TVSquad

If a show like Top Chef never found a meal, would you watch it? If Ice Road Truckers couldn't find snow, would you pay attention?

Yet, every week, paranormal investigation shows like Ghost Hunters or Paranormal State hit the air and unveil the whole pile of absolute squat they found. Now, there's a new contender in the "Hey! Look! We found pretty much nothing!" category with the Discovery Channel's Ghost Lab.

Each week two thick slabs of Texas beef named Brad and Barry Klinge (right) take their Everyday Paranormal investigation team out into the wild haunted yonder. They come armed with their traveling "ghost lab" -- a 24-foot car hauler "capable of providing 200,000 watts of electricity to power audio, video and photo analysis stations; flat-screen televisions and an interactive touch-screen smartboard."

Well, this was probably inevitable. With the success of A&E's Paranormal State hanging over the heads of the SciFi Channel, the network has given a thumbs-up to a new Ghost Hunters pilot that will join the original as well as Ghost Hunters International and Ghost Hunter Babies. All right, there is no such thing as Ghost Hunter Babies, but it would be a good idea. Think about it for a moment -- the babies would literally be peeing and pooping in their pants when they saw or felt something ghost-like rather than just saying that they did.

The new pilot is called Ghost Hunters: College Edition. In this edition the hunters would be, you guessed it, college students. Instead of teaming up and performing investigations on their own -- like they do on Paranormal State -- these students would team up with professional investigators to examine claims of paranormal events across the globe. In other words, look for some cross-overs between this show and its two older siblings.

I understand that Ghost Hunters is one of the SciFi Channel's hits, but isn't the network heading towards the point of saturation by adding a third series? With three series you begin to parse out smaller and smaller groups of viewers to each show, which brings down the popularity of the original. Something to think about, network executives, when you decide on giving a green light to Ghost Hunters: The Animated Series.