Reasons to Watch Raines

Reasons to Watch Raines by Roxanne McDonald

A number of things and people make “Raines” an engrossing new show on NBC.

The big boy critics disagree, but this armchair critic finds “Raines” a refreshing new series…at least, the first episode was engaging enough to make me want to think about it, write about it, and even watch it in re-run (though I am typically baffled by this new trend of re-running brand new shows till we puke).

First, the buddy banter is back in full fun force: Raines and his dead partner Charlie (played by Malik Yoga) toss the insults back and forth, as do Raines and his captain, Lewis (Matt Craven). The dialogue in both instances is flip, glip, and quick as it offers character development details as well as backstory.

Next, familiar faces shape the sarcastic but sober cast, with the most notable, Nicole Sullivan (“Mad TV” and “King of Queens”) playing a crime technician assisting Raines, and Raines himself—Jeff Goldblum is simmering sexiness…always has been.

And, too, the show offers a fine twist on “CSI…” meets “Medium”. Hopefully, viewers didn’t get turned off by the

promos, for while Raines can see the victims, and talks to them, the answers to the crimes are not pat or quick in coming. The imagined dead do not give Raines any straight up answers (which would make the show, what? Five minutes long?), but instead are resistant, unawares themselves, flip, and vague. The first dead woman, says she doesn’t know this; Raines will have to figure out that; and maybe so and maybe not. The clues and the questions, that is, are not answered easily by a victim who comes to Raines by way of his imagination, for he must imagine the answers…not “see” or “hear” them as one might from a an actual, er, ghost.

Maybe the reason for the fresh conceit is in Graham Yost’s not “really watch[ing]” other shows of the similar premise, as writer Tom Tom Jicha at SouthFlorida.com reports: “Asked to compare his show to Medium, executive

producer Graham Yost replied, ‘I haven’t really watched Medium or other shows like that.’” “In this,” smirks Jicha, “Yost keeps the longest-running streak in Hollywood alive — no producer who ever produced a facsimile of another series has seen the original.” Jicha and others also find “Raines” wanting, saying that while Goldblum does “make the best of a bad idea,” “Raines” will never get over the prejudice of viewers unable to get “past the conceit”…its chances for them doing so with “Raines” “less than medium.”Yet, other critics, like Vernie Gay at Newsday.com remark how “Raines” is “possibly the best new show on NBC since September, after ‘Heroes’ and ‘30 Rock….’”

While I wouldn’t mix the genres, and wouldn’t say “Raines” will out-run or out-do “CSI:Miami,” I would have to agree with Gay and others that, hopefully, it will last through the season and beyond.

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