It’s official: Ghosts is ending with its Christmas 2023 special, which is obviously devastating news for everyone who’s wholeheartedly obsessed with the delightfully cosy comedy series.

“After five incredible years haunting the halls of Button House, we have decided that the time is right to let our beloved sitcom Ghosts rest in peace,” the show’s creators have shared in a statement.

“We could never have imagined the reception the show has enjoyed, or the fun we have had making it, and we would like to thank our amazing cast and crew as well as everyone at BBC Comedy, BBC One and Monumental Television for their tireless support. But most of all we’d like to thank everyone who watches.”

For those who have yet to embrace the much-loved TV series, I get it: on paper, it really doesn’t sound all that much. Grown-up comedy from the Horrible Histories team, Ghosts sees cash-strapped couple Alison (Charlotte Ritchie) and Mike Cooper (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) inherit a crumbling old country mansion.

Quickly, they set to work trying to transform Button House into a lavish money-making hotel. However, when Alison falls through a window and cracks her head open, she wakes up with the ability to see and speak to the undead – and finds that her new home is positively teeming with needy ghosts. 

There’s Thomas (Mathew Baynton), a failed Romantic-with-a-capital-R poet who becomes moonily obsessed with Alison; Kitty (Lolly Adefope), a childish Georgian noblewoman who wants to be her very best friend; Julian (Simon Farnaby), a brash Conservative MP who passed away under extremely embarrassing circumstances (which explains why he’s not wearing any trousers); and Lady Button (Martha Howe-Douglas), a pompous Edwardian who regularly serves up some of the best facial expressions we have ever seen.

The Captain (Ben Willbond) is the uniform-clad former army officer who fancies himself the leader among the spirits in the mansion, although nobody knows his real name. Pat (Jim Howick) is the kind-hearted scout leader who was shot through the neck in an unfortunate archery accident. Robin (Laurence Rickard) is a literal caveman, which means he’s the longest-serving ghost in the house by far – and probably the wisest, to be honest, despite appearances.

Then there’s Sir Humphrey Bone (also Rickard), a Tudor gentleman who lost his head for accidentally committing treason, and who keeps on bloody losing it around Button House. And, of course, there’s the crowd of plague ghosts huddled in the dark confines of the basement, still coughing, still covered in sores, and still royally peed-off with the one among them who brought the disease into their midst (he knows who he is, don’t worry).

Each of these ghosts forges a unique relationship with Alison, who juggles her ongoing house renovations with making sure her undead friends are having the time of their (after)lives. Which means, yes, she spends a lot of time talking through their feelings, popping the TV on for them so they can watch Loose Women, setting up chess boards so they can play a game each day, and enduring endless recitations of Thomas’s truly terrible poetry.

As such, the series is lighthearted, heartwarming, and incredibly funny – with each 30-minute episode packing in plenty of laughs, not to mention reasons to reach for a tissue (watching the ghosts come to terms with their afterlives, and the knowledge that their spiritual existence is just a stepping stone to being “sucked off” into the actual afterlife, can be emotional).

Perhaps the best and most underrated thing about Ghosts, though, isn’t Alison’s relationship with the lively undead people that surround her. 

Rather, it’s her relationship with her husband, Mike.

You’d be forgiven for assuming that theirs would be a marriage rife with drama. After all, Alison can see the ghosts but Mike can’t, so surely this should be cause for a big blowout argument. For Mike to insist that Alison is crazy and he doesn’t believe her. For him to tell her that she needs to put their relationship first, and stop tending to the needs of the spirits that surround them. For him to find out about the undead poet that keeps putting the moves on his wife and lose his shit.

Instead, we have a relationship that is… well, that is incredibly relatable. Alison and Mike spend much of their time bickering and teasing one another, getting competitive over the silliest things or cuddling up on the sofa together. They argue, sure, but they always talk things through and resolve any issues before the episode is over. They at least try to remember to factor in some quality time – even if that’s celebrating Christmas in their car when they get stuck in traffic. And they still make an effort to “get their freak on”, despite living in a haunted 500-year-old house.

As Smith-Bynoe tells The Guardian: “There was this scene in series one where, because we’re plagued by all these ghosts, we don’t have much time to get our freak on as a married couple. She tried to wake me up in a sexy way and she punched me. That’s what it’s like with Charlotte. She punches me when she’s trying to be sexy.”

I know what you’re thinking: all of this sounds incredibly boring. But it’s genuinely so refreshing to have an onscreen duo that spits in the face of TV’s most terrible trope: the forever on-and-off couple. You know, the one we’ve seen play out on screen thousands of times before with Friends’s Ross and Rachel, The X Files’s Mulder and Scully, Gilmore Girls’s Luke and Lorelai, Sex And The City’s Carrie and Big, and… well, you get the picture. 

Over the years, these on-screen couples have taught us that there is nothing less sexy than compromise, middle ground and stability. That the first flush of romance, the fiery breakup, and the passionate rekindling of flames long since burnt out is infinitely more interesting than the couples who just… yeah, who just put the work in. 

Mike and Alison frequently show us that love doesn’t look anything like the swooning images that Thomas conjures up in his painfully metaphor-laden poetry – nor is it the typical sitcom fodder of the funny man stuck arguing with his forever-nagging wife (Alison more than holds her own in the comedy stakes, trust us). Rather, it’s two people having a laugh together, making each other a cup of tea just the way they like it or helping one another get the time and space they need when they’re struggling with burnout.

Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? Long-term love isn’t an endless series of breathless stolen moments: it’s staying curious about one another. It’s finding ways to pass the time when you’re stuck in traffic together, running someone a bubble bath or holding their hand when they’re going through something rough. It’s remembering to apologise when you’ve done something wrong. It’s remembering to kiss each other good morning and goodnight. It’s asking someone how their day was and actually listening to the answer. It’s running into each other at full speed wearing a Zorb. It’s mixing things up, in the best possible way. It’s saying ‘thank you’. It’s making out like teenagers when the mood strikes. It’s growing and evolving together. It’s having your own friends and hobbies outside of the relationship. It’s finding romance in the little things.

Above all else, it’s about forging the sort of partnership that is forever unrattled by life’s many ups and downs (and ghostly goings-on, obviously).

Essentially, Alison and Mike know that love is a choice – one which requires both people to meet halfway and put in the effort to grow and develop as individuals and as a couple. They remind us that we shouldn’t throw in the towel at the first hurdle, but sit down and talk about our problems like actual human beings. And they hammer home the point that love shouldn’t look like two doomed ships that pass in a storm.

Rather, it’s about finding that one person – alive or dead, I guess – who most feels like a safe mooring. What a lesson to leave us with before Button House closes its doors forevermore on Christmas day, eh?

You can watch all five seasons of Ghosts on BBC iPlayer now. The extra-special final episode will air on Christmas Day at 7.45pm on BBC One.

Images: BBC; Monumental; Guido Mandozzi