Park's 'Raines' Premieres on NBC Tonight

Linda Park (Sato)'s new series Raines debuts tonight on NBC with Jeff Goldblum in the title role as a detective who hallucinates murder victims as his assistants in solving crimes. Park plays fellow officer Michelle Lance, the partner of an adversarial policeman in the LAPD.

• Raines' visions of dead people are "a lot more credible" to Barry Garron of The Hollywood Reporter (via Reuters than the spirits on Medium and Ghost Whisperer: "They are murder victims as he pictures them in life. The more he learns about them, the more they change to conform to the new information." He praised both Goldblum and Matt Craven "as Raines' compassionate and no-nonsense superior."

• At The New York Daily News, Scott Bianculli compared Raines to "the obsessive-compulsive Adrian Monk on Monk" and described Park's character as "a smart uniformed cop." He said that the series deserves both an audience and a spot on NBC's schedule next year, calling the use of internalized ghosts a "stroke of brilliance" for the series.

• The Toronto Star's Vinay Menon found the show to be an excellent vehicle for Goldblum but said that some people may find the rambling, introspective and possibly imbalanced character of Raines a turnoff as a television detective. He appreciated allusions to classic film noir and detective literature and thought it was visually interesting, but not very believable.

• USA Today's Robert Bianco praised the series as "intriguing and involving, if sometimes odd for oddness' sake." He called Raines "Raymond Chandler for the Age of Therapy" and credited Goldberg with keeping the show grounded, along with "a top-rate supporting cast" including Park. "You wish the cast had more to do," he admitted.

• Andrew Lyons of Media Life Magazine called Raines "something rare on network TV these days" and praised Goldblum's "emotionally damaged tough-guy detective who must live with extended hallucinations that both inform and threaten his work and also his sanity." Park and the other supporting cast members "all offer able support," he added.

• The Deseret Morning News' Scott D. Pierce was not nearly as positive, saying he found the show "an unbelievable bore" and mocking Park, saying that reporters at the Television Critics Association tour were not interested in the Enterprise actress.

• And The Boston Herald's Mark A. Perigard labeled the show "pure nonsense", full of filler and overly derivative, despite what he said was an able cast. "The solution to tonight’s mystery is preposterous and deserves to be enshrined in the mystery hall of fame for worst solution ever," he declared.

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