12 Shows Like Ghosts You Should Check Out

Imagine unexpectedly learning that a distant relative has died with no direct heirs and left their grand familial manor to you. It seems like a dream right up until the property taxes start to kick in -– not to mention the undead residents you might have to bunk with. 

In the CBS comedy series "Ghosts," married couple and city slickers Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) and Samantha (Rose McIver) are thrilled to learn they've inherited a grand country estate from Sam's long-lost relative Sophia Woodstone. As a freelance writer and a chef currently between jobs, respectively, they are all too eager to shift gears and renovate the place, transforming it "Property Brothers"-style into a bed and breakfast that would make a perfect income stream. But when a bump on the noggin leaves Sam with the ability to communicate with the undead, they soon realize they got more than they bargained for. 

Faced with the choice of giving up their new home or learning to live with a very busy ghostly household, they open up to the friendly spirits, who accept them in return. A wholesome series with a fantastic ensemble cast, "Ghosts" is a delightful fantasy with plenty of laughs, just like the British series it's based on. If you can't get enough spooky yet lighthearted adventures, here are 12 more shows like "Ghosts" that you should add to your watch list.

Although it's technically not a comedy, "SurrealEstate" is a drama in the way that "Psych" is a drama. The Canadian series is a show about ghost experts with a twist: they're actually real estate agents. The story follows real estate agent Luke Roman of the Roman Agency, a real estate company that specializes in exorcising ghosts from houses with spooky problems that are preventing the homeowners from closing on a sale. The refreshingly formulaic 43-minute series stars Tim Rozon as Luke Roman and Sarah Levy as Sarah Ireland, both of whom were regulars on "Schitt's Creek." The series has something of a cult following, with fans praising the show in the show's IMDb reviews for its perfect blend of serious mythology, dry humor, charm, chemistry, and camp. The show was originally canceled after the first season, with the network planning to shop it around, but SyFy eventually read the room and reversed their cancellation, as reported by Deadline in May 2022.

Like many of the best shows on TV, from "The Office" to "Shameless," "Ghosts" is an American adaptation of a British television series by the same name. The UK series, which first aired in 2019, features the same storyline as the US version. Like her American counterpart Samantha, Alison Cooper inherits an aging but beautiful estate from a distant relative. And like Sam and Jay, Alison and her husband move in with the intention of transforming it into a hotel, only to find the place overrun with ghosts from various periods throughout the estate's history. The geographic differences between Sam and Alison's ghosts strip away any redundancies between their stories. The Coopers' main house ghosts include a Georgian noblewoman, a former MP disgraced by a scandal, a melodramatic Romantic poet, a caveman, and a World War II officer. Only one character — a scout leader who was accidentally killed with an arrow — is almost identical to his U.S. counterpart.

It's hard to even begin to define HBO's "Los Espookys." On the surface, the series follows a group of four friends who run a horror technician business. They stage elaborate shows with special effects and Hollywood-quality prosthetics for various events, from dinner parties and quinceañeras to fake exorcisms and tourist traps. The world they live in is filled with odd, magical, and unexplainable moments, all of which the Espookys casually live with and around. The Espookys consist of the easygoing goth leader Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco); his best friend, the blue-haired and amulet-wearing chocolate heir Andrés Valdez (Julio Torres); dental hygienist Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti), and her oddball sister Tati (Ana Fabrega), whose jobs include work as a human Fitbit and breaking in other people's shoes. And then there's Renaldo's uncle Tico (Fred Armisen), a parking valet employee so skilled he can park two cars at once. 

The story is set in a quirky bilingual world that doesn't exist anywhere on a map. In an interview with Slate, Armisen explained that they couldn't decide where to place the story and eventually landed on keeping it vague in a place Torres referred to as "the limbo that we have created." The series is produced by Lorne Michaels, Armisen, and Andrew Singer and boasts a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

A sequel series to the film of the same name, "What We Do in the Shadows" is a mockumentary horror series set in the same world but following a set of vampires living in Staten Island, where they share a home. The roommates include traditional vampires Nadja, Laszlo, and Nandor; Nandor's familiar, Guillermo; and an "energy vampire" named Colin Robinson. Nandor is a warrior from the Ottoman Empire, and the married Laszlo and Nadja are a pervy 18th-century British nobleman and a medieval Romani peasant, respectively. Like the film, the story revolves around the vampires' daily lives. Over the course of the series, they get caught up in various vampire politics, open a vampiric nightclub, socialize with mortals, feud with werewolves, join fitness clubs, and dine on loads of human flesh. The brilliant chemistry and banter between the colorful cast of characters make this quotable series one of the rare few that can be watched over and over again.

Starring Alan Tudyk, "Resident Alien" tells the story of an alien who gets sent to Earth to destroy humanity and instead ends up befriending the townspeople in the small Colorado community he lands in. Based on a popular Dark Horse comic, the series finds the alien — whose name is beyond human pronunciation capabilities — killing Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle, taking on his form, and generally failing to blend in while he waits to be rescued by the others of his kind after his ship crash-landed before he could eradicate the human race. Unfortunately for Harry, despite his best efforts, he begins to connect with others within the community, especially Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko), D'Arcy Bloom (Alice Wetterlund), and local kid Max Hawthorne (Judah Prehn), who can see him for who he really is. As heartwarming as all of this is, Harry is still hoarding a corpse in his basement and ultimately planning to finish the job he first came to Earth to perform, even if it's no longer as easy as it once would have been.

Airing from 1996 through 2001, "3rd Rock From the Sun" was a rare successful sitcom featuring a quirky and often absurd story, like "Mork and Mindy" and "Dinosaurs." Starring John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Jane Curtin, the series revolves around an exploration crew of four aliens posing as a human family renting an attic apartment in Rutherford, Ohio. High Commander Dick Solomon (Lithgow) leads the crew and also teaches physics at a local university, where he eventually becomes entangled with the buttoned-up anthropology professor Dr. Mary Albright. The group's senior-most officer inhabits the youngest human body, appearing as teenager Tommy (Gordon-Levitt). Their security officer is Sally (Johnston). Fittingly, William Shatner portrays the officer the crew reports to, transmitting messages through Harry's body (French Stewart). Like many of the best alien comedies, the story finds humor in the characters' ignorance of human ways. They gradually become more invested in the human experience, taking on earthling characteristics themselves.