About.com Rating

"Reaper," with its cock-eyed premise that a slacker's soul had been sold to the devil, had the potential to be broad, silly, and slight. But the show's creators pushed the tone as far toward the dark as they could while still keeping an essentially sitcom formula, adding enough heft to the show that "Reaper" works unexpectedly well.

Cast

• Bret Harrison ... Sam
• Tyler Labine ... Bert 'Sock' Wysocki
• Ray Wise ... Devil

• Missy Peregrym ... Andi
• Rick Gonzalez ... Ben
• Valarie Rae Miller ... Josie
• Fraser Aitcheson ... Fireman
• Marci T. House ... Motorist
• Nikki Reed ... Andi
• Kevin Smith ... Jewish Guy (voice)
• Kyle Switzer ... Kyle
• Nicholas Treeshin ... Peeing Guy
• Christine Willes ... DMV clerk

Bad News

Sam is an underachiever who lives with his parents and works at a store called Workbench. He dropped out of college because it made him sleepy. His best friend and co-worker, Sock, dreams no further than the life he already has, unless it would be to convert the Workbench into a topless Workbench.

Sam notices his parents acting strangely the morning of his twenty-first birthday, and as the day progresses angry dogs chase him, television screens fill with roaring fires, and he saves coworker Andi's life by diving to knock a falling air conditioner out of the way. Only he didn't touch the it -- he moved it with his mind. And the Devil popped into his car to say hello.

Running home Sam meets his father, who tells him that they had sold his soul to the Devil before he was born, to cure the father's fatal illness.

They had tried to not have children, but a doctor lied about his infertility, and soon Sam was born.

Sam's mission is to collect escaped souls and send them back to hell. He gives Sam a infernal Dirt Devil to collect his first assignment: an arsonist who, now that he's escaped, has resumed his old ways.

At first this seems like a lark, but when one of his friends is hurt in their first attempt to collect the arsonist, Sam wants out. The Devil tells him if he refuses, he'll collect Sam's mother. Angry now and determined, Sam collects the arsonist with the help of Sock, his mysterious powers, and the Dirt Devil. He realizes afterward that this new job as a bounty hunter, and the unfamiliar sense of responsibility that comes with it, might not be a bad thing.

Sharp Humor and Dark Undertones

Reaper comes to us from the writing team of Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas, who cut their teeth writing for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; the director, at least for the pilot episode, was Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, etc.). Together these talented creators have discovered the magic talisman for making supernatural comedy work: start with the idea that what's happening is real and has real consequences, and then add a mix of broad and biting humor that feels more like a coping mechanism as a string of punchlines.

This is why the scenes in which the Devil shows a guy being creamed by a Zamboni (to demonstrate what happens to people who break their contracts), and the one where Sam's mother offers to go to hell to release Sam from his contract, and he assures her the Devil is satisfied and they don't need to worry, are crucial to Reaper's success. Without these scenes, Sam's resolve to finish this task and get the arsonist, and his ending realization that he feels like a grown-up for the first time, would be empty and meaningless. Sam could have been a slapstick cartoon victim, but being funny is an order of magnitude more difficult and more rewarding than merely being laughable, and these people know the difference.

Bret Harrison (from Grounded for Life) knows instinctively how to play this kind of dark comedy, and Ray Wise, as the Devil, conveys exactly the right amount of menace so that when he tosses off a line, like the fact that escape from hell has become easier because it's gotten so overcrowded lately, it's funny partly because you believe him.

Supporting Cast a Question Mark

Unfortunately all of the creators' energies have been focused on Sam and the Devil and their issues. The rest of the cast doesn't emerge from the shadows during the pilot, with the exception of Sock -- a character painted with very broad strokes and who, unlike Sam, never comes across as anything other than a cartoon. Tyler Labine, who plays Sock, has a long history of playing brash characters with annoying habits (he was LaFortunata on Jake 2.0, for example, the ID expert even the other characters dreaded going to see), and it's clear that he's got it down to a science. Did the creators perhaps feel that they'd fleshed out Sam too much, and so needed to pair him with a dumbed-down sidekick cloned from a Will Farrell movie? The only reason Sam is friends with this guy is low self-esteem. Still, Sock did one thing that made me laugh: when Sam explains he moved the air conditioner with his mind, Sock nods and immediately throws a jug of windshield washer fluid at him to test his abilities. (Sam, of course, fails the test.)

Props to the creators though for including a potential love interest who's beautiful but looks like she fits in with the group. Normally in these kinds of shows the nerd protagonist is paired with a stunningly gorgeous blonde who stands out like Rebecca Romijn at a Weight Watchers meeting. (Are you listening, Chuck?) Andi, as played by Missy Peregrym (who was stunningly gorgeous in Heroes last season), is here a regular college girl who likes hanging out with the guys. I wanted to see more of her -- unusual for the love interest in a testosterone comedy.