What ?!? No love for Brimstone ? This FOX supernatural action hour RULED my Friday nights from October '98 to March '99 ( sad, I know ). Peter Horton played Zeke Stone, a police detective whose wife is raped. The rapist gets off and Zeke kills him. Two months later Zeke is killed in the line of duty and because he killed a man in cold blood he went to H-E-L-L ! Fast-Forward 15 years ( a sneeze in terms of eternal damnation ) -- 113 bad-ass souls escape from Hell and the Devil ( John Glover !! You gotta love John Glover as the Devil ! ) offers Zeke a deal. Catch 'em all ( kind of like Pokemon, only you don't have to shoot Pikachu in the eyes -- windows to the soul and all ) and he gets to go to Heaven. Stone has sort of limited immortality ( leap off tall builings or get shot w/o dying, except for the eyes thing -- that applies to him too ) He had tattoos representing each soul he had to capture ( Holy Momento! ) which disappeared once he sent them back to Hell. His only job was chasing souls but he woke up every day with $42 in his pocket because that's what he had on him when he was killed ! The Devil usually came around to mock him at some point each episode ! For some reason all the escaped souls hung around LA ! This show was dark, funny and even touching at the same time. I can't believe I'm the only one with fond memories of Brimstone !

I liked that show. Especially the episode wherein Ash's backstory came into play: that was one of the best hours of television of the 90s, and I wish we'd had time to explore her story more.



There's a similar series on the air in Canada now called The Collector, which has in common with Brimstone that the Devil is one of the main characters, and that the leading guy has a similar immortality clause, but instead of sending escapees back to Hell he's trying to get people who've made a deal with the Devil to break free before they're damned, and rather than being an ex-cop he used to be a monk. (I first described it as Brimstone meets Joan of Arcadia when I first heard of it, because the Devil is played by a different actor every week.)

Anyhow, this isn't to get too off topic, but to say that you might be interested in The Collector too?

I used to watch this too and I really liked it. John Glover was very good as the devil. One episode I especially remember was the one where Peter Horton had go after Terri Polo and we discovered that she'd been the initiator of the breakout from hell or something and Peter Horton queried the devil as to how he hadn't realised what she was planning and then Horton put 2 and 2 together and copped on that the devil had been in love with her. I thought it was a great spin on things.

I've never seen this repeated anywhere since which surprises me because there are some channels out there that do nothing but buy shows that lasted for even less episodes than Brimstone and show them ad nauseum. (Irish channel TV3, I'm looking at you!)

The Collector sounds interesting ... being down in the lower 48 I don't have access to it, that I know of. Maybe Sci-Fi will pick it up -- or it'll get a US dvd release.

Brimstone did pop up on Sci-Fi Channel a few times as part of their day-long marathons. I think I've got all eps on tape, but a dvd box set would help me reduce the space that my video collection takes up. Any cool extras would be gravy !

The Teri Polo episodes were great. She's way hotter than you'd think from the "Meet the ... " movies. Other than her eps none really stand out ( I should watch my tapes again ) but the show had great performances, a killer concept and a great graphic-novel-y look about the whole production.

At which point Lucifer gives one of the best lines: The only thing I have ever loved was God... and that was a long time ago.

JG always played the role as the ArchangelLucifer, the most beautiful and glorious thing in all Creation. The choice always fascinated me in that it would have been so easy to play it heavy rather than the Great Seducer. But he always acted as if he wasn't being Evil. Peter Horton was just insignificant.

Smallville's Magnificent Bastard has it's character roots here.

As we say over on the Smallville threads, he was a lot warmer and cuddlier as Lucifer than as Lionel.

The theology and complexity of relationships fascinated me. The episode where the Peter Horton character goes after the man who killed his wife again, and he understands that the Devil is giving him a chance to damn himself again -- that he may return all the souls to hell and still not be allowed to go elsewhere himself -- is brilliant. Horton's not a great actor, but the role played into his limited range very well. And the idea that he didn't know which tattoo he'd lose or how much it would hurt him to lose them was a nice play on purgatory.

I caught this show sometimes. It was on late night on ITV over here in the UK. I liked it. Now I know where I know Teri Polo from! I remember her turning out to be one badass demon in the end. I loved JG in this.

I found this show fairly recently and I fell in love. Too bad it got cancelled. I'll echo alot of people and say that I really really wish they'd release a dvd boxset.

A good point that someone brought up is that we really have only Lucifer's word in the show that he's indeed the Devil. He might just be a middle manager playing around with Zeke. I don't think that's the case really but it's a fun idea.

I loved also just how petty he was. Taking the time to tie together shoelaces on a homeless person or give bad career advice to collage students. Good stuff.

ITV? I thought it went out on Channel 4. Either way, it was an ungodly hour of the morning.

