“Reaper,” a show about a guy who learns on his 21st birthday that his parents have sold his soul to the Devil, is drawing early word of mouth here in Hollywood, among critics and executives in the television business who have seen the pilot, for being something not really seen on television before: an hourlong buddy-comedy-horror series.

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Casting the Devil was another challenge. Mr. Smith said, “We saw some of the big names in the business.” He did not name any but said that none of what he called “the old guard” could capture what the character called for, a quality of being “sincerely insincere.”

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