The lanky, stammering actor, best known for playing smug brainiacs in everything from "The Big Chill" to "Independence Day" to "The Life Aquatic" plays the title role in "Raines," single-handedly making it worth watching.
His character is a homicide detective imbued with (sigh) a unique ability. Actually, as he points out, it's more like a psychosis: he sees the dead. No, they don't "appear" to him in visions, as they do to that lady on "Medium." He hallucinates them. The dead appear as figments of his imagination, begging him to solve their murders and bring them justice.
It's a twist that might seem over the top, were it not for Goldblum's trademark dry humor and intelligence. He never paints Raines as insane. Tormented, yes, but in a quiet way. As Goldblum talks with his hallucination of a dead young woman in the show's pilot, he seems frustrated, sad, eccentric and -- something Goldblum has seldom been before -- vulnerable. Yes, late middle age has let some of the air out of his smug persona, and let the humanity creep in. Thus, he's a total pleasure to watch as he wrestles with his demons.
Aside from Goldblum, the show is basically your run of the mill "super cop" show, but it has some fun with its gimmick. As Raines learns more about his victims, his hallucinations shift. In the pilot, a murdered young woman whose death Raines is investigating changes with every new fact he learns about her. It's like this figment is a canvas on which he paints theories about her murder. It's kind of neat.
Plus, there's a genuinely surprising twist at the end, that kind of impressed me. Without revealing much, the twist is nothing that hasn't been done before, but it's done in such a quiet, matter of fact way that it felt fresh.
But the real show here is Goldblum. Even when the show gets silly or predictable, he always holds your interest.