Ghosts Christmas special spoilers follow – including the show’s ending.
And with that, a final festive special, Ghosts has come to its triumphant conclusion.
The BBC comedy centring on a couple who inherit a haunted house sadly came to an end after five seasons. In the last-ever episode of the show, Alison and Mike (Charlotte Ritchie and Kiell Smith-Bynoe) saw their lives change forever when they welcomed their daughter Mia into the family.
This changed the show’s dynamic, as it meant the couple craved their own space – not just from Mike’s living mum Betty but their ghostly found family too – in order to grow as a family.
In turn, Julian (Simon Farnaby), the Captain (Ben Willbond), Fanny (Martha Howe-Douglas), Thomas (Mathew Baynton), Pat (Jim Howick), Kitty (Lolly Adefope), Robin and even headless Humphrey (both Laurence Rickard) realised they needed to let Alison and Mike move on.
Related: Charlotte Ritchie is as sad as you are that Ghosts is ending
In a truly beautiful ending, we saw the ghosts urge Alison to take the hotel chain’s previous offer and leave Button House. Then, in the final scene, we saw an elderly Alison and Mike returning to the house (now a hotel) to stay. We learned they do this every year, so Alison can catch the ghosts up on their lives. Sob!
While it really was a touching and fitting ending, it perhaps wasn’t one that the fans were expecting. Theories were running wild: would Mike have an accident (or even die) so he could see the ghosts? Or, perhaps the most popular, would they all move on to the afterlife (or as the show famously puts it, “get sucked off”)?
While we loved the ending and thought it was absolutely the right one, we couldn’t help but wonder whether it had ever been an option to end it in the way fans expected.
“This is going to sound really weird, but I’ve always been a massive sci-fi geek. And I loved how Battlestar Galactica finished, the finality of that moment when Starbuck just disappears. It made me think. ‘We could do that!’,” explains Ben Willbond, who plays the Captain and is also one of the show’s creators.
“But then I think the stronger end is the one where you realise actually, emotionally, they’ve all moved on already.”
It undoubtedly feels much more fitting that the final episode focussed on the changing dynamic of the found family, realising their needs can’t be at the centre of everything, as Willbond explains.
“When you’ve got a new baby, and a few of us writers had been through that, there’s this phase where you just really want everyone to go away. You kind of need their support, but you really want them to go away,” he laughs.
Related: Why Ghosts means so much to LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent fans
A true highlight of the show was that we got to see the ghosts’ reactions to a new baby and a change of pace. Some were expected, like Fanny ordering Alison around, while others ended up trying to become more paternal, like the Captain.
“They’re going to have different reactions to what they want from having a new addition to the house, but it was about them realising that actually, they can’t pester and that they need to let them [Alison, Mike and the baby] become their own family,” Willbond says.
As great as it would have been to see any of the amazing theories come to life, the show needed to end with Alison and Mike as the focus, as opposed to the ghosts.
The couple deserved to find their feet, while knowing their (as the show says) “Uncles, aunties, grannies and pets” will always be waiting for a Christmas catch-up.
This is surely the ultimate message of Ghosts. “Our show has always been about family and for the whole family. So it sort of had to end on family too,” concludes Ben.
We will miss you, Ghosts.
Ghosts aired on BBC One and is available on BBC iPlayer.
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
