Review by C.J. Bunce
In its first seasons, TV’s genre series superb Grimm struggled a bit to find its footing. Is that what happened in the sophomore season of SurrealEstate? The Syfy series, streaming also on Hulu, seemed to take eight of its Season 2 episodes to find its footing after what was a promising first season. Frenetic storytelling, a missing co-star, and the inability to use its star for all his strengths left the series difficult to stick with. Yet in its final episodes the series came together, if only to set us up for something better next season. Luckily for its fans the series has been renewed for a third season.
The first season tapped more of the Nick Frost series, Truth Seekers (reviewed here) than Ghostbusters, but by the end of the season star Tim Rozon seemed to be re-evaluating the character he was trying to give us. He shifted from disinterested to engaging once the idea clicked that his head honcho real estate agent, Luke Roman, was going to be the guy who sees dead people. As a twist on The Sixth Sense (the ninth episode is practically an homage) the series looks like it may have a future. TV creator George Olson and writer Gillian Muller returned with the addition of writer Thomas Pepper, and Rozon’s Wynonna Earp co-star Melanie Scrofano returning to direct the final two episodes. Another Wynonna Earp player, actor Varun Saranga, has a key role in the ninth episode of the second season.
The series again follows Rozon as real estate agent for homeowners with properties that have some kind of compromised past of the supernatural variety. So with Roman’s real estate agency homeowners get a unique level of treatment, but still with that typical smarmy, high-pressure dealings from the realty world. Roman seems very sincere. The real estate process and procedure is realistic. He and his team are trying to help people. The first season introduced a team including a former priest played by Adam Korson (The Twilight Zone, Longmire), an eloquent, Egon Spengler-inspired tech played by Maurice Dean Wint (Murdoch Mysteries, Haven), and an office manager with varying talents and aspirations played by Savannah Basley (Wynonna Earp, Private Eyes).
But it was the last team member that took over the first season. That was co-star Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek), stepping into the genre realm as normal if hyper-driven real estate agent Susan Ireland. Then this season Ireland went home one day and didn’t come back. Viewers learned along the way it was because a spirit in her house was possessing her, but that didn’t make up for the fact that the key energy force of the series was AWOL.
Rozon has held his own before, as he did in Vagrant Queen, but it took the writers too long for the series to be his again. The show offered barely enough to stick with it this year, but two new characters helped. Levy Schitt’s Creek co-star Elena Juatco seized the reins as Levy’s temporary replacement, playing an open-minded, sales savvy agent named Lomax. Then just as Wint’s character was getting a bit too much Egon, a romance from his past was ignited, and Joy Tanner joined the show as Rochelle Decker, another intriguing contributor to the Ghostbusting duties familiar with the supernatural realm.
So keep sticking around. There may be a light ahead if the third season can deliver with the return of Levy as Susan Ireland. The actors are fun, and the series just needs to figure out what story it wants to tell. Catch the first two seasons of SurrealEstate now on Syfy and Hulu.
