Marriage is truly forever in CBS's upcoming vampire comedy, Eternally Yours. The series, from Ghosts showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, explores the domestic side of supernatural life. The half-hour sitcom premieres on October 8.
Eternally Yours follows a vampire coven in modern-day Seattle. Liz (Allegra Edwards) and Charles (Ed Weeks) are a married vampire couple experiencing the 500-year-itch and struggling with their daughter's new relationship with a human. The comedy blends the tone and supernatural elements of Ghosts with the family dynamics of Meet the Parents.
'Eternally Yours' and 'Ghosts' Explore the Mundanity of Supernatural Lives
Eternally Yours is over a decade in the making, with Port and Wiseman penning the pilot in 2015 and appearing on the Dead Pilots Society podcast in 2019. While the pilot didn't move forward for years, the duo were able to translate it into a deal with CBS to adapt Ghosts for an American audience from the original UK version, according to Deadline.
The two series share a similar sensibility, finding comedy in supernatural creatures living their ordinary lives. Ghosts premiered in 2021, following the living and dead residents of Woodstone Manor. Rose McIver's Samantha inherited the property and, alongside her husband Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar), transformed it into a bed and breakfast. But after a head injury, she is able to see and communicate with their ghostly roommates.
Port and Wiseman are open to the idea of a crossover between the two series, telling Entertainment Weekly that while most of the ghosts can't leave the property, the Eternally Yours characters could go on vacation to the bed and breakfast. And the cast is excited about the possibility, sitting down with Collider at San Diego Comic Con to reveal which Ghosts characters they'd like to share a scene with.
“I would have a little sit-down with Pete and freak him out because of how much I resemble a certain ex-girlfriend of his. [...] I don't even have to do anything,” Edwards told Collider. “It would just be Richie [Moriarty] going, 'Do I know you?'” Eagle-eyed fans will remember Edwards previously played Donna, the former girlfriend of one of Woodstone Manor's resident ghosts Pete (Richie Moriarity). Rose Abdoo also appeared as a TV producer thinking of producing Samantha's script.
Bringing Home a New Boyfriend Is Always Contentious
Much like Meet the Parents, Eternally Yours is in part about a boyfriend trying to impress his girlfriend's parents. In the movie, Ben Stiller's Greg struggles to win over his girlfriend's dad (Robert De Niro) while visiting her parents for the first time. The subject is clearly fruitful, with Meet the Parents launching a decades-long franchise. As the trailer shows, Liz and Charles are resistant to accept Max (Jaren Lewison), who has been dating their daughter Emma (Helen J Shen) for two months.
Emma has to stop the couple from attacking Max upon their first meeting, outing themselves as vampires and upending both couples. According to the pilot's description, meeting Max forces Liz and Charles “to confront whether their love can survive forever … or if forever is a life sentence.”
Vampires Cannot Get Divorced
Eternally Yours explores couples at three different stages in their relationships — Max and Emma in their new love bubble, Jesse (Parker Young) and his human wife Phyllis (Abdoo), and of course, Liz and Charles struggling with mounting annoyances over the centuries.
Vampire lore runs deep, with the trailer explaining that vampire couples are unable to get divorced. Splitting up would mean being chopped “into a million pieces,” Jesse reveals in the trailer. He avoids this fate by only marrying humans, someone who will eventually die off. But as a result of marrying someone who ages, Phyllis now looks much older than him. The two share twin half-vampire children.
But for Liz and Charles, who committed to each other 500 years ago, time has taken a toll. Little annoyances like clearing a throat have built up over the centuries with the couple often at odds. When the couple first gets together, they both have British accents, but fast forward to modern-day and only Charles hasn't fully assimilated, he explained to Collider. While it may really just be a way to explain away his real-life accent, he views it as a sign of his character's “stick-in-the-mud conservatism.”
Vampires have long been alluring to audiences, from old Dracula films to diehard Twilight fandom and the recent acclaim for Sinners. But Eternally Yours is exploring a different version of the vampire lore — the toll being together for eternity takes on relationships. Bringing home the boyfriend means something different when everyone else is centuries older and drinks blood. But it also means reexamining what a healthy relationship looks like. Eternally Yours could also tide over Ghosts fans who will have an extended gap before the next season. CBS announced Ghosts will return on October 29 for a two-episode Halloween special and on December 10 for a two-episode holiday “Ghostsmas” special, before returning with its full season in 2027.
For more on the intersection of supernatural comedy and family dynamics, check out our piece on Timothy Olyphant's undead comedy and forgotten fantasy TV shows that have aged well.
