The Best 2000s Dark Comedy Series Gives The Devil His Due

Reaper is a story centered around a man named Sam Oliver (Bred Harrison), who still lives at home with his parents. He dropped out of college early on and works instead at a home-repair superstore and spends his free time with his friends, Sock (Tyler Labine) and Ben (Rick Gonzalez). On his 21st birthday, he learns that his parents sold him to the Devil (Ray Wise) well before he was born.

The Devil says that Sam’s new job is to be a reaper for him, which involves tracking down souls on the run from Hell. The Devil isn’t completely heartless and provides Sam with powers and tools to corral these souls. While at first, Sam is against the idea of capturing escapees, he finds out soon enough he has no other choice and is forced to complete his mission or risk losing his family.

According to Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times, when you watch Reaper, it may feel like a familiar TV show, even if the story has a somewhat unique plot. This is because it’s a sort of hybrid of the movie Clerks, and the two TV shows Heroes and Chuck. It also has some elements of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files.

Reaper was co-created and produced by Michele Fazekas (Emergence) and Tara Butters (Kevin (Probably) Saves the World). They met while working as part of the sales and merchandising team for The X-Files. Both had always wanted to become writers and were quick to work together to come up with Reaper.

That’s not how the idea behind Reaper started, though. The two aspiring writers didn’t jump directly to making their own TV series. Instead, they hoped to create an episode for the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When their idea didn’t work out for the show, it adapted and became its own story over time.

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes had a lot of positive things to say about Reaper, giving the show an 80 percent average score. Regular audience members didn’t like the show quite as much, giving it an average score of 60 percent on the platform. Despite the scores, the show was canceled, in part due to the Writers Guild of America strike that started in 2008.

As for myself, I loved Reaper. I stumbled across it one day while searching for a TV show to act as background noise and was quickly swept up in the story. I’ve always been a fan of Ray Wise, what little I saw him in shows like Bones and Star Trek: Voyager, so I was excited to see him in a prominent role.

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This was also my introduction to Tyler Labine. I loved his role in Reaper and was quick to pick up any other movie or TV show featuring him I found over the years, including Tucker and Dale vs Evil and Sons of Tuscon.

While those two were my favorite, everyone in Reaper did a great job in their role. The series had a mix of humor and an interesting storyline that kept me watching through both seasons, including up to the awful cliffhanger that was the end of Season 2.

Despite this show’s high critic ratings and impressive cast, it’s not easy to find. No streaming service includes Reaper with its services. However, Reaper is available to rent or buy on Apple TV.