TV Talk: ‘Abbott Elementary,’ ‘Ghosts’ return for sophomore seasons

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers viewing tips for the coming week.

Broadcast television may be down, but don’t count it out just yet. After all, there were two broadcast hits to come out of the 2021-22 TV season: ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” and CBS’s “Ghosts,” both returning this month for second seasons.

‘Abbott Elementary’

Following its welcome and deserving Emmy wins for writing (by series creator/star Quinta Brunson) and supporting actress (Sheryl Lee Ralph, “It’s a Living”), the ABC comedy has its second-season premiere at 9 p.m. Sept. 21 with a hilarious episode written by Brunson that also serves as a re-pilot of sorts.

Even if you didn’t watch any episodes in season one, it’s easy to jump into “Abbott” with this winning half-hour, “Development Day,” that finds Brunson’s Janine trying to put on a brave face following the breakup of her romantic relationship at the end of season one as the teachers prepare for a new school year. Brunson wrote the episode and it showcases all the characters and serves as a reminder of the reasons why this comedy caught on with viewers when others do not.

Episode two, airing Sept. 28, is lighter on laughs but advances the story of Gregory (Tyler James Williams) who’s been dating the daughter of stern teacher Barbara (Ralph).

More family members of the series regulars will show up in season two.

“In order to flesh out the back stories of these characters a little bit more and give viewers something that they didn’t have the first season, we thought it would be great to, every now and then, go into their back stories, into their lives,” Brunson said earlier this month during ABC’s portion of the Television Critics Association summer 2022 virtual press tour. “And the home is a great place to learn more about a character.”

Early episodes of season two deal with the paucity of resources at Abbott, but Brunson said making a statement about the state of public education is more a byproduct of the setting and story than it is the writers’ conscious intent.

“The focus in our writers’ room is always to start with comedy first,” Brunson said. “And if it is not something that we can truly bring humor to or that has humor in it innately that is to be mined out for our show, then we try to stay away from it.

“So we don’t really begin with feeling a responsibility to portray the teacher crisis,” she continued. “What we do is start with the reality of our situations. We just go ‘What does a school like Abbott deal with from the day-to-day?’ And naturally, things like that come into play.”

Brunson said she approaches character comedy this way: “If you put a $5 bill on the ground, each character in your show should pick it up differently. So I am always thinking what is the $5 bill? And how does that affect everyone?”

In the season premiere, Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) learns she’ll have to teach a combined grade class for the year.

“That’s the one I was more conscious of, because I know my mom had a combined classroom at a point,” said Brunson, who was inspired to create “Abbott” by her mother’s career as a teacher in a Philadelphia school. “I don’t know how she did it. I am fascinated by these teachers getting 10-to-15 extra kids in their classes.”

While Brunson and her creative team were able to write and produce almost the entire first season of “Abbott” before any episodes aired, that won’t be the case for season two.

“We will still be filming and writing when the show starts airing. What we learned from last year was to trust what we did,” Brunson said. “I think the lesson we learned was to do the exact same thing again. …. The writers’ room is trying to stay focused, hone in, and continue to write the show that we know and love. More episodes have been exciting, but also, I want to make sure that we have things for people to tune into and be excited about each week. That’s just hard to do with 22 [episodes in season two]. With 13 [in season one], I knew I could put something in there that would make people show up. In this ever-changing, but binge-worthy climate, this is not something people would be able to binge immediately. So I want to make sure they will be back with us every week that we are on the air.”

‘Ghosts’

Unlike “Abbott,” “Ghosts” filmed its first-season finale knowing it was a success and would be back for a second season. It ended with Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) opening Woodstone Manor as a B&B and then the floor beneath them collapsed, landing them in the basement.

The second-season premiere (8:30 p.m. Sept. 29, KDKA-TV) picks up with the damage repaired as a new set of first guests arrive as Sam strives for good reviews. Revolutionary War soldier ghost Isaac (Brandon Scott Jones) spends time with love interest Nigel (John Hartman).

Episode two features a further examination of who murdered jazz singer Alberta Hayes (Danielle Pinnock), leading to the return of creepy Todd (Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll), proprietor of the Alberta Hayes Museum in Altoona. Todd co-hosts a podcast about Alberta with Sam at the insistence of the podcast site’s editor. Sam worries Todd is Alberta’s stalker, but the editor notes, “Someone who stalks a dead person is called a historian!”

Continuing its winning blend of humor and heart, “Ghosts” remains a silly, frequently funny family favorite.