“The Collector”, is one of the greatest Sci-Fi Fantasy TV Shows that most people in the US never saw, let alone knew existed. The Collector was a Canadian TV Series that ran for 3 years, from 2004 to 2006, apparently shown in US syndication in only a few places, why I don’t know. What made “The Collector” great was the superb writing featuring totally varied and unpredictable story lines, the great acting of the shows star Chris Kramer and weekly guest stars, excellent directing, gritty photography and superb production values. Why this show was not picked up on the Sci-Fi Channel is beyond belief. Chris Kramer by the way, appears destined to be the next great action TV or Movie Star. His presence seems to light up the screen and you probably remember him from his short part on “24” as Milo’s brother in the last episode of 2007.
“The Collector” is about a man named Morgan Pym played by Chris Kramer who hundred of years ago made a deal with the Devil for an extra 10 years with his lover who was dying and in an effort to avoid Hell becomes a soul collector for the Devil. Before you can say that’s “Reaper” or “Brimstone”, what makes this show different is that Pym eventually got the Devil, played by different actors each week, to be allowed 48 Hours when each persons soul is up, to try to redeem them before they are sent to Hell. If they are redeemed, they avoid hell. The show was Action drama Sci-Fi as opposed to being religious. Thus Morgan tried to prevent people who sold their souls from entering Hell as opposed to the aforementioned shows where the Hero tries to send people back to Hell. The stories were incredibly interesting including episodes about Serial Killers, Aids, Comedians and more and you could not tell each week who’s soul’s would be saved until the end of the episode and the way these people wound up getting swept into hell were awesome. In a lot of episodes, the people who sold their souls were not as good or as bad as they first appeared. In some episodes, true evil people managed to trick the Collector which allowed them to continue being evil- long story.
I found out about this series through the wonder of the Internet and managed to watch the entire series when I visited a friend in Canada who had recorded each episode. It is a shame that commercial DVDs of this incredible show have not, as far as I know, been released. All I can say, it was a pleasure watching this series and people who haven’t seen it, really missed something special.
