Archive for June 4th, 2008
The Season That Was - 2007: Reaper
I was a big fan of Reaper throughout the entire 2007 season and, as it turned out, it was the only show I was really pulling for to get a second season. My prayers to Satan (no contract) were answered as The CW did pick up the show for a 2nd season… which makes it pretty much the only freshman show I like other than Terminator that got picked up. It was probably a borderline call for the CW… it was the #2 most popular new CW show after Gossip Girl but consistently came in low in its time slot. Relief for me.
I can’t say enough good things about Reaper. I had a few complaints about it at the mid-season point:
What I Say Now: This show is kind of fading on me. Each episode has been very formulaic. It’s the same show week after week. The few interesting pieces of plot they’ve started (like Sam’s dad burning certain pages of the contract) were never mentioned again.
Since it turns out that Hollywood is listening to what TDL has to say, pretty much all my complaints were addressed when the show came back from WGA Strike hiatus. The fact that Sam’s dad removed pages of the contract turned out to be pretty important. They added Ken Marino and (sorta) Michael Ian Black to the show as a gay demon couple who lived next door to Sam and his group. They created a faction of demons who were trying to overthrow the devil. It turns out that there’s something strange going on with Sam’s parents. They moved a bit away from the “Monster of the Week” format they’d been using and went toward a more long storyline approach. They added Kandyse McClure’s disturbingly gorgeous eyes (and presumably the rest of her) as Ben’s girlfriend; ending the horrific and pointless “Ben marries someone out of guilt so she could get a green card” storyline.
(Aside: the next show up on the Netflix list is Battlestar Galactica… there are 4 discs sitting on my entertainment center waiting for this stupid west coast swing for the Mets to be over. I can’t put into words how happy I was thirty seconds ago to find out that McClure’s on that show, too.)
It probably didn’t hurt Reaper that Smallville is ending its thousand-year run after next year. I presume they will heavily promote Reaper as the heir-apparent for the network’s sci-fi/comic geek junkies. It’s got Kevin Smith cred, after all. Right place, right time.
Also, I’m not sure what this says about the CW, but 5 of the top 10 DVRed shows are on this network. I guess this says something about the viewing patterns of the younger audience.
Grade: A, and you should be watching this if you’re not.