Death Is Not The End:Ghosts S4.

"I've not felt this alive since .... I was alive" - Julian Fawcett MP.

The fourth, and so far final, series of Ghosts (BBC1/iPlayer, directed by Simon Hynd, and shown throughout September and October last year with a Xmas special on, big time, Xmas Day itself) didn't fuck with the formula that had made the three previous seasons so popular and successful.

They didn't really need to. The enjoyment of the show, its sweet and gentle nature, comes almost from a sense of comfort when watching it. Which probably isn't what you expect when you think about ghosts. But these are friendly, if sometimes irritating, spooks and ghouls. Not malicious ones.

The whole gang's back. Scoutmaster Pat (Jim Howick) is suggesting they all get together and sing Ging Gang Goolie. Thomas (Mathew Baynton) wonders if that's a disease. Thomas himself has become something of an infatuation for the plague pit ghosts who obsess over him after seeing his portrait of Alison (Charlotte Ritchie).

Although his pretentious (or "ambiguous") poetry puts them off soon enough. Robin the caveman (Laurence Rickard) has taken to watching The Wire, Julian (Simon Farnaby) becomes offended by the idea/fact that he's incredibly selfish, Fanny (Martha Howe-Douglas) remains as fastidious and protocol obsessed as ever, the Captain (Ben Willbond) still organises his (endless) days as if a military operation while Kitty (Lolly Adefope) tries to teach him how to relax and Sir Humphrey Bone (Rickard again) remains as frustrated as ever that his head is no longer attached to his body. But it's Mary (Katy Wix) who does the most eventful thing of all. She does something I'd have thought beyond her. Something I'd have thought beyond a ghost.

In the realm of the living, we see Alison and Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) open up the gatehouse to Button House as a bed & breakfast. A situation in which unscrupulous neighbour Barclay Beg-Chetwynde (Geoffrey McGivern) takes advantage of by luring unsuspecting visitors to his own, newly opened, rival accommodation. 

We see Mike and Alison nearly lured into a business scam/cult by supposed friends, we see Mike looking into providing zorbing facilities for guests (cue some rather weak slapstick shenanigans as he gets stuck in a zorb ball), and, far better, we see him host a party for an eight year old girl and a six year old girl with the names Ethel and Biddy. Only he's mistakenly understood the party is to be for two eighty-six year old ladies.

When Mike turns the party round it's a genuine joy. As are the scenes where Thomas puts himself in 'cold turkey' to get over Alison. Failing completely of course. He still remains obsessed with her but nowhere near as much as he is obsessed with himself. 

When Pat boasts about meeting Bobby Davro, and Fanny of meeting The Elephant Man, Thomas mentions he once met Byron and thought he was a "tosspot". That puerile humour still runs through Ghosts. There's jokes about tits (the birds of course), being "sucked off", and even a line about "Julian fingering, Fanny's lip".

Pat gets some of the best lines. When he teaches Mary what holidays are he doesn't forget to mention buying Toblerones from Duty Free and when the ghosts meet with neighbouring ghost Maddocks (Richard Glover) and Pat establishes he's a fellow Yorkshireman, he proudly announces "I'm from Yorkshire. I'm practically made of tea".

Maddocks, a gamekeeper who died with his foot in a badger trap and was then eaten by badgers, is sadly underused as a character and not everything else works. Mike's friend Obi (Nathan Byron) could be made more use of. He's basically Mike's go to guy for sorting out his problems but, if anything, is mainly used for exposition and it'd have been nice to see guest star Bridget Christie (who plays a Puritan ghost called Annie who helps Mary 'speak as she finds') get more screen time but I would say that, I'm a fan of Bridget Christie.

The running joke that Robin always beats Julian at chess never gets old and the frolics with a stuffed bear get more laughs than they really ought to but, as ever with Ghosts, it's the moments of friendship and kindness between the ghosts and Alison (and, to a much lesser degree, Mike) that provide the most worthwhile moments.

When the ghosts write, and perform, a song to apologise to Alison after upsetting her and, even more, when they post a wholly positive review of the B&B to Tripadvisor (they are the original guests there, after all). It's very moving when Jim explains the meaning of death to Kitty who, being a ghost, you'd think would already know. But Kitty's knowledge of the world is as small as her wonder is large.

As with the last couple of series, the most lovely moments are saved for the Xmas special. Not least when an old home video is unearthed and the ghosts gather round it to watch some extraordinarily touching footage. I totally wept. If that's the last we see of Ghosts what a note to end on. If not, I'll be back for more. Either way I'm happy.