Channel 4, definitely. They showed a bunch of US shows in the middle of the night (and still do), like that crappy Michael Madsen thing (Vengeance Unlimited, I think) and the completely loopy Code Name: Eternity.

I think it was because certain US networks always wanted to package new shows with their established ones when they sold them to the UK. So if, say, Channel 4 wanted to show ER, then they had to buy and show some other rubbish as well. However, they could show them whenever they wanted, so they shoved them on at 3 in the morning when they couldn't care less whether anyone actually tuned in or not.

Damn, I want to see this series! Knowing that JG is the Devil only sweetens the pot; before I knew of him, I wanted to see this show because Ian Sander and Kim Moses produced it. (They were the showrunners of the first two seasons of Profiler - God bless their hearts.)

Ah, Codename: Eternity. Didn't Cameron Bancroft look like he'd been carved out of a slab of plastic?

I loved that show. It was the funniest thing on TV for a while.

What I loved about Brimstone was that was intelligent. It had politics, action, and it didn't assume you were stupid.

So most folk wouldn't get it anyway, didn't have the easy answers that non-SF viewers like. It reminded me of early American Gothic, for some reason. I'm half JG's age. Was it wrong to have a crush on him?

*sigh*

[OT]
I have no idea. I was too busy watching Ingrid Kavelaars *drools*. [/OT]

On topic, I kinda liked Brimstone. It was a decent concept but I'm not sure it had the strength or ideas to last even if it hadn't been cancelled as early as it was. Giving him 113 people to chase was optimisticly high.

I only remember the last Ash/Ashur ep, the ep where he re-confronts the man he killed, and the one with the invisible demon in the church who had that weird weapon that looked like the boomerang from Predator.

Wasn't Lori Petty also on the show as the landlady/motel manager? And wasn't there a blind preacher on there too, or was that a different show?

My bad! You guys are right. They put alot of random shows on in the middle of the night on ITV and Channel 4. It was probably too good for ITV. They got Now and Again...

True. My mum liked that. I liked Denis Haybert. That man has a fine voice. At this rate, we'll be starting a "Weird-Ass TV That C4 Puts On During The Night" thread.

I reckon it could have gone another season, but that's the trouble with one trick ponies. Maybe he could have taken over hell or something.

I just finished watching Profit on DVD and started thinking about other short lived shows I'd like to get the DVD treatment and this one came to mind.

I thought John Glover as the devil was freakin' fantastic. To the point that when ever I see him in anything else I think "Oh, It's the devil". I guess he should be happy no one watched this, it would be a bitch to typecast as Lucifer.

I thought Peter Horton did low key stoic very well which work great up against the fantastical premise.

I remember some woman coming on to him and him telling her that he was married and then after she walked away saying "Not to mention dead."

Lori Petty was in some of the early episodes but I think they dropped her early on which I was very happy about. I cannot stand her. She even ruined A Leaue of Her Own for me.

I caught this show a few years back when it was on a SciFi whatever-those-mini-marathons-during-the-day. I loved it and was upset to find it only was on for, what? 13 episodes?



And here I thought someone was a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide... LOL



That's the same show and now I am going to wrack my brain trying to remember what candy bar was also part of the detail.

Not quite $42; he comes back every day with $36.27.

I invite all of you to grab a Bible and look up Ezekiel 36:27. ;)

ETA: Sueli, it was a Reggie bar. *has a 24-hour on-call Brimstone nut on her buddy list*

That Bible verse is eerily appropriate -- don't know why I thought it was $42 -- the Hitchhiker's Guide reference didn't come to me until sueli769 pointed it out. Guess I don't remember the show quite as well as I thought I did -- Sorry about that !

With more and more " One Season Wonders " ( I'm copyrighting that -- don't anybody get any ideas ! ) getting DVD releases maybe Brimstone will rise again.

I hope so. There were 13 episodes. The last time Sci-Fi ran it, they stopped with episode 11 and the episode before that hadn't taped, so my collection is incomplete in the extreme.

Well, either this is established later in the series or they messed up in the first episode. Ezekiel's first hotel bill from the Pilot episode is almost $70, and I don't remember the devil issuing credit cards....

I thought it was he always had $36.27, not that he always woke up with that amount.

As I recall, he wakes up every morning with $36.27 in his pockets: the amount he had on him when he died. That was the big thing: he had to get by with only that $36.27. However, I DO think that the amount reset itself every day- in other words, he couldn't hoarde the money 'cause the next day it'd be back to $36.27.

Of course, it's also been a few years since I've had a chance to see the show, so I could be mis-remembering it.

As for the hotel bill... didn't he work out some kind of deal with the Lori Petty character? Or paid her off in installments or something? Or he was always perpetually late and she kept threatening to evict him...

