While "Silk Stalkings" is not Shakespeare, it's an entertaining tv show. It has a good balance of eye candy, great humor and interesting cases. The third season was definitely the high point.
But something happened between the third and fourth season. The producers must've decided to fix something that wasn't broken, because up to this point, every single episode is not only below par, but boring and pointless. The focus shifts drastically from the cases and sceneries (and even the eye candy) to the personal lives of the detectives. The problem is that most issues they face are resolved at the end of each episode, and the next one is like nothing happened. The cases are not only insignificant, but have moved the background as the writing focus on soap-opera-like plots.
"Ghosts of the Past" is easily the worse of the lot. 80% of the episode is focused on Lorenzo and his girlfriend fighting over who pays for dinner... I mean, seriously??? The case they're supposed to investigate pretty much solves itself as both Chris and Rita are barely doing any investigation, and even Paula Trickey, who is a bombshell and is dressed in some really sexy dresses, can't save this episode as the script itself is pretty much trash (and Paula is an great actress too, but she had nothing to work with here).
Also, and I don't know why, both Rob Estes and Mitzi Kapture seem so out of it this season, like they couldn't care less. They're levels of performance have dropped significantly this season, and in most episodes they're just seem to phone in their lines.
(And have you also noticed how the bright colors that dominated the first three seasons, are pretty much gone and were replaced with dull ones? It's like no one cares anymore this season. I wonder if something has happened behind the scenes. Maybe the fact that Rob Estes wanted to leave at the end of the third season had something to do with it... But whatever the reason, the fourth season is really plain bad. And this, and "Time Share" and "Vengeance" are the worse of the lot and an example to had bad this season is).