Crossed Out

American television strives to disappoint nowadays. NBC-TV this morning announced its 2007-2008 schedule, confirming that it was dropping three of the small number of series I bother to watch anymore. While both the original Law & Order series and its foremost spinoff, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, managed to survive for another year, despite rumors of their pending demise), the same isn’t also true of Aaron Sorkin’s uneven but far-better-written-than-normal Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip; it won’t be returning in the fall. Neither will a couple of crime series I’ve enjoyed, Crossing Jordan and Raines.

Although only seven episodes of Raines were shot (a reduction from original expectations), the show managed to make a decent splash in a TV pool short on cop series that didn’t emphasize forensic science over character development. Jeff Goldblum grew on me as a wounded Los Angeles detective who feared he was going crazy, because his subconscious mind kept manifesting images of the people whose murders he endeavored to solve--images off whom he could bounce ideas, but who couldn’t supply him with any insights he didn’t have himself. (He didn’t actually see spirits, contrary to the critical shorthand that Raines was “Ghost Whisperer meets Dragnet.”) The pilot episode (still available for your viewing pleasure here) might have been the best, but the succeeding six all had their highlights, the sum offering up a protagonist whose psychological infirmities were integral to the story, but didn’t overwhelm the plot (unlike what’s happened to Tony Shalhoub’s Monk). This was Goldblum’s second short-lived shot at a continuing TV crime drama (following his appearance, with Ben Vereen, in Tenspeed and Brown Shoe, Stephen J. Cannell’s 1980 series), and may finally convince him that there’s no reason to bother with a medium that’s more interested in idiotic game shows than slow-developing dramatic series.

Still harder for me to accept than Raines’ demise is the cancellation, after a six-year run, of Crossing Jordan, the ever-dependable Boston-based medical examiner series. Although it originally focused around the lovely Canadian actress and Law & Order alumna Jill Hennessy (shown in the photo above), who played brainy and unstoppable Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh, always butting heads with her bosses and the cops who wanted her to butt out of their cases, Jordan quickly evolved into more of an ensemble piece. Miguel Ferrer (the son of Puerto Rican actor José Ferrer and American singer Rosemary Clooney) portrayed Cavanaugh’s tightly wound, alcoholic boss, Dr. Garrett Macy; while Ravi Kapoor took the role of Mahesh “Bug” Vijayaraghavensatyanaryanamurthy, a perpetually shy but warm-hearted Indian entomologist, who was friend and often reluctant co-conspirator to the more free-spirited, wisecracking British criminologist Nigel Townsend (played by Steve Valentine). For a time, Ken Howard (who I remember best, if most obscurely, from a 1974-1975 CBS period crime drama called The Manhunter) appeared as Jordan’s retired-cop father, but he hasn’t been seen much lately. And more recently, ex-Sliders star Jerry O’Connell has been a regular Boston police detective and less regular boyfriend of Jordan’s on the show, with Kathryn Hahn playing grief counselor Lily Lebowski.

Hennessy was something of a revelation as Dr. Cavanaugh, a woman more overtly sexual, psychologically troubled, and dynamic than Claire Kincaid, the publicly restrained assistant district attorney the actress had portrayed for three years on L&O. This show wasn’t perfect. It depended for far too long on a continuing story thread about Jordan’s murdered mother (and did we ever actually hear a resolution to that case, by the way?). A few crossover eps with the far cheesier NBC series Las Vegas were less than credible, and even less than necessary. Still, there was more welcome attention paid to the development of Jordan’s cast than there has been to the stars of, say, the CSI franchise shows or the original Law & Order. I tuned in every week, confident that I would be entertained by a wonderfully flawed cast with whom I had built up a relationship over the years. I wasn’t asked to care simply about the forensic wizardry element of the program, which would’ve gotten old (and explains why I can only watch the CSI series every now and then).

While it’s sad to see Crossing Jordan and Raines (and Studio 60, for that matter) tossed atop the discard pile, it’s equally regrettable to me that they should’ve died at the hands of NBC. There was a time when the network formerly known as the National Broadcasting Company served up most of my evening’s entertainment. It gave me many of the crime dramas I remember most fondly (Columbo, The Rockford Files, Ironside, McMillan & Wife, City of Angels, Hec Ramsey, Crime Story), as well as Cheers, The Addams Family, The Bob Newhart Show, I’ll Fly Away, Friends, Get Smart, L.A. Law, Mad About You, and Aaron Sorkin’s extraordinary The West Wing. That NBC has now become synonymous in my mind with such simple-minded fare as Deal or No Deal and The Office is tremendously disheartening; and that any series should be canceled to make way for NBC’s fall revival of that dopey Lindsey Wagner series, The Bionic Woman, just adds insult to injury.

No wonder I’ve resorted to watching DVDs of older TV shows at night. NBC, as well as the other U.S. networks, seem determined to drive anything remotely intelligent or challenging from the airwaves, and to kill off what remains by moving the shows around so frequently that they can’t possibly hold audiences. It’s funny: When I was a kid, I was a TV addict. Now, I barely turn on the set, and it is not just because I have other things to do.

The Ghosts and Mr. Raines

As far as I’m concerned, this has been a pretty lousy year for American television. Deadwood is off the air, after three incredible seasons. The West Wing is gone after two presidential terms. There’s talk of NBC canceling Crossing Jordan, which stars the ever-lovely Jill Hennessy. The fate of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which is the only network series I’ve added to my previous TV-viewing schedule this year, hangs in the balance. And pretty much everything else is a mindless game or reality show, a series that should’ve been a one-off “movie of the week,” or another formulaic CSI or Law & Order clone.

