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TV.com: Ghost in the Machine - Melinda finds a ghost who is haunting young girls in Ned’s online gaming community.

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Recap & Review: Ghost Whisperer is one of those innocently scary type shows that pulls me in week after week. When the series first premiered a few years ago, I wasn’t too sure about it, but after watching the first episode I was hooked. The paranormal has always interested me. Here we are in season four, and the show really doesn’t have a signs pointing towards its end. This week’s episode focuses on the World Wide Web and a social networking site that is used to haunt people. I’m sure you’re all looking at your facebook accounts now. It isn’t facebook though. Ned comes to fix Melinda’s computer, and in the process he introduces her to the world of cyber gaming. The world is similar to Second Life it appears, and while he shows her around, one of the avatars jumps from the online world to the real one right in the middle of Melinda’s store. The ghost leaves her store, and he goes to where the girl he is looking for hangs out. He doesn’t stay there for long.

This case pulls Melinda in, and she starts researching online gaming. She thinks Phoenix the ghost died from an overdose of online gaming. This is something I have never heard of before. Melinda becomes obsessed with the ghost and finding out more about him. His avatar in the game world appears frozen. Ned tries to learn more and help out this time because he knows more about the gaming world than Melinda does. He does this by trying to get close to the girl Phoenix appears to have a crush on. Eli then begins to talk Phoenix ghost, but the ghost wasn’t too into it. At the store, Melinda finds that Phoenix’s avatar is no longer frozen. When she touches the screen, she somehow enters the game world herself. She decides to go back in and find Phoenix in his world, but this only angers the ghost. Melinda and he battle in the game world.

Once she comes back out, the ghost contacts her by email. She then has Ned use that email address to find out who the ghost is. Ned then goes to talk to Elise, the girl the ghost is fixated on. Melinda uses that email to find the ghost, but it turns out to belong to a man. The man tells her that someone stole his email, a man that is known as a cyber stalker. Eli is able to find the home of Phoenix through a police contact of his, and he takes Melinda there. When they reach the man’s house, the find him dead, and he isn’t a cyber stalker, but the young girl’s father. He told Melinda he was trying to protect her, and it turns out that was exactly what he was trying to do. Melinda talks to him, and she finds out he was trying to protect his daughter from the stalker. He had an affair, and his daughter wanted nothing to do with him, so he created the avatar to be close to her.

Melinda tries to tell Elise and her mother about the stalker, but the woman won’t listen. This is where Melinda uses Phoenix to once again enter the game world. However, she is unable to connect with “Cal” before he makes a date to meet Elise. He isn’t who he says he is when she talks to him on the phone. Melinda sends Phoenix to watch his daughter. She is contacted by the predator, but he is already on his way to meet Elise. Her father sees him arrive, and he goes to warn Melinda. She and Eli have already found the man’s home. Her father is unable to stop her from leaving with the man. No one can really do anything once this happens. Melinda sends the dad to help his daughter, and he manages to take control of the man’s van. It almost crashes, but Elise is able to use this moment to break free. The man is caught. Melinda tells the daughter all her father did, including becoming a part of her world as Phoenix. The father them crosses over.

This was one of the better episodes of Ghost Whisperer this season. It took a real world event such as cyber stalking, and it connected it to Melinda’s world. Not much of her husband this week, but that will change next episode. A touching episode more than a scary one, and we need that balance to keep this series going. What do you think of this week’s episode? To find out what’s hot on tv daily, go here!

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