Jeff Goldblum joins "Criminal Intent" as only Jeff Goldblum can join "Criminal Intent"

At some point during the new season of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” Jeff Goldblum is going to show up and go all Jeff Goldblum on the unwitting perps.

Now, for those of you who may have missed that NBC series where he played a detective who got crime-solving tips from his dead partner, let me tell you something: There are very few actors on television who can look at the ground and mumble quite as convincingly as Jeff Goldblum.

As it happens, however, one of those other actors is his new co-star, Vincent D'Onofrio, who kicks off the eighth (!) season for “Criminal Intent” at 8 p.m. CT Sunday on USA Network.

I know “Criminal Intent” has been compared to “Columbo,” and I suppose both Peter Falk's raincoat savant and D'Onofrio's shifty-eyed brooder eventually get their man in remarkably similar, allegedly “intuitive” ways. But c'mon -- if Falk was the crazy uncle, D'Onofrio is the crazy cousin. Big difference.

Still, I have to admit that the big lug works surprisingly well within the confines of the “CI” format. While everyone else is exerting their acting muscles to push the storyline along, D'Onofrio stares into the distance and talks to himself. It's strangely compelling.

With the addition of Goldblum (and subtraction of Chris Noth's more conventional copper), New York's nuttiest crime-solving unit gains another member.

Goldblum will make his debut as crimefighter Zack Nichols on next week's “Criminal Intent,” when he'll circle slowly around the suspects in the death of a rap MC until he intuits that the killer is the weirdest guy on the scene besides himself.