all things dark and demented who fell in love with Melinda.

I felt it coming on like a persistent fungus that ceases to leave your toenails. (Not that I ever get toe fungus, but you get my meaning.) I didn’t understand why they would want to cut this character. Not only is he hot, but he offered balance to Melinda’s life. Each episode could focus on the mystery surrounding the dead-but-not-crossed-over, instead of Melinda’s weeping girl-dating-creeps moments. He offered a stability that you don’t see in Prime Time.

Melinda’s male relationships got even weirder when Mohr left (probably to film his new CBS comedy, Gary, Unmarried) and in walked Jamie Kennedy as a dude who can hear dead people, but not see them. (I’m assuming they added him to bring in more young viewers.) Melinda is acting as this guy’s mentor, while the professor goes off on some trip to help people in another country in the hopes of getting over the very married Melinda, who tearfully sent him off like a girlfriend. It is weird and the addition of either man didn’t add anything unique to the show.

The addition of Kennedy was my time to county down with Jim would die - and I hadn’t even seen any speculation before then. I’ve just watched enough TV - and seen enough stupid Hollywood patterns - to guess.

At their TV guide blog, producers said that Conrad wasn’t leaving. (Read their comments) JLH has said for fans to keep watching because BIG surprises are in store. So, what, will the embolism not kill him, but put him in a place between death and life, and eventually he will come out of it and they will live happily ever after? Or will Melinda die and join him so they can cross together? Conrad tells TV Guide News reporter Steve Ponds that his “death” will revitalize his character, which is stifling to him as an actor. (Read the interview)

Conrad and Jennifer Love Hewitt have great chemistry. You don’t get that on television. Most of the time, it is painfully forced, or simply not there. (Worst Week, anyone?) He was an excellent choice for the JLH pairing and should not have been axed - or taken to the “other side” to create a whole Melinda-and-Jim romantic otherworldly romance that can’t happen. When shows focus solely on the main characters, rather than teaching audiences about them through twisty plots, they die a slow, agonizing death. Desperate fans hang out, hoping for something new, but don’t get it.

Anytime you kill a character that people love - and who offers such a great balance to a show - there will be repercussions. It takes something away that can never be regained, and leaves the show a little flatter - emptier - each week.

I am not the only one who feels this way. Check out the CBS Ghost Whisperer forum. Plenty of people have something to say - and some contains profanity and vows to never watch the show again. So, producers, now that you’ve pissed them off, so you really think they will come back to see what happens to Jim?

I certainly won’t.

~Angela Wilson is the editor of Book Addict, Pop Syndicate’s book news blog.