Crime Time TV

[Gerald So]

I'll be watching NBC tonight starting at 9:30 with "Andy Barker, P.I." Andy Richter plays an accountant mistaken for a private eye. Then at 10:00, Jeff Goldblum plays a cop haunted by dead people in "Raines".

Zap2it.com reviews both shows:
http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2007/03/reviews_andy_ba.html

I'll reply with thoughts after the shows air. Feel free to chime in.

[Jeremy Lynch]

I am really interested in seeing Raines. The reviews have been generally positve, though Entertainment Weekly was pretty critical of it.

[Harry Hunsicker]

Raines sounds interesting. I'm glad to see the PI genre making a comeback on television. Now if Ben Affleck just won't completely butcher GONE BABY GONE . . .

[Paul Guyot]

I saw the RAINES pilot. It's got some interesting stuff, but overall didn't hold my interest.

I love Richter.

As for PI shows coming back - the answer is yes. There are no less than four PI pilots being shot right now, including MARLOWE - an updated version - and I loved the script. The writer wrote the screenplay like a Chandler novel, with a first person narrator and everything.

I really hope that show sees the light of day and that I'm one of the writers.

There's also a couple of female PI shows, and a college-aged male PI.

It's funny - two years ago I pitched a PI series. Basically a modern Rockford type of show, and everyone said "The PI show is dead" and they all passed. Now there's four.

Nobody knows anything.

[Vince Keenan]

Andy Barker is a full-on hoot. Harve Presnell from Fargo makes the show as the semi-retired gumshoe who serves as Andy's mentor. All six episodes are available now at NBC.com.

[Robin Burcell]

Veronica Mars really, really needs to be renewed. That is one good show, though I almost liked it better when they were in high school, because it was such a novel concept, and I would have loved to have been that cool in high school.

I have an all-over-the-board taste in TV crime shows. I love Monk and Psych, L&O and L&O SVU. Unfortunately, Monk and Psych being on USA channel means they only get a handful of shows at a time. I've also recently gotten into The Dresden Files, which is sort of a Sam Spade meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer show.

[Gerald So]

Ditto on "Monk" and "Psych". I catch "Veronica Mars" on DVD (which unfortunately doesn't help its TV outlook), and "Dresden" is quirky and good.

[Jude Hardin]

I hardly ever watch TV, but my hardboiled PI novel will be making rounds at the major houses in a month or so. Good to know private eye stories are becoming popular again.

[Angie]

I don't do cable, but I download shows from iTunes (streaming media ate my brain & my time, plus I can't deal with the damn commercials). Saw the pilot for "Andy Barker, P.I." and really liked it. Very goofy & fun. Hadn't heard about "Raines," but sounds like it's worth checking out.

Used to like "Monk," but have to admit that it's gotten kinda boring & I haven't seen it in ages. I kept waiting for "Psych" to get interesting & finally gave up. I LOVE Veronica Mars, though I have to agree that it was better in the first two seasons. Also have been digging "The Dresden Files."

Weird how all these P.I. shows have been coming up after such a long drought.

[Keith Snyder]

Hopefully the Jeff Goldblum thing will be better than THE DRESDEN FILES.

Maybe I'm just not the right audience, or caught the wrong episodes, but it seems to me that piling up clichés from two genres isn't the same thing as doing anything new.

(Though now that I'm actually reading the other comments, it seems I'm in the minority in my take on this show.)

[Gerald So]

I wasn't keen on the first episode of "Dresden", Keith, but the show has grown on me. I like that some real investigating seems to go on. I prefer "Dresden" to Lifetime's P.I.-involved-with-a-vampire show, "Blood Ties", which was too unintentionally cheesy for me.

[Robin Burcell]

I didn't even see the first Dresden episodes. I came in a few episodes in. Watched one, then another, and yes, I think it grows on you. Quirky as someone put it.

Psych hasn't really hit its stride yet, but it is coming along nicely. It's just a really nice show to sit down to with the kids. (Whereas my two 11 y.o.s have no interest in Dresden.)

[Sandra Parshall]

Don't you wonder sometimes why nearly all the most popular TV shows now are about death -- either on crime shows or medical dramas? I'm as obsessed with death as anybody else, and I write about it, but I miss the days (or evenings) of Seinfeld and Friends and Frasier and, going way back, Cheers. Now we have a choice of Law & Order or CSI or... Law & Order or CSI and Law & Order or CSI. My favorite TV show right now is House, and that has a happy ending most of the time, but only after some poor patient has been tortured to within an inch of his life by House & cohorts. The humor on TV these days is either downright nasty or too silly to sit through. Sorry... What was the subject again?