In his noir-ishly ambitious opening voiceover, Michael Raines, a temperamental Jeff Goldblum, invokes Raymond Chandler and the other great detective novelists of his time. A man whose imagination literally speaks volumes, Raines claims he’s really some sort of a writer under his cop exterior, but the series makes it pretty apparent that Raines made the right career choice, even if it has driven him to insanity. The same, however, cannot be said for the creators and writers of ‘Raines,’ who so presumptuously bring Chandler and his contemporaries into their version of film noir meets those shiny briefcases from ‘Deal or No Deal.’ Raymond Chandler’s Detective Marlowe was a deeply interiorized protagonist whose mysteries as stories themselves would never have worked as fiction without Marlowe’s inimitable presence. Raines feels less like Philip Marlowe and more like an unrealized and less believable version of grumpy Dr. House.
Goldblum does his best – and it certainly shows in some rare moments – to enliven a poorly created title character whose inconsistently sarcastic demeanor is met with little backstory. The series pilot ends with having introduced only one semi-memorable minor player, Raines’ ex-partner-in-detecting-crime Charlie, who seems to have no knowledge of ‘Medium,’ The Sixth Sense, or any other one of its many peers that has successfully integrated the formula borrowed by ‘Raines.’ The ‘Raines’ take on the formula – broody detective sees and talks to murdered victims until the case is fully solved – is actually quasi-promising. Its creators, though, depend too much on the cases themselves, and not enough on the title character to create drama.
‘Raines’ ought to take a cue or two from the ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ patient cases, which are so engrossing because they cleverly mirror the thematic issues faced by the characters themselves. There is one potentially poignant moment in the pilot when Raines sobs as “Someone To Watch Over Me” plays in his car, but there is no trace of a hint at character history to make this moment meaningful. Film noir is called film noir for a reason and in our post-post-past-caring world of “America’s Next Top Model,” there’s no room for “America’s Next Cop Drama: TV Noir.”
