‘Ghosts’ Earns TCA Awards 2022 Nominations for Its Debut Season

Following a stellar debut season filled with massive ratings wins averaging 8.4 million viewers and critical acclaim reigning in a freshness score on Rotten Tomatoes of 91%, the smash-hit sitcom Ghosts has earned its first two Television Critics Association (TCA) nominations. In an announcement from the association on Wednesday ahead of the ceremony on Aug. 6 in Los Angeles, the Joe Port and Joe Wiseman creation based on the BBC series of the same name scored nominations for Outstanding New Program and Outstanding Achievement in Comedy.

While first-year series Abbott Elementary leads the competition with five nominations and shares the Outstanding New Program category with Ghosts, the CBS sitcom led by Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar alongside an immaculately cast ensemble — Danielle Pinnock, Richie Moriarty, Rebecca Wisocky, Devan Chandler Long, Asher Grodman, Sheila Carrasco, Román Zaragoza and Brandon Scott Jones — will also face off against other new series like Only Murders in the Building, Severance, Pachinko, Reservation Dogs, The White Lotus and Yellowjackets. When it comes to the Outstanding Achievement in Comedy category, the nominations for the 38th Annual TCA span across multiple networks and streaming platforms for the 2021-2022 season, and finds Ghosts going head to head with Abbott Elementary, Atlanta, Barry, Hacks, Only Murders in the Building, Reservation Dogs and Ted Lasso.

The TCA is made up of more than 200 professional journalists covering television with 13 categories honoring drama, comedy, miniseries, youth, news and information, reality variety and sketch or talk shows. This year’s ceremony, held in Pasadena, California, will be the first in-person ceremony since 2019.

While chatting with PopCulture.com earlier this spring, Ghosts showrunners Port and Wiseman revealed exclusively just how grateful they were for not just the critical praise but the fan reception over their series, which has prompted 22 episodes for Season 2. “So many people worked so hard on this show and the fact that it’s turning out well, and then people are also finding it, those are things that don’t always happen with TV shows,” Wiseman told PopCulture while chatting about the Season 1 finale this past April. “I’m just giddy with excitement and it’s so fun to go online and just see people excited for the show and also just to find out exactly what makes them excited. It’s always a wide swath.” 

Humbled by how fans are taking a huge liking to the series through its diverse characters, Wiseman adds he is just “delighted” over the sheer fact of it all. Port chimed in with similar sentiments, saying he is “really happy” over every ounce of success that has come for the show. “We loved the British show and we thought it was very adaptable and it melded with a lot of things that Joe and I like,” he said. “I was a history major in college and I love American history and I love that there’s a chance to kind of teach about history in a way. It’s a very volatile time, as it often is in American history and I think it’s a way for people to kind of bridge the gap and see that when you’re forced to be with other people, and you’re not just in your separate camps, you see that there’s a lot more that unites us than divides us and we have a lot in common.”

For more on Ghosts, stay tuned to the very latest about the show, news about the cast, and everything in between only on PopCulture. In the meantime, relive the first season of Ghosts on Paramount+ for free from June 3 to Sept. 2, 2022.