ABSTRACT
Chapter Four, “Ghosts and bodies: borders of the real,” examines ideas of ghosts, death, and the “real,” through episodes from Buffy, Doctor Who, Westworld, True Blood, and The Leftovers. The repetition of the themes of immortality and the insistence of ghosts, replicants, copies, and imitations that these shows present week after week ask us not only about our possible futures, but also about our religious pasts. These shows each present a version of what it means to die, what it means to quest for and perhaps achieve a form of afterlife, and where that fits into our worlds of science and magic.
