High School can already feel like a perpetual state of purgatory. For Maddie (Peyton List) that’s taken on new meaning as she suddenly finds herself amongst the many school spirits trapped in her high school Split River High. Unlike the rest of her ghostly compatriots though, she’s unaware of how she died, and in the world of the living no one knows if she’s dead, or missing, and Maddie has to watch the investigation from the outside in as she begins to suspect teachers, classmates, and even past friends. Fortunately for Maddie she also has one skill no other ghosts seem to have, as she’s able to communicate at times with her best friend, Simon Elroy (Kristian Flores), who is amongst the living. This provides her a chance to at least do some active sleuthing of her own, as Maddie, Simon, the police, and others, try to get to the mystery that is Maddie’s disappearance.
School Spirits caught my attention early on with this premise, which is both familiar and just unique enough at the same time to catch my eye, and I would say the series lived up to its promise. Part-procedural, part-high school drama, School Spirits does a great job of developing its characters, perhaps a bit slowly as they have to keep some of the mystery veiled, but also compellingly as I wanted to learn more not just about Maddie’s disappearance but also the lives of the other ghosts in particular.
I felt there was an excellent juxtaposition between the real world as well as the spirit world, though I was most often pulled in by the stories involving the other spirits, or Maddie and Simon’s joint story. Despite other friends being around for Maddie (or seemingly so, as we aren’t sure who to trust), it’s not till the end of Season 1 where I really clicked with some of these living characters to the extent I did the ghostly.
One device I thought was especially effective is the spirit group therapy organized by Mr. Martin (Josh Zuckerman), who appears to be the only teacher who has passed away at the school. This of course provides a great opportunity to learn about each of the departed, but it also sets up an intriguing way of considering this purgatory, and what it might take for these kids to move on when so many are trapped, physically and often emotionally, to the school itself.
Though I will not spoil the end, and all its surprises, though I certainly did not see it at all coming, it has made me all the more hopeful and excited for the potential of a season 2. I am also looking forward to the release of the comic book series that somehow will succeed this series despite this being an adaptation of the unreleased work. Hopefully all of that will be coming out in the not-so-distant future, because School Spirits is a world I want to live in for a long time to come.
SCHOOL SPIRITS Pictured, L-R: Xavier Baxter (Spencer McPherson), Maddie Nears (Peyton List), Rhonda (Sarah Yarkin), Claire Zolinski (Rainbow Wedell), Wally Clark (Milo Manheim), Charley (Nick Pugliese), Simon Elroy (Kristian Flores) and Nicole Herrera (Kiara Pichardo) in SCHOOL SPIRITS on PARAMOUNT+ Photo: Nickelodeon©2022 Paramount Global, INC. All Rights Reserved.
