‘The Irrational’ Review: Jesse L. Martin Brings Magnetism to Humdrum NBC Crime Series

In broad strokes, NBC‘s The Irrational follows the well-worn and well-loved formula of “offbeat detective has a particular gift that just makes him better at detecting than everyone else,” which has powered mysteries since at least the days of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. True, Alec (Jesse L. Martin) isn’t technically a detective — he’s a college professor who frequently consults for the FBI, where his ex-wife, Marisa (Maahra Hill), happens to work. But this is a series built around his unique brilliance, which ostensibly allows him to pick up on the irregularities everyone else seems to miss.

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The show’s vibe is easy and familiar, and in its own way comforting — in the three episodes sent to critics, justice comes as reliably as the turning of the hour. Yet despite a likable lead turn by Martin, it’s difficult not to notice how un-special this story of a supposedly special detective feels. To the extent that it stands out on the release calendar, that’s due to it being one of precious few scripted broadcast debuts in a fall TV season decimated by strikes. In every other sense, it’s an okay series without the cleverness or ambition to become a good one.

In retrospect, it might have helped if Alec’s gimmick were anything to write home about. Alec is a behavioral psychology expert whose driving thesis is that “people are irrational, but predictably so.” Where other law enforcement types assume the obvious — like, say, that a guy who freely confesses to murder probably committed said murder — Alec knows better.

The depth and breadth of his knowledge makes him something of a celebrity in his own field. “My roommate wants to know if you really helped the Rams win the Super Bowl,” excited research assistant Rizwan (Arash DeMaxi) gushes upon first meeting Alec. His response drips with faux humility: “Well, that was a risky experiment, but it worked out for them.” Yet the concepts that The Irrational throws out to illustrate his genius are the sort covered in any intro-to-psych course, like confirmation bias or misdirected attention.

The cases Alec is asked to weigh in on are nicely varied: the first episode looks like a classic case of a woman killed by her ex-boyfriend; the second sees Alec teaming with a dying woman to solve her own attempted murder via Litvinenko-inspired radiation poisoning; the third focuses on a plane crash that may not be quite what it seems. But the solutions are disappointingly obvious even without Alec’s supposedly indispensable input.

Between the thinly written characters and the by-the-book plotting, I was able to pinpoint two of the three culprits the moment they were introduced, and that’s as someone who’s generally terrible at solving TV murders.

Meanwhile, the ongoing mystery of Alec’s backstory advances in seemingly random increments. Years ago, he was badly burned in a church bombing that claimed 13 other lives, and whose true culprit was never caught. Thanks to his hazy recollection of the event, it remains the one case he’s unable to crack. In the present, he tries every trick he can think of to jog his own memory. But it’s one thing to watch a man piece together the puzzle of his own past, trying to resolve the riddle alongside him. It’s another, less interesting thing to wait around for breakthroughs triggered by, for instance, accidentally catching a whiff of a certain flower.

With such a disconnect between how impressive we’re meant to believe Alec is and how impressive he truly appears, The Irrational runs the risk of painting Alec as obnoxious. Believe in tarot cards, like Alec’s sister Kylie (Travina Springer), or don’t, like Alec; either way, no one wants an impromptu lecture about how the Barnum effect tricks people into believing fortune tellers are real.

Meanwhile, the characters around Alec don’t make enough of an impression to counter his strong personality. At least Kylie gets some bright eye makeup to signal her role as his much younger, much tech-savvier sidekick. It’s hard to come up with words much more specific than “nice” to describe characters like Marisa and Rizwan and Alec’s other research assistant, Phoebe (Molly Kunz).

That Alec nevertheless lands just this side of bearable is a testament to Martin’s charisma. The scripts frequently suggest a character with a Sherlock Holmes-like prickliness: “That ability that you have, to completely divorce emotion from reason, is both why I married you and why we split up,” Marisa marvels in an early snippet of expository dialogue.

Martin, however, tempers his detachment with just the right touches of warmth and humor — it’s like he’s in on some cosmic joke he’d be willing to share, if only you’d ask. It’s this openness that represents Alec at his best, that makes him enjoyable to root for even when his cases aren’t terribly exciting to follow. If only his show seemed half as curious as he does about digging up interesting and unique details.