Reaper - Pilot - Short Review

[galathea]

So, since Reaper made some waves in the SN community beforehand, I gave the Pilot a try. I mostly watched it because I liked the premise but possibly more so because I was curious for various reasons: a) the Reaper producers deliberately tried to mock SN when they first went public, which didn't sit well with me for obvious reasons b) the CW advertised the hell out of the show, while they tend to neglect SN constantly in that regard and c) I am a huge Kevin Smith fan and wanted to see what he made out of the theme.


First off, I have no clue how anybody comes to compare this to SN, since they have nothing in common, apart from the protagonists names. If anything Reaper leans more towards 'Wonderfalls' and 'Dead Like Me', but without coming anywhere near the wittiness of those shows or their charmingly grumpy lead characters. I think what annoyed me most was that they couldn't really decide if they wanted to be a drama or a comedy and hence lacked in both departments. The dramatic elements had no emotional background and hence fell flat and the comedic elements were over the top. Mind you, I have to say that I am no fan of slapstick of any kind, so the humor is wasted on me mostly, I don't find a guy chasing dogs around a supermarket aisle or throwing stuff at his co-worker even remotely funny.

The lead character came off as two-dimensional for me, not to mention that I think the actor has no charisma whatsoever LOL. I haven't seen that actor before, so his lack in performance can be a result of the actor feeling the imbalance of the script and hence couldn't decide on how to set out his character, either as funny or as serious. The only character that really stood out as a character with an attitude was Tyler Labine's character, who was kind of the standard Kevin Smith character.

Talking of Smith, there were some dialogues lines that I could easily identify with Smith, but on the whole, the Pilot missed his absurdedness and his utter lack of political correctness. It was way too tame for Smith's usual hand writing, so I am under the impression that they brought a big name in to get the show off, but also created false expectations with that amongst the audience. At least I was disappointed by that.

On the positive side was that I think they had some really neat special effects in the 2nd half of the Pilot, but that's not really a hook to draw me into a show. Overall I think that the show was written for a pretty young audience, so maybe I am not in the target group, LOL but I doubt that I am motivated to watch it further. If I had loved the Pilot I maybe would've forgiven the CW's attempts to build this up as a competition to SN, but as it is, I am inclined to just ignore it.

Comments

[impalalove]

I haven't seen the show, and I probably won't-- it just sounds like a show I won't be able to get into, really. Interesting points, though.

[galathea-snb.livejournal.com]

Well, couldn't say you missed that much LOL. I really hoped for some good entertainment from the show at least, but it really failed in that regard. On the other hand, I wasn't really impressed with the SN Pilot either, when I saw it for the first time and see where I ended up with that! LOL

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

Meh. This is not on my list of shows to check out this autumn. It never sits well when a network overhypes something new at the expense of their more established shows. Plus - is it just me, or are there a lot of weak copycat shows on offer this season? What happened to originality?

Let us keep our fingers crossed for SN this week...

[galathea-snb.livejournal.com]

True, but in the end that's not necessarily the fault of the show itself, but the network's, so I thought it's only fair to give the show a chance and it just didn't do anything for me. *shrugs*

What other shows do you refer to? Bionic Woman?

LOL yep, SN will save us all! :D

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

Not so much Bionic Woman, since that's a remake, which isn't the same thing as a rip-off. But there's that new vampire detective show, isn't there? Which seems to be basically just a knock-off of Angel (and I think also Forever Knight).

[galathea-snb.livejournal.com]

Oooh yeah, right, I read the reviews on Moonlight (??) over at BF, seems to be a really blatant AtS rip-off LOL. Never planned on watching that anyway .. I am not that big on vampires in general, the fact that Angel was a vampire wasn't a main factor in my love for that show.