As the first episode of SurrealEstate begins, we see a man walking through the pouring rain before passing a for sale by owner sign. In a house, a woman looks through her anatomy book as weird things begin happening with her radio. She fixes it and sits back down. When she looks at a picture of a surgery, it changes, and she sees someone else on the operating table. She collects herself and it happens again. It looks like the picture is of her and a scary surgeon smiling at her. She stands up before fire from the fireplace shoots in her direction. The woman, Megan Donovan (Tennille Read), runs for the door. When she opens it, we see the shadowy silhouette of a man that causes her to scream.

Luke Roman (Tim Rozon) apologizes for stopping by so late before saying he is there about the house. Megan exclaims the house is trying to kill her, but he says it isn’t her. Luke says it is the house and he can help. She asks if he is a priest before he explains he is the real estate guy. After the intro, Luke takes Megan to a café and she says her fiancé is coming to get her. When asked what is wrong with the house, Luke admits it is hard to explain. He pulls out a keynote presentation that should help. It starts by introducing the term SMEP or Specialists in Metaphysically Engaged Properties. He goes on to tell her that a stigmatized property is one in which its property value has been impacted by unfortunate occurrences such as murders and other tragic events.

We see a woman load a gun before going into a house and shooting several times. Luke reveals a stigmatized property can love up to 35% of its value and take 317% longer to sell. He doesn’t like the term ghost and claims these properties are totally normal, but the perception of creepiness kills them. He isn’t sure something was in the house. He denies being a ghost chased and says he is only interested in saving home equity. He says he doesn’t believe in ghosts and instead just works with them. Brock Harlow (Matt White) enters. Before Megan leaves, she agrees to call him tomorrow so they can talk about the house. Next, Luke returns to his team to tell them Megan inherited the house from her grandfather and Brock is living with her. August Ripley (Maurice Dean Wint) quotes Aleister Crowley before Zooey (Savannah Basley) jokes about him. Luke asks about the report on Lenore’s place.

Father Phil Orley (Adam Korson) says the ME results came back clean. Luke doesn’t believe that since the referring agent Rita is confident there is a poltergeist there. They recommend making the new girl Susan Ireland (Sarah Levy) call Rita to tell her they came up empty. She is introduced to everyone and learns Phil does background checks and August is their IT guy. As for Zooey, she is the office manager. Luke gets a call from Megan and he quickly tells her she is making a mistake. He knows Brock is skeptical, but says things look different in the light of day. Susan knows that Luke’s team works on the problem houses and gets the asking price or better. She goes on to say that she wants to make a difference in the world one house at a time. Moments later, Luke tells her they’ve been fired but it happens a lot and the clients usually come back.

He begins showing her the keynote presentation, so she’ll know what they do. When they leave, he tells her about the Supreme Court of New York decision in Stambovsky vs Ackley that said haunted houses were real when the reputation of the house impacts its value. He explains how they help their clients before he learns that her old boss, Bob Livingston, fired her. She reveals they had a thing and it was wrong on both of their parts. Their relationship lasted about a year but got complicated since Bob was married. They visit a client’s house and Luke admits the tests say there are no poltergeists. Lauren Lenore (Jessica Clement) opens the door and recognizes Luke as the ghost guy. Rita Weiss (Alison Brooks) interrupts before she is introduced to Susan. Phil tries to find old documents for the house since it is more than 100 years ago. When he can’t, the clerk insists it couldn’t have grown up out of the ground.

August looks at the house through special binoculars that allow him to see ghosts. Luke tells the client that a poltergeist wouldn’t put them in danger. Herb Lenore (Kevin Curran) explains how the picture was broken by a flying glass. Luke reveals the land was only developed 12 years ago so it couldn’t have been a battlefield or burial ground. Luke believes if anything happened it would’ve happened before 1851. Lauren interrupts and asks if she can go out tonight, but her parents say no. An angry Lauren goes to prepare a salad before the lettuce shoots out of the fridge. Other things being flying so everyone ducks except for Luke. He gets a call from August and asks what he found out. Luke says he’ll go alone since Susan seems to have everything in control at the Lenore house. He visits Megan who isn’t happy to see him, but he explains he found out some things about the house.

He goes inside and reveals there are no records of the house being built so it is like the house was always there. He wants permission to look around and won’t charge anything. Megan is hesitant because Brock doesn’t want it. He eventually talks her into going with it, so Phil and August arrive shortly. They’re invited in and told the bad things happened in the study. Susan finds Luke hitting baseballs. He tells her they’re dealing with unfinished business. When asked about him, Luke insists there isn’t much to tell. Susan tells him he’ll need to open up a little. He says he isn’t married, there is no one special, and his mom left when he was little. His father raised him, but he died a few years ago. He says he keeps in touch with his father before saying he needs to focus on the Donovan house. She agrees to take over at the Lenore house.

