Cadets at Syfy's New Academy Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts

Can you call a series about looking for ghosts a reality show?
Science Fiction channel Syfy is expanding its successful “Ghost Hunters” franchise with “Ghost Hunters Academy.” In addition to searching for things that go bump in the dark, the new series is designed to recruit additional members for its squad of paranormal investigators.
If you’ve seen one of these “who’ll be the next . . .” type series, the set up here is familiar.
According to the show’s intro, “The world’s preeminent paranormal investigators are looking for new blood in Ghost Hunters Academy. Thousands applied; only five were selected. Only the best will earn a coveted spot in the Ghost Hunters family.”
In the pilot, airing Wednesday, we are introduced to a group of college-age characters, all of whom think that hanging out in haunted houses is a hoot. One of the young women, Heathyr Hoffman, goes so far as to claim she’s a medium. When your show is about trying to get ghosts on videotape, how can you scoff at such a claim?
Once the introductions are done and the experienced ghost hunters Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango are established as judges and mentors, the gang jumps in their big black camper—a real life Scream Machine– to motor their first spooky location.
In the first episode, the young ghost busters investigate Revolutionary War-era Fort Mifflin near Philadelphia, a place known for paranormal activity. They’re warned to be on the look out for voices, movements and even “full-body apparitions.”
And indeed, that’s what they report encountering. As the go from creepy empty room to empty room, they say they hear voices and a baby crying, one gets brushed by something that can’t be seen and other see, if only fleetingly, the fort’s ghostly occupants. That might be enough to send most folks screaming from the area—only one newbie freaks out—by these folks want to become Ghost Hunters, so they try to talk back to their otherworldly hosts.
Chalk me up as an unbeliever. With all the video and audio gear these guys are lugging around, you’d think they’d pick up something pretty clear and definitive. And even the experienced Ghost Hunters do chalk up some of what is being reported as everyday phenomena, such as reflections of dust or the power of suggestion. But even what they think is solid evidence of a haunting looks pretty sketchy to me. But what do I know? Ghost Hunters is very popular, so there must be more people out there who believe, or what to believe.
As far one of the new folks becoming a Ghost Hunter, one of the key attributes appears to be honesty. In this line of work, you can’t be making things up or holding things back.
No one gets eliminated in the first episode, but it appears there are only two ways to get out of Ghost Hunter Academy. You can be promoted to become a member of the team or you can be sent home. Or I suppose a ghost could take you away. I hope they’re rolling if that happens.