More Whodat?

Friday's Raines (good yet again) had some familiar names. First, it was directed by Starsky! Also, the drunk judge, who killed his wife and put a hit on the Russian hooker whom he brought into a threesome (and eventually wound up getting the wife off drugs and becoming lesbian BFF), before eventually serving justice by jumping out the courthouse bathroom window and setting off car alarms, was Mark Harelik. A frequent guest star, Harelik was great in genre shows like Angel (obsessed count in "Waiting in the Wings") and ST: Voyager (inspector who got Janeway dewy in a series of double crosses).

I was all set to watch the final (damn you, NBC) eps of Andy Barker, PI last night, only to find out that adding insult to injury, my local station was pre-empting them for some local crap about community awards. Great. Fortunately, the remaining 2 eps of this classic and hysterical comedy are available online at NBC.com. (you owe it to yourself to got watch them, if you haven't take my sage advice and done it already). In "The Big No Sleep," we had another Batmanuel sighting (Nestor Carbonell, who has been popping up on our favorite island show lately as Dr. Halpert). He played the doctor running scams with vapid trophy wives. His "confession" scene at the airport is worth the price of admission.

In the last eppy, "The Lady Varnishes," Ed Asner was Lew's old partner, James Hong (recently seen on Bones, as noted on this blog) and Amy Sedaris was the wrongly convicted femme fatale, with the overactive sex drive and wooden leg.

Whodat?

A couple of Sydney Andrews sightings recently. Sydney was one of the denizens of Melrose Place, played by Laura Leighton. A couple of weeks ago, she popped up on Shark as a reporter who may have some kind of backstory with Sebastian. Last week, she was the "party mom" on Law and Order SVU who bought the kids booze and banged her daughter's wannabe boyfriend ("but we were in love!"). I was never a fan of Melrose back in the day, but I have to say that Ms. Leighton (who in real life is married to Doug Savant, gay Matt on Melrose, an Alliance officer on Firefly and currently Tom Scavo on Desperate Housewives) has gotten better looking with age. She was gorgeous in these two guest spots, as she was on the sadly underwatched Eyes.

Noted Hey, It's That Guy Stephen Tobolowsky who showed up in the infamous "Tim Batale" episode of Studio 60, was on Friday's sweetly charming (without being saccharine) Raines as the comic book store owner. Also popping up in a funny cameo as the "stoner old lady" with nice bongs and a penchant for taxidermy? Pat Crawford Brown, perhaps best known as the old lady with the man eating demon penis sprouting out of her head on Buffy's "Doublemeat Palace."

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.