Which explains why my fingers are crossed for Raines, the new Jeff Goldblum crime drama debuting on NBC next Thursday night, March 15, in ER’s timeslot (10 p.m. ET/PT). I am feeling particularly in need these days of a different sort of police or private-eye series (sorry, Andy Barker, P.I., just won’t do), and Raines is definitely different. At least judging from the pilot episode, this is not Ghost Whisperer meets Dragnet, as some critics have charged. (Nor is it “Ghost Whisperer minus the boobs,” as one TV Squad wit put it.) Instead, it’s a personality-driven serial that finds the stuttering Goldblum as Los Angeles police detective Michael Raines, who has recently returned to duty after being shot, along with his partner. That attack left Raines more than a bit off; he’s now seeing people. Dead people. The victims of homicides he’s charged with investigating. In the pilot, for instance, he’s confronted by what seems to be the ghost of a college student and likely prostitute, who, much to Raines’ consternation, won’t go “back to whatever dark, twisted malfunctioning part of my brain you come from” until he solves her slaying.

Admittedly, this does initially sound like Ghost Whisperer, or maybe Medium. But the crucial and reality-respecting distinction here is that these spirits aren’t spirits at all; they’re being necessarily manifested by Raines’ unconscious both to give him somebody off whom to bounce his thoughts about the case at hand--and to provide him with greater sympathy for the people who’ve been murdered. As the fatality in the pilot (played by the fetching Alexa Davalos) tells him, “I only know what you know,” and that’s because she represents his own questioning self, prodding him to dig further into the available clues, to doubt the easy evidence and, in a nice turn, forcing him to address the prejudices and stereotypes that can hinder a police investigation. Rather than adopt the easy Ghost Whisperer comparison, I’d liken the concept here to what the mother and son who write as “Charles Todd” do with their post-World War I series starring Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge (A False Mirror, Watchers of Time), burdening their shell-shocked protagonist with a troubled conscience that takes the form of a loquacious Scottish soldier Rutledge had ordered executed on the battlefield. Raines is equally weighted down in this new series by loneliness and self-doubt, which he seems to escape only by successfully resolving crimes.

Which isn’t to suggest that Raines is a one-man show. It also brings back a few performers we haven’t seen enough of lately, including Linda Park (formerly of Star Trek: Enterprise), playing Detective Kim Lance; Matt Craven, who I remember best from his role in the short-lived Rob Lowe legal series, The Lyon’s Den, but who here plays LAPD Captain Daniel Lewis, worried by Raines’ apparently new habit of conversing with himself; and Nicole Sheridan, who used to play the ditzy dog walker, Holly, on King of Queens, but who here does a fine job as some sort of hyper-effective LAPD researcher.

I can’t say that the Raines pilot is flawless. The twist at the end was pretty obvious, though I liked to be right about it. The episode is a bit too self-consciously noirish for its own good, winging in a jazz trumpet-filled soundtrack and moving the plot forward with Goldblum’s narration, as if to give us the impression that this is a modern cop drama with Chandleresque roots. Yet the eccentric nature of the series isn’t as over-the-top as I’d expected (actually, feared). And in a field of network programming distinguished by its almost complete absence of novelty, Raines should be graded on a curve for at least trying to be something special.

But see for yourself. Although the series doesn’t premiere until next Wednesday, the pilot--penned by Graham Yost (who did a lot of writing for another unusual series, Boomtown, a few years back)--is already available on NBC’s First Look Web site. Let’s hope this show wins enough viewership that it can stick around longer than some of Detective Raines’ vaporous visions.

Something Worth Watching Again

TV Squad brings news today that Crossing Jordan, a crime drama about the Boston Medical Examiner’s Office that I’ve enjoyed ever since its debut in 2001, is returning to NBC-TV come January 21. Previously due for a move to Friday night, it’s being installed instead in its old spot on Sundays at 10 p.m. Frankly, I could be captivated just watching this program’s star, Jill Hennessy, make coffee in the morning or take out the trash, so I’m happy to see her back on the small screen bringing down murderers and causing consternation among the Beantown constabulary. Beyond the debut of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, this hasn’t been a great year for American television, so reliables such as Crossing Jordan are welcome.

And though I fear it might not live up to its hype, I’m also looking forward to watching Raines, the new NBC series in which Jeff Goldblum plays an eccentric Los Angeles police detective who “solves murders in a very unusual way--he turns the victims into his partners,” according to NBC publicity. “These visions are figments of Raines’ imagination, and he knows it, but when he can’t make the dead disappear, he works with them to find the killer. Through his discussions, along with the evidence, Raines’ image of the victim changes until he has a clear picture of what really happened. Only when the case is closed do the visions end. Other detectives question Raines’ sanity, and occasionally so does he. However, as long as his unique methods are helping catch criminals, Raines imagines he’ll be just fine.” It sounds like a combination of Medium and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). But I like Goldblum, and suspect that he can pull off the roll of a cop with ghosts in his noggin. An added bonus: the series will also feature Linda Park, one of my favorite actors from Star Trek: Enterprise. Thus far, Raines doesn’t seem to have a timeslot, but that ought to be announced soon.