Reaper

Reaper had its (probably) final episode last night. It was what it’s always been: uneven, low-budget, silly, barely managing to make it through an entire plot, let alone figure out what the whole series is supposed to be about — and very entertaining. Can I sum up my feelings about it in 32 rhymed words? Yes. Should I? No. Will I? Of course.

While the CW has already made it clear that it’s not interested in a third season of Reaper, the show may not be dead: James Hibberd’s “The Live Feed” reports that the show might be sold into syndication… on the same stations that carry the CW.
The network is facilitating talks between its stations and Reaper producer ABC Studios about the show possibly being used in syndication to fill a spot on Sundays… The move would also keep Sundays a little bit CW-ish instead of going off into an entirely different orbit.
The CW is already planning to stop broadcasting on Sundays, so the idea is that maybe their affiliates can use a CW reject to fill the Sunday night time that the network will no longer fill. Meaning that it would be just like a CW program, and viewers would think it was a CW program, except the CW wouldn’t pay for it. I don’t know if the deal will happen, but it sounds like a strangely reasonable idea; if the affiliates need to find something to put on Sundays, why not use a show that fits in with the shows they broadcast on weeknights?

Like I said, there’s no guarantee that this will happen, but I’d like to see Reaper come back (though how that would affect Tyler Labine, already committed to a new Fox show, I don’t know). And as a fan of retro programming moves, I heartily approve of the idea of more struggling prime-time shows re-emerging in syndication:

Alan Sepinwall asks about Reaper: “Dammit, why must so many rookie shows this year get their acts together right when they’re about to be canceled?” It’s a good question. Reaper has been one of the most entertaining shows of the new season, but it’s always lived with the stigma of not quite living up to its potential. Tuesday night’s episode was a good one, as was last week’s. These two episodes went a long way toward solving the problems that have kept the show back: namely that it felt repetitive, the hero was too passive, and it lacked a good female character. Last night showed Sam getting more active, the underlying stories getting more interesting (and shaping the adventures-of-the-week into something better) and, finally, the female lead, Andi, learned that Sam is the Devil’s errand-boy. The fact that she didn’t know what was going on in any of the episodes was a big problem for the show earlier, since it meant the plots were hugely imbalanced in favour of male characters, probably hurting the show’s ratings with women even though the creators are female.