Inside the Bloodless Marriage at the Heart of ‘Eternally Yours’

When you can live forever, what do you live for? That’s not just a tagline from the Twilight vampire saga. It is a question that spouses Charles (Ed Weeks) and Liz (Allegra Edwards) at the heart of CBS‘s new comedy Eternally Yours need to ask themselves.

Unlike the message of eternal love promoted by the popular movie franchise, which Charles and Liz can’t stand, they might just prove there is an expiration date on immortal romance. In this case, it’s 500 years after the vampire pair married in 1526. “I think maybe after about 200 years in, they were probably sick of each other,” Weeks muses.

So, if Charles and Liz aren’t living for each other, then what could possibly be getting them through their day-to-day lives residing under one roof in Seattle with coven member Jesse (Parker Young), his human wife Phyllis (Rose Abdoo), and their twin sons? That would be Charles and Liz’s daughter Emma (Helen J. Shen).

When Emma becomes smitten with a human named Max (Jaren Lewison), it forces Charles and Liz to wake up from the monotonous routine they’ve found themselves in. “I think there’s memories that pop up in terms of joining the coven,” Edwards notes. “I can’t help but wonder if in the heat of the moment and in the throes of passion, Liz said, ‘Yes, please make me a vampire,’ without reading all the terms and conditions.”

As they worry about how their daughter’s new relationship might develop, Weeks adds, “Emma has sort of watched us be dysfunctional for hundreds of years,” and so, “it’s no wonder she’s a little love shy.”

Meanwhile, Max has no idea his new girlfriend is a vampire, which makes for quite the reveal when he eventually meets the family. But he seems to find an ally in Liz, who, showrunner Joe Wiseman says, “longs for the earlier days when everything was rosy.”

“She really wants to recapture that feeling and the early part of the relationship,” Wiseman continues, adding, “Charles is a little bit more cynical, but I think Max is going to chip away at him in series.”

Still, don’t expect Max’s efforts to win over the family that easily, as showrunner Joe Port (who developed Ghosts with Wiseman) points out, “[Liz will] butt heads with Max plenty, but she loves her daughter, and she thinks that Max is a bit of a departure from some of the not-so-great guys that Emma has been with in the past, and she wants someone like Max for Emma.”

In addition to losing faith in their lackluster marriage, Liz and Charles have given up… on hunting humans. Now, they have blood delivered to their door, and they sit around the family table to drink, which is where Emma and Max can get a different perspective on love from the other married couple in the coven, Jesse and Phyllis, who constantly has to have her mind wiped.

“Even though they seem like a bit of an odd couple on paper, they’re probably our healthiest couple, and they’re very deeply connected,” Port shares. “Jesse is deeply in love with Phyllis, and they’re gonna have some challenges this season, but it’s not because they don’t love each other enough.”

Jesse, though, must constantly mind-wipe human Phyllis, which helps her forget that the rest of the house are vampires. Wiseman shares they have even more supernatural powers: “They have multiple powers, and the most common ones are super speed and super strength. Although not all the vampires have super speed or super strength.”

So, Ghosts fans can expect a bevy of new supernatural skills on display. But unlike the spirits of Woodstone, Charles, Liz, Emma, and Jesse still function as contributing members of society.

This is a particular hangup for Charles, who doesn’t understand Liz’s need to hold a job as a history professor. “He is a staunch traditionalist and [from his] perspective, women have been working for but the blink of an eyelash. He probably is threatened and worried and unnerved by the idea of her being out in the world and receptive to all these new ideas,” Weeks admits.

“Liz is constantly trying to bring these newfangled ideas into the household, and I think Charles finds that quite threatening,” Weeks continues. But it goes beyond that for Edwards, who adds, “[Liz] just keeps on gathering education because what else are you going to do with your time?”

Will part of that education be approval of their daughter’s suitor? We’re thirsty to find out.

Eternally Yours, Series Premiere, Thursday, October 8, 8:30/7:30c, CBS