I have fond memories of Jeff Goldblum in Tenspeed and Brownshoe, and I hoped that Raines might capture some of the same feeling. It did, just a little. I was caught by the opening voice-over (mention Hammett, Chandler, and Macdonald, and you have me), so I stuck with the program. Raines is a homicide detective. The gimmick is that he sees dead people. SPOILER ALERT!! Nobody who's seen The Sixth Sense is going to be surprised by the big reveal at the end. I sure wasn't. END SPOILER ALERT!! The thing is that the gimmick isn't necessary. Goldblum is quirky enough without it. I suppose the idea of talking to the victims after they're dead would be even cooler if they'd actually tell him who killed him, but they don't know. Or at least the one in this first show didn't. So instead, they'll give hints, lie, and in other words behave just like an ordinary suspect or client of some P.I.
Speaking of P.I.s, there's on in this show too. He's no Andy Barker, but I liked him because he had a statue of the Maltese Falcon on his desk. Or maybe it was the real Falcon. Anyway, he's a victim, so we won't be seeing him again. His ghost didn't talk to Raines, because he saw who killed him, and that would have spoiled everything.
This show is nothing special. I'll probably watch it now and then, though, because it has a kind of retro feel to it and because I like Goldblum.