Luke tells her to never rule out the rational explanation which she is praying for. Next, Megan tells Phil and August there is a locked door downstairs and she never goes down there. As soon as they open the door to the basement, they hear growling downstairs. Megan insists they don’t have any pets and not even fish. While Phil goes down, August asks if anyone died horribly in the house and sees a woman with a knife on the stairs. Phil encounters a demon dog of sorts, snaps a few pictures, and runs away. Back at the office, Phil tells Luke the house’s ME level is five and they’ve never had that before. Susan goes to the hospital and learns from Rita that Herb got hit by the big stone clock. Rita threatens to sue her. Susan tells her to shut her hole before demanding to know exactly what happened. Around 9, Megan calls Brock to remind him he was supposed to be at home by 8. She grabs a bottle of wine before calling again and telling him to come home or don’t.

When she takes a drink, a mysterious figure walks behind her but she doesn’t know. Susan learns that Lauren was late, so the food got burnt before Herb was attacked. Elsa says the clock seemed to shake a bit before it attacked. Susan checks on Lauren who is on the phone with Todd. She can barely hear him because a kid nearby is crying loudly. Susan watches as Lauren uses her ability to pick up a doll from the ground and move it to the girl’s pen. Megan watches television until the program changes to the surgery scene from her book. She eventually gets the remote to work and turns off the television. She lays her head on the bed and imagines she is stuck on the operating table. They hold her down and give her medicine before cutting into her flesh. She fights back and runs out of the house. A short time later, Luke meets her outside. Luke agrees to take her to a motel and stay with her.

As they leave, he looks at the house and sees several figures through the windows. When he wakes up, he asks Megan if she wants to talk about the house. Then, he reveals he has been watching the house for a while now. Several years ago before her grandfather bought the place, a neighbor went to the door to complain about the weeds in the yard. The lady was never seen again, and nobody knows who answered the door since the house was supposed to be unoccupied. Luke reveals that the woman was his mother and she had just moved back to town. Her grandfather wouldn’t let him run tests in the house weight. Luke finds out she is drinking a rare wine and she says her grandfather had cases and cases of rare wines.

He was adding a wine cellar to the house when he got sick. Susan sits with Lauren and asks her about the guy who got her messed up and tossing around mantle clocks. Lauren says she isn’t doing it, but Susan says she is, and it happens to certain kids at that age. She insists she needs to stop doing it. Susan is convinced Lauren will learn to control it before giving her boyfriend advice. She claims she set things on fire because of a boy when she was Lauren’s age. Next, Luke grabs meat from the fridge and Megan gets a flashlight. They go down to the basement and distract the hound with a pork chop. With the dog distracted, they find the wine cellar and Megan finds something that interests her. It is a large well. A hand reaches out and grabs her by the neck. Luke manages to save her before the dog turns on them. They escape and lock the dog inside.

Outside, Luke says he thinks Megan’s grandfather opened a portal or gateway while building the wine cellar. He’ll get a welder to finish sealing it and the dog should move on since the energy from the portal will be gone. Luke believes she can sell the house with the right representation. He is asked about his mother, but he doesn’t have an answer. The Lenore house is sold and Luke believes the Donovan house will go too. Susan asks how he knew about her telekinesis and fires. He says it was all the research they did. She admits she believed she loved Bob and he would leave his wife. Luke isn’t sure how she could’ve believed that but not that he could stay in touch with his father. Later, Luke talks about believing in true love and ghosts before visiting Megan’s house and seeing his mother through the window.

 

SurrealEstate Review

It is often difficult to know what to expect with shows on Syfy or Canadian shows for that matter. Despite the ludicrousness of SurrealEstate, I think it has the potential to be entertaining. At the very least, the opening episode wasn’t terrible, and I never felt the need to turn it off. We can likely already see where this series is going to go and what will happen with the main characters.

Viewers can probably predict the formula for upcoming episodes after watching the first. I doubt the series will be groundbreaking or award-winning, but it could be oddly enjoyable. If it doesn’t get too insane and works on the characters a bit, it might be an odd ball winner for viewers who enjoy this sort of thing.

It is hard to judge a series based on the first episode but some do hook you in immediately. SurrealEstate didn’t do that for me. I still can see how it could be successful though. The opening episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. Future recaps of SurrealEstate will be available on Reel Mockery here.