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The next “Castle” or the next “Mentalist”?


The next “Castle” or the next “Mentalist”?

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It’s a classic boy meets girl TV story: a crime-solving genius meets an irritable detective who needs help solving crimes. It’s not love at first sight, more like solving a crime at the first murder. Sparks fly. There are happy endings. The credits roll. That is, until another body is found next week.

You know the kind of TV series I’m talking about. Castle, Bones, The Mentalist. All cut from the same Sherlock Holmes-inspired cloth, and each series pairs an uptight detective with an unconventional, dare I say, downright annoying civilian who seems to have magical powers of investigation and deduction. We love watching these prodigies find clues that elude the police, and come up with a witty retort to every suggestion of following procedure and the law.

In that venerable television tradition, ABC brings us “High Potential” (Tuesdays, 10 EDT/PDT, ★★★ out of four), another cop-turned-consultant series that perhaps deserves a mention in this list of hits. “Potential,” based on a French series, is a little silly and a little formulaic, but also very entertaining. It’s the kind of lighthearted detective dramedy we don’t see as much anymore in the sea of ​​overly grim “Chicago” spinoffs and “Law & Orders” on TV. Created by “The Good Place” and “The Martian” producer Drew Goddard, “Potential” stars “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” MVP Kaitlin Olson, and has the potential to fill a cozy mystery niche we’ve all been missing in our deeply serious times.

In the duo of a quirky genius and a stuffy cop, our know-it-all is Morgan (Olson), a single mother of three with “high intellectual potential” but so unreliable and untrustworthy that she’s quit or fired from every job she’s ever had. She stumbles into her job as a police consultant when she oversteps her real duty as a janitor at the station, and is quickly picked up by commanding officer Selena (Judy Reyes, “Scrubs”). It’s very “Good Will Hunting,” but with Olson dancing to pop music and wearing leopard print.

Morgan is paired with Detective Karadec (Daniel Sunjata, “Rescue Me”), a – you guessed it! – grumpy cop who is strict by the rules and has no interest in outside help. That is, until Morgan proves that her knowledge of random minutiae (like which way the wind blows in Los Angeles on which days) and her powers of observation can help put the bad guys behind bars. He just has to put up with her antics, like taking her baby to crime scenes and borrowing evidence to “work from home.”

The unlikely couple’s marriage works, of course, and Morgan and Karadec are fully committed to fighting crime. Morgan’s new career is supported by her ex (Taran Killam), who acts as the primary caregiver for her teenager (Amirah Johnson), child (Matthew Lamb), and toddler.

The episodes quickly settle into a simple pattern, at least in the first three available for review. Morgan and Karadec also quickly find a common pattern, as the actors play off each other’s tics well. The scripts keep a simple balance between the mystery cases of the week and a larger story arc that sees Morgan and Selena investigating the disappearance of Morgan’s boyfriend 15 years ago.

Actually, everything about Potential feels easy. It’s not like so many stilted and forced network crime shows that lack charming characters, a sense of whimsy, or even compelling murders of the week. Potential is fun because it Is Fun, with lots of inspiration from light-hearted cop shows like Monk, Lucifer, and Psych. All the murders seem a little less gruesome because everyone is having so much fun chasing the bad guys.

A show as predictable as Potential can feel reassuringly familiar, but it can also feel boring and cliched. Most of the time, Olson’s charisma and Goddard’s quick-witted writing keep Potential from feeling too much like a rehash of the shows it has so much in common with. Whether you add another idiosyncratic crime-solving genius to your weekly viewing rotation may depend on how much you enjoy that subgenre of television. Is Morgan lovable or just annoying?

Depending on how you look at it, it has the potential to be both.

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