Reaper: Pilot

I wasn’t all that interested in watching Reaper, in fact, it was almost completely off my radar. Then I started hearing some things – it might actually be good and Kevin Smith was directing the first episode – but still, the promos I saw at the beginning of Summer made it look like a bad Ghostbusters knockoff.

Then I saw a commercial with LELAND FREAKIN’ PALMER (Ray Wise) as the Devil.

I was hooked. I had to watch. C’mon, Ray Wise as the Devil is just too good to resist.

And I would have watched on Tuesday, but there was a baseball game that ran long (is there any other kind?), meaning that where Reaper should have been residing on my DVR, nestling it’s fuzzy little head between Beauty and the Geek and Boston Legal, all I got were the dismembered bottom half of Beauty, and the decapitated head of Reaper. It was like some sort of bizarre Franken-show experiment.

Luckily, the CW has enough faith in this show to go the extra mile and provide an encore broadcast.

Their faith is well placed…well, mostly.

The pilot episode opens with a bit of Beck’s “Devil’s Haircut,” and before the first commercial break we have sibling rivalry, Tyler Labine doing his best Lil’ Jack Black impersonation, Satan’s very own cutest, leapingest puppy, a posessed shopping cart, arson fires on the news, a spiral-cut ham being offered as a sales incentive prize (“I’m Jewish, you jerk.”), Hulk, Batman and Omen references, daring rescue, a demonic Puppy Posse, and LELAND FREAKIN’ PALMER as the Devil, his own dapper self.

The premise of Reaper is simple: Sam’s parents sold his soul to the Devil in order to save Sam’s father’s life. The Devil has come to collect on this contract on Sam’s twenty-first birthday. While Satan cooks himself up some chicken-fried steaks and guzzles orange juice straight from the carton, he fills Sam in on the details. Sam is to act as Satan’s bounty hunter and is tasked with capturing and returning to the fiery pits of Hell those souls who have escaped back to Earth.

The capturing and returning occurs with a Dirt Devil at the DMV.

As quick-paced and humorous as this show is, it does have it’s weaknesses.

It’s a bit too self-aware for my tastes. Too many pop-culture references are thrown at the viewer. Seriously, do we need ANOTHER “suiting up for battle” montage, even if this time we’re treated to goofy sound effects. Hey, let’s call the fire-demon “Heat Miser.” Let’s dress like low-rent LARPERs playing at Ghostbusters.

Does every show HAVE to have a romantic interest? While it’s nice seeing the Mighty Morphing Power Bitch from Heroes on the cast (Missy Peregrym), the whole idea of introducing your romantic lead in the first episode just feels so forced. I think it might feel more natural if potential love-interests found their way into a storyline more organically.

But the biggest problem with Reaper has nothing to do with Reaper.

If it weren’t for the review requirements of Pink Raygun, and as much as I enjoyed the first episode, I didn’t exactly see anything compelling enough to make me want to park my butt in front of the television for another full hour each week. Assuming that the CW will be airing encore presentations throughout the season: Thanks, CW, but I’ve already got commitments on Thursday evenings with The Office, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Mad Men. That’s between two and three hours of television as it is, and it’s about one to two hours more than I can usually stand to watch on any given day. Tuesday evenings aren’t much better, as I’ve already got House and Boston Legal on my “Must See” list.

Reaper is an enjoyable enough show, but it’s fluff. It’s also facing some stiff competition with already established programming. Reaper is the kind of show that makes for a decent enough hour-killer, but it just doesn’t have any substance. If the producers of the show want to woo people away from their dates with Dr. House and Denny Crane on Tuesdays, they’re going to have to try harder than this. Develop more well-rounded and unique characters. Sure, your lovable gang of underachieving co-workers are pleasant enough, but I can’t help but feel that I’ve seen them all before.

Hopefully, I’ll find that the show (and the characters) becomes more compelling throughout the season, but if I were simply watching a show to watch a show, at this point, I’m afraid that Reaper might not make the cut.

Never miss an update. Subscribe to Pink Raygun by Email or subscribe via RSS

Related Stuff: