Reaper’s Demons
Updated after the jump…
Since Reaper premiered on The CW last fall it’s been on of those series with enough kinetic energy to really become something memorable, but simply without the tools needed to really pull it off. At first it was too formulaic, trying to be an ultra-rigid monster-of-the-week series when its target audience (young people) has begun to demand at least some serialization (something even CSI has acknowledged). By the time the strike rolled around Reaper had found itself in my not-so-important pile, where episodes would sit around on my hard drive or DVR for weeks before I’d get around to watching them.
However, once the show returned in Mid-March it seemed to have found a solution in the form of Ken Marino and Michael Ian Black as two gay, demons living next to Sam and his friends in a lush high-rise apartment. This week’s episode initially seemed to raise the stakes by having the two of them recruit Sam in an effort to overthrow Satan himself. I loved the long-term possibilities of this. I could their plan being carried out over entire seasons. So needless to say I was disappointed when the whole thing appeared to have burnt itself up over the course of one single episode. More after the jump…
Now, the ending did leave some wiggle room for future developments, but I suspect we won’t see those two characters again the rest of this season and that’s a shame because the series really needs them. Sam and his friends are fun to watch, and Ray Wise as the devil is an absolute joy, but Black and Marino added a certain bit of comic-cred to the proceedings as well as an episode-to-episode storyline with a little more at stake than the affections of a co-worker.
Perhaps my concerns are baseless. There are two more episodes left this season and maybe all of this will resurface, though episode synopsis do not suggest this will be the case, and I think Marino and Black were only signed up for three episodes. An what with the show’s future presumably still up in the air, I’m at least surprised their role didn’t ride out the rest of the season.
i will say this: I rewatched the first season of Veronica Mars last week and it should be stated for the record that Marino’s Vinnie Van Lowe is hysterically funny and should have gotten his own spin-off (maybe that would have sold better than Veronica F.B.I).
Update: Well, as it turns out I had nothing to be worried about. The plot to overthrow the devil is alive and well (though minus one Mr. Michael Ian Black). I guess that just goes to show how fluid episodic television is and how it’s probably ill-advised to make sweeping generalization before the season comes to a close. That being said, without sweeping generalizations, what fun would the internet be?
Tags: characters, Ken Marino, Michael Ian Black, Reaper, The CW, Veronica Mars
