SURREALESTATE Season One
Crucifix-er uppers
UK Sky Sci-fi/streaming on NOW US Syfy, finished airing Showrunner George R Olson
Cast Tim Rozon, Sarah Levy, Adam
Korson, Maurice Dean Wint
Selling a house can be traumatic at the best of times – considerably more so when that house is haunted. Which is where real estate agent Luke Roman and his specialist team come in handy: they give your property a paranormal enema, then sell the place.
Luke’s team includes a pyrokinetic deal-closer, a gay, ex-priest expert in paranormal lore, a British tech guy who’s swallowed a book of quotations, and a surly, gothy office manager. Each week they exorcise a house blighted by some unconvincing, low-rent gore and creature effects, directed with all the tension of a soggy kitchen towel. There’s also an arc plot involving Roman’s family lineage and a hellhole in his girlfriend’s house, which provides some moderately interesting twists along the way.
Full marks to Surrealestate for coming up with a new twist on the haunted house genre; it’s just a shame the show doesn’t do anything particularly exciting with it. Possibly the creepiest thing about the show is Luke himself. Played by Wynonna Earp’s Tim Rozon, he’s a weird mix of used car salesman, long-lost Corleone brother, Eddie Munster and Roy Orbison. He can talk to ghosts, and regularly hooks up with his dead dad to shoot the breeze.
Amazingly, all the women in the show think he’s a real charmer. But while Rozon was just that as Doc Holliday in Earp, there’s something about the whole Luke persona – the clothes, the manner, the mumbling, the too-obvious hair dye – that’s downright unsettling. What keeps the series watchable are the supporting characters, who provide some much-needed quirkiness and fun.
By all means arrange a viewing, then, but don’t expect Surrealestate to be the ghost house of your dreams.
Dave Golder
Tim Rozen’s former Wynnona Earp costar Melanie Scrofano guest stars in one episode, and also directs two more.