Why you should be watching CBS' 'Ghosts,' a surprisingly chipper comedy about being dead

You can keep your scary ghosts this Halloween. I'll take the sitcom variety.

CBS' delightful and specter-filled comedy "Ghosts" is returning for a second season, and it's exactly the kind of silly, upbeat treat I want this fall. It's the kind of pleasant and amusing show that goes well with a cozy sweater and a pumpkin spice latte.

The sophomore series (Thursdays, 8:30 EDT/PDT, ★★★ out of four), is (as the title suggests) about a group of ghosts stuck in purgatory at a mansion in upstate New York. In the first season, young (alive) couple Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) inherit the estate with plans to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. Soon after, Sam winds up with the power to see all her dead housemates, and what starts as a haunting quickly becomes unlikely friendship. By Thursday's Season 2 premiere, the ghosts are helping Sam and Jay run the B&B, spying on the guests and reporting back.

The show – based on a British sitcom that's streaming on HBO Max – is like "Friends," if most of the friends were dead. And it's precisely the series' mix of classic sitcom tropes with a ghostly mythology that makes it a winning and very funny formula. What could be hackneyed and corny is instead surprisingly heartfelt and often genuinely hilarious.

More: How CBS sitcom "Ghosts" combines misfit spirits, feel-good charm

The success of the series relies on the impeccable casting. It's a huge ensemble, but they all have chemistry with each other. In addition to Sam and Jay, the ghosts include Thorfinn (Devan Chandler Long), a Viking explorer circa 1000 A.D.; Alberta (Danielle Pinnock), a jazz singer from the 1920s; Flower (Sheila Carrasco), a 1960s hippie; Trevor (Asher Grodman), a 1990s Wall Street bro; Hetty (Rebecca Wisocky), a Gilded Age socialite; Pete (Richie Moriarty),  a scout leader from the 1980s; Isaac (Brandon Scott Jones), an officer in the American Revolution; and Sasappis (Román Zaragoza), a 16th-century indigenous man.

That's a lot of history covered in one motley crew. "Ghosts" is surprisingly nuanced and thoughtful when it reckons with who lived and died in that patch of land in upstate New York over centuries. It doesn't gloss over the fate of Sasappis' Lenape people, for instance. Nor does it ignore the racism Alberta faced in her life or the misogyny Hetty dealt with from her robber-baron husband (the series also holds Hetty accountable for the terrible things she did as a member of the wealthy elite).

But this isn't a high school American history course. "Ghosts" doesn't skimp on the jokes. It is a very classic sitcom with one big twist, so the laughs are easy, relatable and broad – but also novel. Think a dinner party gone wrong, because the ghosts won't stop chattering in Sam's ear and nobody else can hear them. Or a will-they-won't-they romance, between Isaac and a British redcoat who died around the same time, and they got together after centuries of being in the closet.

Revolutionary 'Ghosts': How Isaac Higgintoot expressed love for redcoat rival after 250 years

The broadcast sitcom isn't dead. We all learned that during this year's Emmy Awards when Quinta Brunson, Sheryl Lee Ralph and ABC's "Abbott Elementary" took home statues. "Ghosts" may not be about an elementary school, but it has a similarly sunny disposition in the face of depressing realities. Where the teachers of "Abbott" make the best with slashed budgets the ghosts of "Ghosts" make the best of an interminable existence in purgatory (and the threat of going to hell if they can't move on to heaven). It's that hopeful, "do what you can with what you've got" tone that makes both shows so appealing in times of dark news and terrifying headlines.

If I want to feel better, I can rely on my "Ghosts."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Ghosts' Season 2 review: Watch this chipper comedy about being dead