Reaper should have been a better and more successful TV show than it was. It had everything going for it. A good cast, a well-known creator and a network that was desperate for a hit. But it was successful enough for a second season to be approved, but in the end, it never became what everyone thought it could be. When it worked, it was a funny, exciting show that we underrated. Unfortunately it didn’t work for a long enough time to succeed and was canceled after two seasons. But there are still some of us who miss it and wish that it was a better show than it was. What went wrong?

NOTE: If you haven’t seen Reaper, then beware. There be spoilers below.

Reaper was the tale of Sam Oliver (played by Bret Harrison who was the boy next door in Grounded For Life who found out on his 21st birthday that his parents had sold his soul to the Devil…accidentally. His parents made a deal with the Devil for the soul of their first born son when the Dad had some medical problems. They tried tricking the Devil by not having kids, but, as always, the Devil is trickier than anyone else. As part of the deal, Sam was force to be a Reaper. His job was to track down and capture souls that escaped from Hell and return them to Hell on Earth (aka the DMV). He was helped in his task by his two best  friends Sock (Tyler Labine) and Ben. In between reaping jobs, all of them work at a Home Depot type store called Work Bench. Also working there is Andi (Missy Peregrym) who Sam’s unrequited love interest.

After a strong pilot, the show devolved into a bad guy of the week with Sam’s powers and abilities seemingly being fleshed out, but changing from week to week. Then about halfway through a poor Season One, they introduced Ken Marino and Michael Ian Black as Tony and Steve. They played a gay couple who turned out to be demons who were rebelling from the Devil by being good. With the addition of those two (and their rebellion circle) the ongoing storyline became a lot more interesting. The fact that Sam actually talked to the Devil on a regular basis turned out to be very unusual. The rebellion subplot was the highpoint of Season One and the Season ended on an interesting twist. Season Two started off by copying the poor beginning of Season One. And by the time it recovered again, the show was already going to be canceled.

—– Spoilers Below—-

So what happened and what failed? The show kept giving us feints to a larger story of why Sam was special during Season One. And then, without any fanfare, the show just said that Sam was the Devil’s son, but it was just handled as if it was no big deal. The demon rebellion was the best part of Season One and was mostly ignored in Season Two. They brought on a new character, Morgan (Armie Hammer), who was a screwup son of the Devil and had Sam work with him, but that never really clicked. The show also spend too much time on the will they or won’t they relationship between Andi and Sam. But the big killer was the lack of direction. The ongoing storylines were much more interesting than the stand-alone stories, but too much time was spent on the demon of the week stories.

What went right? Sock was amazing. Tyler Labine was amazing as the slacker buddy with the interesting hair who could always be counted on to screw up and be lovable at the same time. Ben and Andi were OK as the friends, but Sock was great. As mentioned above, Tony and Steve brought the show to new heights and made it actually interesting and look like it had a direction. Sam was a decent lead. He didn’t make the show great, but he didn’t hurt it. Then there was the Devil. Ray Wise was perfect in this role. His Devil was charming, threatening, tricky and slimy all at the same time. If you do nothing else, rent the show and just watch Ray Wise ooze Devilish charm and fast forward over everything else.

Overall Reaper was an interesting failure that could have (and should have) been much, much better. It’s always disappointing when you watch a show and are disappointed because you’ve seen how good it could be. I still recommend the show, but it has more misses than hits and will leave you with a bad taste in your mouth about how what it could have been.