Nicole Sullivan on Raines.

Nicole Sullivan is currently featured in the new NBC series Raines, yet another of her forays into the world of drama. As far as I know, this is her first appearance as a regular on a television series since the cancellation of the short-lived sitcom Hot Properties (although she did put in an appearance as the recurring guest character Jill Tracy on Scrubs and also made a guest appearance on Boston Legal). And from what little I've seen of Raines, it looks a lot more promising than the Sex And The City clone that was Hot Properties.

The central premise of Raines is that the central character, a police detective named Michael Raines (Jeff Goldblum), has hallucinations in which he sees and talks with (a) his late partner, and (b) the victims of the cases on which he is currently working. In the pilot episode, this is presented as a new phenomenom, and it is disquieting to both Raines (who is worried about losing his grip on reality) and others who see him talking to nonexistant people and assume he is a nutter. The central premise is a rather risky one, since the viewer at home may begin to think that Raines is crazy as a loon and change the channel (or, in the age of DVRs and PVRs, stop recording it). Yet once the plot progresses, whatever reservations I may have had about the central character diminished. One of the interesting elements of his hallucinations of the victims is that the demeanor of the victim changes as Raines gathers information. For example, in the pilot episode, when he finds out the victim was a prostitute, she manifests herself to him wearing cheap makeup and dragging on a cigarette, at least until he finds out she was trying to raise money to send to her abused mother.

Nicole Sullivan plays Carolyn Crumley, whose status is indeterminate in the pilot. Presumably she works for the L.A.P.D., but she's not a full-fledged detective - Raines refers to her as a "civilian" employee. She nonetheless displays thinking skills that might make her a good detective - in the pilot episode, when a hobo is arrested as a suspect in the murder of a young woman, she is immediately skeptical about the likelihood that he is the murderer. He makes a convenient scapegoat - he was drunk the night of the murder, and therefore cannot account for his actions - but there were no powder burns on his hands. Perhaps he washed them, notes Raines. "If he did, it's the first thing he's washed in a long time," quips Crumley. In addition, she's quick to note that there was $20,000 in a shoebox in the victim's apartment - something which doesn't necessarily contradict the theory that the hobo is the killer, but nonetheless is a loose end that could lead to an alternative explanation. She doesn't solve the case - that would render Raines superfluous - but she does seem to help Raines in solving the case by providing someone off of which to bounce ideas (in a broad sense, she plays Watson to Raines' Holmes, albeit a much more competent Watson), and represents the voice of sanity, an excellent foil for a central character whose grasp on reality seems to be slipping week by week.

Another vidcap from Raines.

As I progress through subsequent episodes of Raines, it will be interesting to see what the writers do with the Crumley character. It seems quite possible that this character could become a substantial one; it wouldn't be implausible for Crumley to eventually become Raines' partner, although she would have to become a detective first. Whether or not the show lasts long enough to see significant character development is another question. The show debuted with a 6.7 rating and a 12 share, good enough to finish in the top 30 (it ranked 23rd). Its ratings declined each subsequent week. The most significant drop off was between the second and third episode, which coincided with the show's move from Thursdays at 10 PM EDT to Fridays at 9 PM EDT (ratings dropped from 5.9 to 4.8). This suggests that at least some viewers didn't follow the show when it switched from Thursdays to Fridays. How much credence we should give to this theory is somewhat questionable in the era of PVRs. I recently put together a Myth TV system, and recording Raines every week is as easy as clicking a "record at any time on any channel" radio button. [I don't have Tivo, but I understand that Tivo has a feature called "Season Pass" which provides similar functionality.] Still, Friday isn't the most competitve night ratings-wise; the show finished second in its time slot last Friday, and NBC may well deem the performance of Raines good enough to warrant renewal. NBC will likely make a decision sometime in May, so one way or another, we won't have to wait long to find out.

Ratings for Raines *

* Raines aired on Thursdays at 10 PM EDT for the first two weeks. Fox and CW do not air programming in this time slot.

** Raines ran against the NCAA Tournament on CBS for the first two weeks (before the move to Fridays). NCAA ratings are for the entire night.

*** Smackdown! ratings are for the full two hours.

Ratings update (4-28-2007): The ratings were pretty much the same as the previous week, with only a slight decline, in spite of a stronger showing from ABC in the time slot, in what was the season finale for Raines.

Cancellation update (5-28-2007): As you probably know by now, NBC unveiled its fall 2007 lineup, and Raines was not on it; therefore, Raines has been cancelled. This wasn't much of a suprise given the program's relatively weak ratings; still, the move from Thursday to Friday didn't help. One has to question the network's commitment to the show as well: the show aired as a midseason replacement about two months before the end of the season, not exactly the sort of treatment a network gives to a show that it wants to succeed. Still, it failed to attract enough viewers even in its low-impact Friday timeslot; in any case, recriminations are essentially pointless now. Three-fourths of all new shows don't make it past the first season, and Raines stands as further empirical evidence that successful TV shows are the exception to the rule. Successful TV shows that are good are even more exceptional.

   Appendix A - History of This Page

Version 1.0 (April 23, 2007) - First posting.

Version 1.01 (April 28, 2007) - Ratings update.

Version 1.02 (May 28, 2007) - Cancellation update.