It’s amazing how little needed to change on Reaper to stop the show from feeling stale. The last two weeks have seen episodes that were only okay, but by forgoing the formula established by the first five episodes, the episodes have felt far more entertaining.
This week’s escapees, Kit and Holly, were kind of underwhelming. They captured Kit almost instantly while Holly probably would have ending up capturing herself had they actually provided her with the real vessel (seeing as she just put it into the eight track player and started pressing random buttons. Seems like the most likely outcome would have her accidentally activating the vessel and getting captured). Normally a weak escapee could really hinder the episode, but there was lots of other stuff going on this week so it wasn’t much of a problem.
I would have liked to see Sam hook up with Taylor. Sam and Andi obviously aren’t going to be getting together anytime in the near future (sure, if the show gets a long enough run, they’re bound to get together sooner or later, but not now) so it’s probably best to tone down the rampant “Sam pines for Andi” moments by having him find someone else to distract him for now. Even though that someone isn’t going to be Taylor, I’d be willing to bet Sam hooks up with some other girl by the end of the season (provided the strike doesn’t end the season prematurely, more on that in a bit).
On a semi-related note, was anyone expecting the devil’s intel on the ear to backfire on Sam in much the same way his “slutty twins” picture did? I was half expecting Taylor to have some sort of problem with her ear that made it so Sam’s kissing it would ruin the moment. It’s tough to get a read on Satan on this show. Most of the time you get the feeling that he’s really trying to help Sam, even when he is tempting him with stuff. Sam seems to be of the opinion that the devil is trying to corrupt him, but I’m not so sure myself. In any event, Ray Wise’s portrayal of Satan remains the best reason to watch Reaper.
Turning to the writer strike for a moment, it’s something of a mixed blessing for new shows like Reaper. On one hand, it practically guarantees that every episode produced will make it on the air. The networks have a rather limited amount of scripted, first-run material to work with, so as long as a show’s ratings don’t drop to embarrassingly low levels they are pretty much guaranteed a spot on the schedule. This gives new shows that might otherwise by canceled due to low ratings a chance to really build up an audience. The downside of that is that new shows are more likely to lose their fanbases if the strike drags on for a long time; people are more likely to forget a show if they’ve only seen a half season of it (compared with other shows which they may have been watching for years). As long as the strike ends before this season’s new shows run out of episodes, then it’ll probably benefit them.
Regardless of what may or may not happen in the future because of the strike, Reaper is really coming into its own these past couple weeks. Let us hope that trend continues.
