If you were watching Fox on Friday nights back in 1998, you probably remember a show that felt a little too dark, a little too weird, and way too cool for its time slot. It was called Brimstone. It only lasted 13 episodes before the network axe fell, but it left a permanent mark on anyone who stayed home to watch it. Honestly, the Brimstone TV show cast was doing something way ahead of the curve, mixing high-concept theology with a gritty detective noir vibe that paved the way for shows like Lucifer and Supernatural.
The premise was simple but brutal. Ezekiel "Zeke" Stone, a dead New York City cop, is sent to Hell for murdering his wife’s rapist. Fifteen years later, 113 of the most dangerous souls in history stage a jailbreak from the underworld. The Devil, realizing he’s lost his favorite toys, makes Stone an offer: go back to Earth, track down the 113, and send them back. If he succeeds, he gets his life back.
It was a brilliant setup for a monster-of-the-week procedural, but it was the actors who made it feel like more than just a gimmick.
The Core Duo: Peter Horton and John Glover
The chemistry between the two leads was the heartbeat of the show. You had Peter Horton as the weary, tattooed bounty hunter and John Glover as the most charmingly sociopathic Devil ever put on screen.
Peter Horton (Ezekiel Stone)
Horton was coming off thirtysomething and wanted to do something completely different. He found it. As Zeke Stone, he was the ultimate fish out of water. He died in 1983 and came back in 1998, so he was constantly baffled by things like cellular phones and the fact that the Yankees were actually good again.
He played Stone with this heavy, quiet exhaustion. He wasn't a superhero. He was a guy who was technically undead, meaning he could survive a fall from a skyscraper, but it would still break every bone in his body, and he’d have to lie there and wait for his "hell-fortified" biology to knit him back together.
John Glover (The Devil)
If you haven’t seen John Glover’s performance here, you’re missing out on a masterclass. Before he was Lionel Luthor on Smallville, he was this version of Satan who wore expensive suits, popped up in the back of Stone’s car, and spoke with a terrifyingly playful lilt.
Glover’s Devil wasn't just "evil." He was bored. He was a middle manager who lost his inventory and found the whole situation hilarious and annoying at the same time. He would give Stone $36.27 a day for expenses—exactly what Stone had in his pockets when he died—just to be petty.
The Supporting Players and Recurring Faces
While Horton and Glover carried the weight, the Brimstone TV show cast featured a rotating door of 90s character actors and stars-in-the-making.
- Lori Petty (Maxine): Basically the only "friend" Stone has. She played the quirky, slightly cynical clerk at the fleabag motel where Stone stayed. She brought a much-needed lightness to a show that was otherwise drowning in shadows.
- Teri Polo (Detective Sgt. Delilah Ash): This was the big twist. For most of the season, she’s just an LAPD detective who keeps running into Stone at crime scenes. They have this simmering romantic tension until the finale, where it’s revealed she isn't just a cop—she’s Ashur Badaktu, a Canaanite priestess and the one who actually organized the breakout from Hell.
- Stacy Haiduk (Rosalyn Stone): Zeke’s wife. The tragedy of the show was that she was still alive and living in LA, totally unaware that her husband was back from the dead and watching her from the shadows.
Notable Guest Stars as "The Damned"
The show’s structure allowed for some incredible one-off performances. Each week, Stone had to track down a different escaped soul. To send them back, he had to destroy their eyes—the "windows to the soul."
Some of the standouts included:
- John Hawkes: Before he was an Oscar nominee, he played Frederick Wilcot Graver, an executioner who could control electricity.
- Richard Brooks: He played a Carthaginian warrior who could blend into his surroundings.
- Albert Hall: He played Father Cletus Horn, a blind priest who became Stone’s unlikely confidant.
Why the Show Was Cancelled (And Why It Matters Now)
It’s the classic Fox story. They moved the time slot, didn't market it well, and eventually decided it was too expensive or too niche. The show ended on a massive cliffhanger with Teri Polo’s character being revealed as the true villain.
Critics at the time, like those at Variety and The Los Angeles Times, noted that the show was "too dark" for a mass audience. But that darkness is exactly why it has such a massive cult following today. It didn't treat redemption as a guarantee. It treated it as something you had to bleed for.
The show also had a very specific "magic system." Stone had 113 tattoos on his body, each representing an escapee. Every time he sent one back, the tattoo would painfully burn off his skin. It was visceral. It was a physical manifestation of his progress and his pain.
How to Revisit the World of Brimstone
If you're looking to dive back into this 1998 classic, you’ll find that it’s surprisingly hard to track down. It hasn't had a proper Blu-ray release, and streaming rights have been a nightmare for years.
Actionable Next Steps for Fans:
💡 You might also like: Why Spotify most streamed songs aren't always the ones you think
- Check the Bootlegs: Since there is no official digital release, many fans rely on old DVD sets found on secondary markets or "fan-restored" versions on YouTube.
- The Virtual Seasons: If you’re dying to know what happened after the cliffhanger, a group of dedicated writers created "Brimstone: The Virtual Seasons," which continues the story where the show left off. They are surprisingly well-written and follow the original series' bible.
- Follow the Creators: Keep an eye on Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris. They’ve gone on to work on shows like Knightfall and Sleeper Cell, and they occasionally talk about their "what if" plans for Brimstone Season 2 in interviews.
Ultimately, the Brimstone TV show cast created something that felt real in a world that was entirely supernatural. They didn't play it for laughs; they played it for the soul.