Reaper: Episode IV A New Hope

I am done with off again on again relationships on TV. I know they happen in real life too, but they have just become far to cliche and I don’t care anymore. That was one of the major reasons that I couldn’t bring myself to care a lot about Reaper in its season 2 premier.
Having went on a 4 week road trip the guys return to find themselves without jobs, homeless and Andy very mad at Sam.
All of this could work except by the end of the episode the only one of those things that is still true is Andy being mad at Sam.
Not only that but they seem to me to be backtracking from the end of last season. Sam is still the son of the devil but they aren’t going to allow that to change anything. He’s still going to hunt down a soul, or 40, every week, the only difference seems to be that the devil is now testing, or perhaps training him to become something more. If they follow that idea I could be interested but the truth is that the soul a week part of the show has grown old for me.
Ultimately, I fear the problem with this show is one I am seeing constantly now that I am looking for it and this is a lack of confidence in writers. I don’t know if this lack of confidence is from the networks/studios or the writers themselves.
It manifests itself in numerous ways, the most common being an unwillingness to change shows, IE. keeping relationships the same way long after they should have changed, an unwillingness to kill characters or change their personalities, and a desire to repeat any success which manifests itself in every remake, sequel and prequel on the market.
I understand that success isn’t always easy to achieve and once you find something which works there is a strong desire to not upset the apple cart, but those who are willing to change things(Joss Whedon, J. J. Abrams, Ron Moore, and J. Michael Straczynski) produce shows which I believe are of far higher quality than those who want to replicate the success of their premiere, or worse simply copy the success of other shows.