Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Reaper - Take Away The N and 2 K's, Add an M and 2 S'

Pilot

Oh, and swap and I for a Y. So it was pretty much the same as the original pilot I saw, except they just refilmed all the scenes originally with Nikki Reed with Missy Peregrym except brighter and more clear. Couldn't they at least try to match the film quality and lighting and hire the same cinematographer? (I don't know if they did or not but it seemed very blatant which scenes were new and which were not).

Anyways. as I feared, Missy played it slightly blandly, without the calm sultryness Nikki Reed always brings to her roles. I like Missy and I want to support Canadian actors (go Tyler Labine and father guy who was the captain who co-starred with Tyler on Breaker High!) but I feel Missi plays it more as one of the guys and thus more accessible (and thus less drama and obstacles to bring Sam and her together), whereas Nikki played it cool and a girl seriously out of Sam's reach yet she's still nice to him, thus, even more special. Oh well, we're stuck with Missy now. Guess we'll have to make the best of it.

Full cast pictures (that I hadn't posted in the original review) after the jump:

Bret Harrison

Missy Peregrym

Tyler Labine

Ray Wise

Rick Gonzalez

Valerie Rae Miller

6 comments:

Scooter McGavin said...

Is it wrong that I'm giddy that the Veronica Mars premiere had better numbers last year? Actually don't answer that because I want to continue to believe the answer is no.

And while I am dreaming, I hope that the brain trust over at The CW see the numbers and get on the phone beg Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell to get Veronica Mars: The FBI Years ready for 2008 because if Reaper, with the millions of dollars they put into promoting it, not too mention all the money they gave to critics to make their readers think it was much better than it was, gets less people than Veronica Mars with a promotional budget of whatever they found in their seat cushion, they might as well bring back the show that costs them less.

Oh, and when I first saw this title I thought you were telling everyone the show was a "miss". Wishful thinking.

Vance said...

Man, you really hate this show. haha. While I have not sold my soul to the CW (yet), and I too felt giddy when I heard those numbers (of VM vs Reaper), I will say, the pros of the show (essentially Bret Harrison, Ray Wise, and the Dirt Devil joke) are enough to keep me in for now (mainly again, cause I LOVED The Loop and Twin Peaks, so they get free passes. Actually, everyone from Twin Peaks gets free passes even if they don't deserve it, I'm nice that way).

But I hear you on the negatives. Re-watching the pilot, it sure reminded me of the flaws on the show and it didn't wow me as much as everyone else seemed to.

Still, again, The Loop. FUNNY...
(plus, in a completely self serving way, I know it's filmed in Vancouver so I'm willing to give it an extra point if only to keep some employment in my country! ha!)

Scooter McGavin said...

Personally I thought Harrison was the weak link in The Loop (he'd always start talking in a higher pitch every other sentence), all the other characters were much more entertaining than him, and I continued to find him annoying on the Pilot. I couldn't find the dust devil gag funny because for the whole time I kept think the totally ripped that off from the Ghostbuster's trapper thing. I'll give you Ray Wise who was the only good thing about the show, but c'mon, the devil is the easiest character ever to make entertaining. Can you ever think of an unentertaining Satan?

Now I'm not adding The CW to my Fox boycott because two stupid cancelations (I include Everwood) no where come to Fox's long list of great shows that didn't see a second season, but my criteria for the news shows was that it had to be at the very least as good as VM for The CW to get me to watch and Reaper is no where as good as VM and it doesn't even have the potential to be good as VM.

I started to have a hypothsis on why everyone is so "wowed" by it (aside from the obvious The CW paid them to say it) it is that they are grading on a curve in an unusually bad season of bad shows so I can see why people would put in their top 5, but if Reaper came last year, it would haven't been in the top 10 and everyone would have ignored it.

And watching the show because it is filmed in Vancouver could be the dumbest reason ever. C'mon, every show and movie (that isn't filmed in New Zealand) is filmed in Vancouver.

(plus I think I'm even more giddy that last night's Gossip Girl got almost a million less viewers than the VM premiere, seriously, Dawn better be calling Rob Thomas ASAP)

Vance said...

It's a job competition thing... haha... if they're working in Vancouver they're less likely to move to Toronto and compete for jobs with me. It's all selfish!

I hear you on the Everwood and VM but I dont think the CW will ever get back to that quality. At least not with Dawn around.

I can see the grading on a curve thoery actually. I think we're all clouded by Pushing Daisies but once you think about it, other than that or Chuck, I haven't given any season passes this year yet and as positive as I try to be, a lot of the shows haven't wowed me and I know I'm pretty easy (no snickering).

Anonymous said...

Did you notice that Bret harrison got highlights and a mustache between the original pilot shoot and the reshoot? I thought it was pretty silly that they couldn't take the time to shave his mustache and dye his hair brown before reshooting! I preferred Nikki... but really like the show otherwise.

Vance said...

I totally forgot to mention that too but yeah. Was the continuity person high or something? It was so obvious.