Years ago, I had lunch with a minor star of a long-forgotten sitcom on a fledgling network who likened appearing on the WB to being in the Witness Protection Program.

The WB has merged with UPN to become CW, but I’m half-convinced that his bitter and funny description still holds. It is a network with so little hold on its identity that it subcontracted out its Sunday nights to another firm — with disastrous results. Anybody remember “Easy Money”?

Apart from “America’s Next Top Model” (returning Wednesday) and the oft-moved “Everybody Hates Chris,” the CW seems to be about teenagers who live in posh neighborhoods saying mean things about one another.

With all that in mind, I’m both pleased and bit confused to see “Reaper” (7 p.m., CW) return. This wonderfully over-the-top hourlong comedy stars Bret Harrison as Sam, a normal employee of a big-box hardware store who discovers that his feckless parents sold his soul to the devil (Ray Wise, “Twin Peaks”).

Assigned by fate to become a cosmic bounty hunter, Sam must capture, subdue and return escaped souls to hell, or, technically, to the Division of Motor Vehicles, which the devil operates as a kind of hell on Earth.

When the show isn’t being stolen by the debonair devil, it’s being heisted loudly by Sam’s pal Sock (Tyler Labine), a larger-than-life slob eager to work as the Reaper’s apprentice when he’s not trying to imitate Jack Black as hard as he can.

Unlike “Chuck,” which shares a remarkably similar premise, most of Sam’s pals are in on his preposterous secret and accept it with a boisterous nonchalance that adds to the absurdity.

Both “Chuck” and “Reaper” debuted in the fall of 2007 to enjoy middling success before the writers’ strike ended that season. You have to wonder why two similar shows were hatched at the same time. I theorize that, in an oblique and even unconscious way, both comedies reflect a not-often-discussed reality that is anything but funny.

Far from the ZIP codes of “90210” and “Gossip Girl,” hundreds of thousands of real young people not much older than Chuck or Sam and Sock find themselves working dangerous assignments in places like Al Anbar or Mosul or Kabul. They may be fresh out of high school or barely removed from a minimum-wage job, but many, by dint of fate, are facing situations beyond their darkest imaginings. And most endure, as soldiers have always done, with stoicism, dark humor and camaraderie. Their lives and their missions are not the stuff of humor, but sometimes comedy — even the absurd humor of “Chuck” and “Reaper” — provide the only way culture or pop culture can reflect subjects too many of us would rather avoid.

Tonight’s other highlights

• The final dozen fight to survive on a two-hour edition of “American Idol” (7 p.m., Fox).

• Jane leaves the force to pursue an innocent man’s vindication on “The Mentalist” (8 p.m., CBS).

• Mike turns the tables on his producers on “Dirty Jobs” (8 p.m., Discovery).

• A spy’s son vanishes on “Without a Trace” (9 p.m., CBS).

• Pumpkins fly on “Wreckreation Nation” (9 p.m., Discovery).

• Deborah Roberts interviews Lorna Golding in “First Lady of Jamaica” (9 p.m., WE) and receives a tour of the island nation.