They already addressed this. Sam has free will. He told Satan he did not want to work for him. Devil said fine, I’m taking your mother. I deal was made. Satan gets his. Sam can choose to work for him or not. He decided to save his mother.
Oh, I don’t think backing down from a threat is the same as making a deal.
However, there is the possibility that working for the Devil under these conditions will endanger his soul in the eyes of Heaven.
Taped it and just watched it; loved it. From the few promos I’d seen, I wasn’t sure what to expect; it set up a good ensemble cast right away, and it’s a good mix of pathos, humor, romance, drama, and a wee bit of terror. I was a tad disappointed in the age-old gimmick where the heros are so busy congratulating each other that they don’t notice the bad guy is still alive and coming at them. Loved the DMV as hell on earth. I wonder if the “hell on earth” locale is going to change from week to week. Plenty of hells on earth out there. It’s on my DVR list.
Guess I’ll have to be the one to go against the tide. Thumbs down. Couldn’t get through it. I felt like none of the acting was good, and that I’d seen similar before.
Susan
Well of course you’ve seen similar – it’s basically Clerking for Satan 
Another detail that I thought was funny–the lady at the DMV lifting her hair to show her horns to the guys and then quickly covering up. I recognized her as George’s boss on “Dead Like Me”. I seem to remember that she also snarked at the guys, the devil gives the receptacle to his minions that he thinks they can handle. That remark was intended to belittle them, wasn’t it?
Assuming this wasn’t some really weird typo/grammar check thing…
The phrase is “right off the bat.”
It was a simple typo, I dropped an f and spell check did not catch my mistake as ‘of’ is a valid word.
He was correcting “back”, not “of.” I thought it was an odd error as well, considering how much of a baseball fan you are.
Wow, I just watched the second episode, and I have to say that’s the biggest decline in quality I’ve seen from a pilot to the second episode ever. They made a bunch of changes to the show, all of them for the worse.
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The Dad is now some hip character who turns out to be the one who convinced the son to lie to his mom, instead of a nice man tormented with guilt.
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The mom went from being a broken down sad women who regretted what she did and could barely live with herself to… the mom of the Brady Bunch or something.
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They replaced the actress who played the love interest, and changed the character from a sweet innocent girl into a chick with 'tude.
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They took away the ‘Jack Black’ edge from the sidekick and turned him into another dreary obnoxious sitcom throwaway character with wacky mannerisms (laughing when he’s scared? Huh?).
In short, it went from being something like Buffy which mixed comedy with real emotion, and turned it into a completely average TV comedy.
Maybe everything that was good about the pilot is due to Kevin Smith’s guest directing gig, and now that he’s gone, everything special about the show went with him.
If next week’s episode doesn’t make a dramatic turnaround back to what made the pilot so good, it’s off my DVR.
The love interest is played by the same actress in both episodes: Missy Peregrym
:smack: D’oh. I am idiot! (and blind)
I agree with Sam Stone, the show was nowhere near as good. I hope it bounces back, but it was a big step down from the pilot.
I noticed one name on the opening credits: Kevin Murphy. Does anyone know whether this is Professor Bobo?
Add one more vote for HUGE drop!
Seems like they have trouble really explaining what is going on with the escaped souls. They took a really long time before the Reaper even opened the vessel. Then they took a lot more time before showing the lightning guy. And I never was really satisfied with the explanation of why he was doing whatever he was doing. Or perhaps I just didn’t care. And then all he needed to do was point the remote at him, “It’s a lightning rod!” Tied up a little too neatly.
My personal preference would be that they have the Scoobies deal with the bad guys, and have their characters develop along the way. Instead, it seems like they are working hard on establishing/developing characters, with the result that the storyline gets short shrift.
What the heck kind of store are they working at? I was thinking Home Depot, but they also sell sporting goods? And their inventory control is so lax that the employees can simply break up and steal whatever they want? Work night shift until you count 2 million items? Come on! I think Buffy was so good because the craziness was superimposed upon a believable background. This show seems to be missing that.
Is the Hispanic dude going to get injured in every episode?
Perhaps he suffers from Chekov syndrome? When they needed a character to get seriously hurt in Star Trek, it tended to be Pavel.
Oh, noooo…I just watched the pilot last night (and recorded last night’s episode for future viewing) and jumped on this thread to catch up, as I was very pleased and excited. Bummer that #2 isn’t up to the same quality. I suppose I’ll watch & make up my own mind, of course…
And FWIW – not having been a Buffy fan, the vibe I picked up was completely Ghostbusters.
Man, it’s not airing on my Fox/CW station any more. Phooee!
I was all set to say I’d seen this somewhere before, but apparently Reaper’s premise is different from The Collector’s. My bad.
Should I just watch the pilot and keep my fingers crossed?
The only “Ghostbusters” vibe I get is that the new 3rd member of the demon catching team is a Winston Zeddmore. Just waiting for him to say “That’s a big Twinkie.”
This show is going nowhere.