I'll also agree with dusky- every time I see John Glover, now, I think "It's the devil!" ;)

It's an odd thing to get hung up on, much as I liked the show as a whole, a small story device like the money thing stuck with me -- even though I didn't remember the exact amount I thought it was a pretty interesting plot point that everyday he woke up with the same amount of money in his pockets that he had when he was killed.

I figured that he got $36.27 ( or $42 -- whatever ) everyday -- only enough to live on if you had set aside the previous day's $36.27 -- or whatever you had left of it after a day's expenses. This would mean you'd get a total of $253.89 in a 7 day week. Enough for one person to live on ( not well ) if you're staying in the 90's TV equivalent of one-step-up from a flophouse and you've got a funky, cool landlady like Lori Petty who will rag on you about being late with the rent, but not actually throw you out.

I remember an episode where the Devil hooked Zeke up with a car, but it was a lemon that was more trouble than it was worth. Luckily at the end of the ep Zeke figured out that the car was an evil spirit and killed it by shooting out the headlights ( The Devil gave him the car just to F with him ). He HAD TO be rid of that car by the end of that episode. I can suspend belief enough to believe that the Devil allows a damned cop to return to earth to capture escaped evil souls, but the idea that someone can live in a major city AND keep a car on $250 a week ... that's just too much !

One of the little details I always liked (which I suppose isnt that funny but made me and my sister giggle) was how Zeke and the escapees were always cold, even wearing his coat during the heat wave.

So. I got myself an account here just so I could debate the supernaturally induced financial straits of a character from a TV show canceled five or so years ago. Obsessed much? -___-;;

Like Groovy Chainsaw, I figured Zeke got $36.27 every day, like a sort of Satanic salary, and that he could save the previous day's money. This is somewhat simpler, IMO, than trying to construct a system wherein the money Zeke spends stays in various cash registers across the continental U.S. while whatever change he has after his expenses are paid disappears sometime in the night.

Assuming the Devil pays Zeke a daily wage of $36 and change, I have no trouble believing Zeke can live on $252 a week. True, rent probably takes a big chunk out of Zeke's pay, and this would be a problem... if he weren't, well, dead. More than a decade dead.

I mean, what do people spend money on? Day to day, I'd say the grocery bill, gas, and miscellaneous fees (such as when you bounce a check) are what eats up the money. Then there are mortgage, loan, and credit card payments, college tuition, taxes, and special expenses (like your only daughter's wedding). None of which are really applicable to Zeke. He doesn't have a house, car, bank, or credit card. He owns maybe two sets of clothing and his gun. As far as the IRS is concerned, he's dead, and his only dependent is Ashur's cat. For god's sake, he doesn't need to eat!

If he doesn't eat, walks everywhere, and doesn't get any ideas about fixing the holes in his coat or buying roses or snow globes or whatever, Zeke could easily not spend a single cent the entire day. We're balancing the checkbook of someone who chooses to live, but doesn't have to, here.
The first I assumed was a one-time thing. Getting released from Hell maybe isn't quite the same as waking up dead the next morning, and the Devil decided to take pity when Zeke couldn't enjoy it.

It's funny you should mention the second because, in the production draft of 1.14 "Rivals," Zeke meets an ex-IRA woman, in the running for his job, who gets not only a $40,000 credit line from the Devil but one luxury car after another. Needless to say, Zeke is not pleased. :P

I'm just watching episode 6 'Executioner' with an awesome cast. Robert Knepper (Carnivale, Prison Break) and the Queen of all tv bitches Michelle Forbes.

What I love was that in this episode (more than others) The devil keeps making fun on Zeke on his lack of money and need to take the bus all the time.

The last scene was a classic... Zeke is about to get lucky with the Blonde Cop he befriended... then right before a kiss happens, a waitress delivers their drinks and 'accidentally' spills a drink on the gal. As soon as she leaves, the waitress confesses Zeke's 'friend' gave her $20 to do that. Camera pans to the Devil! Hee! Gotta love that. Evil cockblocker!

Didn't JG "guest star" as an Angel (Gabriel, maybe?) in one episode? I just remember the same character being nice...but Zeke thought that satan was just messing with him...there was more to it than that i think

John Glover played a dual role in It's A Helluva Life, which, as the name suggests was a Its A Wonderful Life rip off. The gist of it was the Devil was determined to squash Zeke's independent spirit, and prove to him that he was damned pretty much from the get go. Even if he hadn't murdered the man who raped his wife, he had done so many bad things during his life he would have ended up in hell anyway. This flies counter to Zeke's belief that he was a fundementally good man who succumbed to evil only in exceptional circumstances. The Devil then takes Zeke on a whistlestop tour of his life, reminding him of all his petty acts of spite, law breaking and temptation that the Devil claims would have damned Zeke anyway. This really crushes Zeke and he's on the verge of giving up all hope, and then an angel turns up to remind him of all the good things he has done in his life, and to try to convince Zeke that if he can do good in the Devils service, he might have a shot at redemption after all. The angel has the Devils face apparently because once a human sees one angel, he percieves all angels the same way. This was probably the best episode of the whole series, it had fantastic acting from both leads, and did end on quite an uplifting note. If I'm remembering correctly it was also this episode where the Devil pisses Zeke off so much he shoots him, and then the next time the Devil appears he is quite terrifyingly angry with his minion.

Fox is soo, soo, sooo FUCKING stupid. They don't even realize they are buying again the same (great) show they cancelled on the first place!!... dammit!

From TVSquad.com:





Maybe I can write a pilot about this FBI agent who believes in aliens and his skeptical yet cute partner and a baddie who smokes, fun and conspiracy ensues!

They'll probably buy it from me.

Fucking idiots. Why did they cancel 'Brimstone'!!??!!

If I were involved in casting that show, I'd be totally subversive and hire John Glover to play the Devil again.

Just so we're clear, John Glover is actually the devil.

Timothy Busfield and Peter Horton did "Thirtysomething" together. Do you think maybe Timmy watched his old co-star's series and when it got cancelled thought "Hey great idea, I'll wait a decade and use it." Everything old is new again.

Actually, harvesting souls for the devil is a lot closer to the recently cancelled Canadian show The Collector then to Brimstone (which was about re-capturing Hell's escapees).

Kevin Smith is set to direct a pilot for the CW called Reaper. "The series is about a 21-year-old slacker who ends up becoming Satan’s bounty hunter, retrieving souls lost from Hell. Smith describes the series as 'less Brimstone or Dead Like Me (as some have suggested) and more Shaun of the Dead than anything else.'" Me, I'm just glad Kevin Smith has heard of Brimstone. I feel like it should be in the "Shows Nobody Remembers but Me" thread. Anyway, Smith says he thought the script for the pilot was "funny," so whatever it turns out to be, I guess we can't say they're ripping off Brimstone. Here's a little more info:

Stayed up way past my bedtime last night watching the pilot on youtube. (Its numbered a little funny but I think I got it all) Couldn't believe how much I remembered. Women trying to pick up Stone and he says he's married, she leaves, "not to mention dead". I would so get this on dvd if it were available.

May watch Reaper if the buzz is good.

My favourite thing about this series was JG's portrayal of the devil - not "MWAHAHA!" evil or the seductive corrupter but as a complete jerk (spilling drinks, tying shoelaces together and the like). Though I did wonder if Rob Thomas got the idea for Cupid from this as that was essentially a (nicer!) version of the same idea - supernatural entity must find 100 people (couples in Cupid's case) for a more powerful entity to give them back their old status. Not that Brimstone is exactly the first to come up with the idea as it's a riff on The Twelve Labours of Hercules.

Awesome that Kevin Smoith is doing reaper but.... Sci-Fi in the CW/UPN has been dead since ST:ENT. (Jake 2.0 was cute and decent but didn't survive) Reaper oughta be in Sci-Fi

But cool that Kevin Smith remembers 'Brimstone' though that means he will go out of his way for the show not to be like it. If he gets John Glover as the devil the I'm all for it.

Re: Cupid being inspired by Brimstone... considering both shows were on during the same season (1998) I doubt either show inspired the other.

I have to admit, John Glover made the best darn devil that I've ever seen.

This is the show that started the trend of my getting hooked on a show that doesn't make it out of the first season. To this day I can't look at John Glover without thinking about the Devil. If they ever put it on DVD, I'm first in line.

Brimstone reruns are back on the air! They've started showing it on the new Chiller channel.

I'm thrilled. Now I can make myself some nice high-quality DVD-Rs.

Which is why I have looked up this thread today. I was flipping around the channels and wondered what Brimstone was. When I saw the name "John Glover" in the credits, I knew I had to check it out. I haven't watched a full episode yet, just a few minutes, but it looks pretty good! I set my DVR, so hopefully I will catch however many episodes they show. I see from previous posts that there's only about 13 total, shame. One more reason to hate FOX.

What cable system do you have ? I have Comcast Cable and haven't seen a thing about the Chiller Channel.

I have Directv, they have just recently added Chiller.

Syfy is showing a marathon all day today. John Glover's scenery-chewing works perfectly on this show.

Since they only made 13 episodes of this show, you'd think that if SyFy was doing a marathon, they'd show them all instead of stopping at 9. Although at least they showed the reveal that Ash was ringleader of the damned.