School Spirits is a Paramount+ original TV show I did not expect to love so much. There are many great Paramount+ Original TV shows, but there is only a handful that I watch regularly. These shows are must-watch weekly viewing. School Spirits have become one of those series. Every week, I watch it because I’m so enthralled by everything happening.
School Spirits isn’t a groundbreaking show but it starts out the gate with a very solid first season. As I’ve gotten older, naturally, teen dramas often don’t appeal to me, but I still enjoy teen drama and romance occasionally, especially with there being so many great teen dramas and comedies that appeal to adults as well as teens. However, there haven’t been many that have captured my attention in an addictive, "you must watch this every week" way.
This makes School Spirits a surprising delight and an unexpected TV addiction. It’s also one of the best teen must-watch mystery shows. Let’s jump into a spoiler-free look at why School Spirits so enthralling to me.
School Spirits Has An Addictive Mystery At The Center
Shows such as Veronica Mars have always been some of my favorites because I love good mystery shows. They’re intriguing and fun, and I want to see if I can solve the crime before the characters. One of the main things School Spirits has going for it is that it creates this really intriguing mystery surrounding the main character.
Within the first ten minutes of the pilot episode, you learn that Maddie (Peyton List) has died but she doesn’t recall the circumstances surrounding her death. Was it murder? Was it an accident? She cannot remember any of it. However, most of the signs point to murder. Each episode of School Spirits reveals another piece of this puzzle.
Each episode also introduces a new suspect and explores how they may have been involved. School Spirits give you enough clues to begin to piece together some of what might have happened to Maddie, but not enough to solve the mystery within the introduction episodes. You tune in each week to try to learn more about this mystery.
Each Of The Main Characters Are Interesting And Make You Want To Know More Of Their Stories
I’ll admit that I initially thought the show didn’t do a great job with creating fascinating ghost characters. There weren’t enough layers to the three main ghost characters at first. However, as the episodes progress, each of them become a lot more intriguing and likable. Wally (Milo Manheim) and Rhonda (Sarah Yarkin) in particular both feel underdeveloped at first, but once you learn more about their backstories, family lives, and death, it gives them a lot more to like and understand about them.
The rest of the show’s main characters start off fascinating and just get more interesting as the show continues. Each character has so much more to explore about them, which makes it feel like we’re only just starting to see what they could become in the series.
It Has High School Stereotypes But With Twists
It’s clear that the creators of School Spirits have seen some of the best teen shows and know about the high school character typical stereotypes. The ghosts in particular almost feel like rejects from The Breakfast Club, but that’s some of the fun of the show, it dismantles teen character tropes. Wally isn’t just the school jock, but very sensitive and sweet. Xavier (Spencer MacPherson) isn’t just the resident bad boy. He’s much more complex and layered. He also doesn’t aim to be a bad-boy character.
Claire (Rainbow Wedell) isn’t your typical queen bee because she has pain and sadness behind her decisions, and Maddie, Simon (Kristian Flores), and Nicole (Kiara Pichardo) aren’t just outsider characters because they’re more fascinating than their stereotype box. Each of the characters is a teen show archetype but none of them quite fit into those modes. They’re written in a more complex way that doesn’t make them the perfect version of their archetypes.
School Spirits Has A Very Unique Take On The Ghosts Mythology
School Spirits is a ghost story that doesn’t feel like one. This is mainly because you barely remember these characters are ghosts without them mentioning it. They very much walk among the living and also still feel living. School Spirits is not a great horror TV show because it has no horror. It’s definitely a supernatural or paranormal show, but that doesn’t even quite feel like the right label either.
It just feels like a teen coming-of-age story with some mystery. To blur the lines between humans and ghosts even more, the characters can grab things from the human world, but they can’t alter them. This means they can steal a kid’s cheeseburger and eat it, but the kid doesn’t suddenly not have a cheeseburger. It’s basically like they can clone things from the human world to bring them into their spirit world.
They also often participate in the activities of the living. For example, there are football games and dances that they attend as well. Similar to other ghost TV shows, some of the ghosts have special abilities or supernatural talents specific to them. School Spirits is just starting to scratch the surface of its mythology but I think the unusual ghost world traits make the show a refreshing take on ghost stories.
It Effortlessly Walks That Comedy And Drama Line
Because School Spirits deals with death, it’s definitely more drama than comedy, but it has some funny moments. The comedy isn’t extremely funny, but there are moments that incite a chuckle or two occasionally. The lighter moments make some of the dramatic ones easier to digest. The death of teens, especially when it happens violently, can be a very heavy topic, but the show balances these topics with silly moments, such as the ghosts taking game day too seriously and being forced to do homework by their ghost teacher.
School Spirits Has The Potential To Become An Even Better Show In Future Seasons
School Spirits is far from a perfect TV show, but I think there are a lot of great things about it. It also has a great blueprint that could make it an even better show in future seasons. It feels like a hybrid between Being Human (Us edition) and Wolfblood, which are two great shows that (mostly) got better as they continued.
Hopefully, School Spirits wraps up the Season 1 mystery and -- if it's renewed -- uses Season 2 to explore another mystery. The show is even one that could take the anthology route and follow in the footsteps of some of the best anthology series and use the same actors in different roles. It could even work if Season 2 follows new ghosts at a different school.
School Spirits is just figuring itself out so that leaves the door open for many different possibilities if Paramount+ renews it for another season.
School Spirits is available to Paramount+ plan subscribers.
