Reaper and Saving Grace

Last night I watched the Season 2 premiere of Reaper and on my DVR watched the winter premiere of Saving Grace. Both shows deal with an ongoing encounter with a supernatural entity, Reaper with the Devil, Saving Grace with a last chance angel.

What is interesting to me is that neither show has characters with very much curiosity. If I had a chance to talk to an angel or the Devil, I could think of lots of questions to ask them. Yet nobody on either show seems all that interested in asking questions. Now on Reaper, the characters are idiotic slackers so maybe that might explain why they are not curious, but come on slackers like these guys read comics, must of come across the classic Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. Wouldn't that inspire questions? And Grace on Saving Grace, has a brother for a priest and went to church as a youth, must have some information that she would want.

Reaper gets hailed as this great TV show with strong writing and wonderful characters. I find the slacker humor to be boring, the character of Sock is really starting to get on my nerves, and each show is pretty much the same as the last. Every once in a while you get a tidbit that shows some promise, than we go back to the same formula as before. I wonder if the CW will keep these show on past this season or cancel it so they can put some cheap reality TV crap on. For all its faults, Reaper is preferable to reality TV crap.

Saving Grace has Holly Hunter which really raises the bar for this show. Plus lots of very good actors in supporting roles and pretty solid scripts. Again TNT comes up with a winner which makes me wonder why the networks can't find better shows. And while Grace does not have any curiosity to ask about the rebellion lead by Lucifer, she does struggle with some pretty tough issues. All in all, TV done right.

So what did we learn from all this? Watch TNT, FX, and USA for the best shows on TV as the networks go to reality TV crap land.