“Raines” — Meet Juan Doe
Man oh man, that Raines is one unorthodox detective!
We’re only two weeks in and my enthusiasm is waning. Don’t get me wrong, I knew for what I was signing up. This is a police procedural. No matter how good the lead may be, or what crazy spin they put on it, it’s still a police procedural. I can live with that. Still, there was no reason the first ten minutes of Thursday’s episode had to be dedicated to explaining the premise of the show. There’s a lot of morons out there watching television, and I’m sure even they were saying, “We get it! He sees dead people, but doesn’t see dead people!”
The screen might as well have just flashed THIS IS WHAT THE SHOW IS ABOUT! in bright red letters while Goldblum mumbles to himself underneath.
The show is a curiosity. The writing is funny and kind of clever and yet the actual mysteries are horribly obvious. In a way the dialogue of the show sounds just like Veronica Mars (minus that show’s greatest asset: Veronica Mars). Though unlike Veronica Mars, playing detective with Mr. Raines isn’t nearly as interesting. Of course the murdered man was his son. I didn’t need an imaginary friend to tell me that! The mysteries in Veronica Mars are always complex and rarely solved by yours truly despite repeated attempts at doing so.
And really that’s the point. Mysteries are suppose to be fun, but the lazy plotting in Raines takes out a lot of the joy in watching a show of this kind.
Still, Raines lives and dies with Goldblum. To his credit he’s good enough to keep me watching. It also helps that he’s in just about every single frame of the series.
Raines moves to Fridays at 9pm beginning next week.
