BLUE MAG

“Well you see, ah, well hmm,
yess, hmm, I uh, he he!! well, I
ah,…see um, dead people, yessir.”

Let’s get it out of the way right up front: Raines sees dead people. Specifically, he is a homicide detective who speaks to the ghosts of the victims of the murders he investigates.

Creator Graham Yost was also responsible for Boomtown and Band of Brothers, the former being a quality show that failed to catch on, and the latter being one of the best war miniseries ever. Raines, like Boomtown, takes place in L.A., and has the same visual touch for showing the hills and streets of the Southland. Raines pilot episode has a few beautiful shots early on — for example the opening shot from a hillside mansion, and the shot looking up at a historic Hollywood apartment building perched on a hill.

The opening, with Goldblum’s instantly recognizable (and I think likable) voice-over, sets a L.A. noir tone, with Raines admitting always wanting to be a hard-boiled detective writer. If you’re like me, you’re instantly hooked. Goldblum could pull off the Philip Marlowe type well, if only they would let him do it. Instead, he sees dead people.

Everywhere you turn, you read that TV is all supernatural crazy. Somehow they even drag Lost into this, as if that show led the way. I never got it. None of the top 20 shows of 2006 had anything to do with the supernatural. In fact the most recognizable trait there (besides singing and dancing) is crime procedurals. Why not a good old fashioned hard-boiled detective drama, with the voice overs and the L.A. landscape, starring a recognizable name? Why have him see dead people?

The only thing that adds a shred of acceptability to the gimmick is that technically, Raines seems to only think he sees dead people. In other words, the phantasms only seem to know what Raines knows — they are figments of his imagination. They can’t just lead him around the city until they see the murderer and just stand behind him with a “THIS GUY!!!” sign.

Overall, the L.A. landscape, some great writing, and the instant watchability of the hard-boiled detective piece make this a pretty quality series that just has an unfortunate elephant in the middle of the room for Goldblum to mumble at.