NBC's new detective series Raines is like House or Shark - one name, must be good at puzzles. Raines, like those, is about the burden of brilliance on social skills, but whereas House rants and Shark babbles, Raines does a lot of inscrutable staring and mumbling to himself in cars, having imaginary conversations with murder victims.
He's a cop but also some kind of damaged schizo-savant, staring into the troubling present like a guy who can't find his car after a week at Burning Man. Have I mentioned that Raines, premiering tonight, stars smooth operator Jeff Goldblum? It's still supposed to be an occasion when an actor like this comes down from the big box of movies to the littler box of a TV series.
On TV Raines premieres at 10:01 tonight on NBC, Channel 11.