TV Review: Reaper Harvests Grins

Reaper's Harrison and Labine: Who you gonna call?

TV pilots have become mini movies now, with name directors and expensive special effects. As Variety points out this week, many series television is getting pricier with pilots alone costing as much as $4 million dollars. The CW's new show Reaper, for instance, sports some fancy-shmancy special effects and Kevin Smith as a director. The question, as is often the case these days -- is whether episode 5 will be as much fun to watch as last night's high-concept pilot episode was. Bret Harrison plays Sam, a guy who discovers that his 21st birthday brings the consummation of his parent's deal with the devil for his soul as well as the usual drinking privileges. The superb Ray Wise plays the devil as an unctuous businessman, as ruthless as he is charming. Sam's friends are a guy named Sock (Tyler Labine) who comes straight out of the Kevin Smith/Jay Apatow arrestedly developed male factory, and is none the worse for it, and crushworthy Missy Peregrym who could pass for Hillary Swank's little sister.
It seems that Sam's new job on behalf of Satan (in addition to working at a hilarious Home Depot style hardware superstore) is to collect escaped denizens of Hell and to return them via Hell on earth portals (such as the local DMV). There is a dollop of Buffy The Vampire Slayer here but if the offbeat wry tone is maintained this could work very successfully as a hybrid of that show's buddy demon fighting with the sensibility of My Name is Earl. So far so good, now let's see what the next few episodes bring.

Reaper gets 4 out of 5 pitchforks: