Somebody recommended 'Brimstone' to me. Unfortunately I can't remember who, otherwise I would go back to ask him what the hell he was thinking. The show about a cop who went to hell, but got back on earth to catch 113 escapees from hell, is quite dreadful. It is trashy with awful cinematography, typical trashy overused 90s soundtrack and terrible special effects. It's not really well-written, and a very formulaic episodic monster-of-the-week type show.Add to that a lot of rather bad actors and a so-and-so supernatural story, and what you get is a run-of-the-mill episodic TV show that can serve as a guilty pleasure, if you are able to tolerate a high amount of cringing and a heap of gaping plot holes. Every "twist" can be seen miles ahead, the characters are superficial at best, and still the show feels the need to spell out every single thing to the viewers, completely insulting their intelligence. If it was a movie it would star Michael Dudikoff.

Which is, unfortunately, mostly what succeeds on TV these days. Shows such as Brimstone are just too intelligent, and go over the head of Average Joe TV Viewer (or Average Joe TV Executive). With all the proliferation and specialization of TV channels these days, maybe some day we can have an "Intelligent TV Channel" where shows like these can flourish and those too dim to "get it" can just remove it from their channel rotation.Black humor is under-appreciated, and intelligent black humor is just beyond too many people, unfortunately. And Brimstone was chock full of it. Add to that a completely original premise, some decent action, good acting and the wonderful, delicious Lori Petty (::melt::) and Brimstone was a real winner. Too bad the suits didn't "get it".Any TV producers out there reading this -- there's an idea for you. Create an "Intelligent TV Channel", and give us shows like this, or Max Headroom, Key West, Cupid, etc. You could even call it that, as a dig at the mindless drivel that pours off the screen most of the time.

How ironic. A great show that hardly anyone ever saw praised in a Comment that probably no one will ever read because the poster was silly enough to put Spoilers in his very first comment and get blacklisted. Ah well*SPOILER WARNING*Much has been made of the self-defeating premise--setting an impossible goal (a minimum of five full seasons) and building it into the basics of the show. Namely "113 of the worst souls" escaped and Zeke Stone was commissioned for reasons no one is willing to explain--to bring them back. There's the adage played like a cliche that becomes Zeke's strategy in his battle "The eyes are the windows to the soul. Destroy the eyes." Fine. The entire cast in this series turned in solid performances. Peter Horton made Zeke a strong supporting character and hero. John Glover turned in probably the performance of his CAREER as The Devil and dominated every episode. The supporting cast all worked well--the villains Zeke had to fight were each unique (dangerously unique, in fact. I don't know that they'd have been able to come up with more than a single season's worth of these characters). As a Lori Petty fan, I had no problem with what some of the show's fans see as its weak spot. Finally, Ash was a great recurring villainess--I don't know that I necessarily bought her as the ringleader of the prison break, but other than that, an excellent choice. One I absolutely didn't see coming.Last--the obligatory rant about the moronic suits of FOX. I saw only a single episode of this show on its initial run, early maybe five episodes in and could never find it again, even though I looked. I don't know about the hyperbole that it could have been an X-Files. A phenomenon like X-Files or, the more pedestrian Quantum Leap is exceptionally rare. QL is an even rarer breed because it had solid ratings for four seasons in spite of NBC's willingness to kick it all over the schedule during the season. At the very least, this show deserve a shot at a full first run.

This show was really quite amazing, I wonder if the moral majority had a hand in its premature cancellation, or if it was just too cerebral for most viewers like British series The Prisoner was. Brimstone had a very different take on the eternal war involving heaven, hell and earth. The Devil has no power on earth, so he sends a guy who's only been dead for 15 years, to hunt down 113 other dead people, some truly despicable, some just vengeful victims, some of whom have been dead for millenia and are way more powerful than Stone is, one of the oldest seems to be a shapeshifter and the Devil's lover! Destroying the eyes will send a damned soul back to hell, whether it's an escapee, the Devil, or a damned car (headlights). A trivia stab at Friday the 13th The Series maybe? I also like how Stone is covered with 113 tattoos of all the escaped damned souls, and when he returns one to hell the tattoo dissolving away hurts him physically, kinda like the pain of the absorbing another's Quickening in Highlander. How Stone wakes up every day with the same amount of money in his pocket, or another damned wakes up with a full flask of liquor, was a nice touch. And the Devil really seemed not powerful and not knowledgeable, like the escape of the 113 had never even been imagined before, this escapee roundup was something totally new in the Brimstone universe. Having 2 main characters named Ash and Stone, nice.