Raines over me

I watched last night's premier of the new cop show Raines, and was pleasantly surprised.

The setup is decidedly high concept: Monk meets Ghost Whisperer meets House. The lead detective, played by Jeff Goldblum (full of his usual quirks and tics, but modulated perfectly for the character) has some serious mental issues and "sees" the crime victims in his head -- having conversations with them and interacting with them until the point where he can solve their crime and put them at "peace." Despite my love the the supernatural, this show works much better without having the victims be "real life" ghosts. Instead, they are merely hallucinations that only our hero (and we, as viewers) can see. And they don't "know" anything that our detective doesn't already know, consciously or subconsciously, so they basically act as a dramatic sounding board for his theories and ideas. Their behavior and appearance are also shaped by his perceptions and the evidence he has accumulated up until that point. For example, last night's victim (the unbelievably sexy Alexa Davalos, best known as lightning lass Gwen Raiden from Angel) suddenly started speaking with a Texas twang once Raines finds out that she was from Texas. Also, for a brief period when Raines discovered her "career" as a hooker, she was excessively made up, smoking, drinking and generally behaving like the stereotype of a slut. When getting to a noirish moment of discovery about the femme fatale, she also had her hair done like Veronica Lake and spoke in breathy, hard boiled dialogue prompting Raines to ask her if she was Kathleen Turner in Body Heat.

There was a last act "twist" that I saw coming a mile away (I hope that wasn't supposed to be a big reveal), but the format and quirks of the character were more than enough to keep me coming back to sample more. It helps that he's not just playing a tortured soul, he's also a bit of an egomaniacal ass (after surmising that the victim got into stripping and prostitution because she was abused by her dad, a logical conclusion, he called the victim's dad "Chester," because it rhymes with....well, you know. And this was during their first meeting, when the parents were just grieving over the loss of their daughter and not suspects at all).

Some serious talent showed up here. The premier was directed by Frank Darabont (of Shawshank and Green Mile fame), is produced by Graham Yost (Boomtown, writer on Band of Brothers) and has Linda Park (Hoshi from Enterprise) and the unfortunately named Nicole Sullivan (MadTV) who proves you can be sexy and funny.

There were a handful of really great lines, that sadly, I didn't write down. But based on the pilot, this one's a keeper. Solid B.