Raines

Flip to one of the major networks during prime time and there's an excellent chance you'll find a show about people solving crimes. Three Law & Orders, three CSIs, Without a Trace, Cold Case, Crossing Jordan... it's a pretty long list. So we don't exactly need another one, but as long as these kinds of shows keep doing well, we'll keep getting more.

Raines stars Jeff Goldblum as a detective who's losing his mind (but not in an amusing Monk kind of way). He sees the victims of murders he investigates (but not in a psychic Medium kind of way). He carries on conversations with them, and as he investigates their lives and learns about them, his hallucinations change. In the pilot, for example, he sees the victim with a generic American accent at first, but after learning that she lived in Texas, the hallucination suddenly has a southern drawl. In sort of a clever twist, it also reflects his prejudices about the things he learns.

Other than that hook, it plays like a classic noir detective story. Conversations with the victim work like the voiceover, and you have all the twists and turns of a Raymond Chandler novel. Jeff Goldblum plays the same character he's been playing for 20 years, and the supporting cast doesn't do anything to stand out, but doesn't get in the way either.

It's not a bad show, but nothing about it makes me want to tune in every week. Like a lot of the shows I mentioned at the top, if there's nothing on and I'm flipping around, I might stop on Raines and watch it, but I won't be setting the Tivo for it.

Raines premieres Thursday March 15th at 10pm on NBC. The pilot is available online here.