The elder Ned

Just fin­ished watch­ing the lat­est episode of Ghost Whis­perer, and they have changed the actor who play’s Cam­ryn Manheim’s son, Ned. Instead of being a four­teen year-old, geeky boy strug­gling with his home­work, he’s now a high-school nerd-hunk who wears leather jack­ets and slouches cute under his tou­sled hair.

He’s a fine actor, the new Ned, and it cer­tainly gives the show a few more avenues to explore. In this episode, for exam­ple, they had oppor­tu­ni­ties for Ghost Assis­tant Ned, help­ing Melinda in her work (hubby is too busy work­ing to sup­port Mel’s antiques habit, and Jay Mohr is too expen­sive to have on screen much). Hunky Ned has a bit of a naive charm about him, but he cer­tainly let’s Melinda act all hip with the kids and what. Per­haps they are just try­ing to avoid the curse of becom­ing our generation’s Mur­der, She Wrote.

Jury is out on what old Ned is doing now (he really is 14, so he may just be tak­ing a break from being type­cast to go to real high school).

That said, I kept wait­ing and wait­ing for the inevitable inside-joke line about Ned grow­ing up so fast. Even­tu­ally Cam­ryn Man­heim got the call, in a tear­ful pas­sage about her lit­tle boy becom­ing a man. I had my money on Jay Mohr, snark­ily not­ing how boys grow like weeds or something.