The character for one. Smart, eccentric, and sarcastic, he's kind of a cross between Adrian Monk and Alison Dubois with a dash of Gregory House. Raines' unique twist is that he wanted to be a writer, so even though he ended up a cop, he has a writer's imagination — characters (read dead people) come alive for him.
Jeff Goldblum for another. Goldblum is a well-respected actor, and he must have seen something in the script for him to take his first TV gig in over 25 years. (Check out the nice bio they have at NBC or better yet, Jeff's own website.) Unlike his energetic roles in such films as Jurassic Park or Independence Day, Goldblum gives Raines a low-key quirkiness rather than a frenetic presence.
The creator of the series and writer of the pilot episode is Canadian screenwriter Graham Yost, who is known for the movies Speed, Broken Arrow, and Hard Rain. Yost does a good job with the script, laying out the series premise and keeping the episode's mystery alive with a not-what-it-seems plot. The dialogue moves at a goodly pace and holds some laugh-out-loud moments.
The supporting cast has promise, although it's hard to tell from the pilot if they will work well as an ensemble. They include Matt Craven as Captain Daniel Lewis, Linda Park as Officer Michelle Lance, and Nicole Sullivan as Carolyn Crumley, a civilian employee at the police department. Maybe I’m hallucinating, but given the offbeat premise and the promise of Jeff Goldblum communing with the dead, I think Raines is a show to watch.
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1 - Lisa McKay
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