'Stranded' debuts on Syfy: Offers nothing new in saturated world of ghost shows

Syfy’s “Stranded” put three people on a deserted island in an old New Hampshire hotel off the coast of Portsmouth. This summer hotspot doesn’t have a living person around during the winter, but it’s teaming with restless spirits all year. This is what the three were up against in the Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 debut of “Stranded.”

The show has a little bit of a “Ghost Hunter” feel to it and it is filmed in the fashion of the “Paranormal Activity” movies, but unfortunately most of the scenes have been done before in the many ghost and paranormal shows saturating the television these days. The Boston Herald’s review published on Feb. 27 called the new reality show “Stranded” from Syfy, “boring.”

The threesome consisted of a non-believer in the paranormal, another who is still a bit skeptic, with the third and only male of the trio, a full-blown believer in the spirit world. Each had a camera of their own to document their individual personal experience, with tons of hidden cameras throughout the building and property to catch all the shots.

While the show is billed as non-scripted, it didn’t always feel that way. When the three stranded adventurers ventured out of the hotel for the first time, one noticed a window on the fourth floor open. They explored the grounds and upon return, the window was closed. Considering they are the only ones on the island, this was a bit spooky, or at least meant to be.

The open window was spotted too easily to be non-scripted, considering the building is humongous with hundreds of the same size and shape windows. Then of course there was a lot of running around, either chasing or getting away from things that were supposedly there, but not visible.

If Syfy had come out with this show a few years back, it would probably be considered spectacular entertainment. Considering that on any given day of the week a show about the paranormal is usually on the air somewhere, it is just too much of a saturated field to see this show be a gigantic hit.

“Stranded” had nothing new to offer, other than these folks being stuck alone on this island. This didn’t add enough to make this show original. They still witnessed the same type of paranormal incidents seen too many times before on “Ghost Hunters,” “Celebrity Ghost Stories,” “Ghost Adventures,” “My Ghost Story Caught on Camera” and a half a dozen more of these other worldly venues.