Will we ever grow bored of the savant sleuth? I suspect not \u2013 the satisfaction of witnessing a fantastically gifted person crack absurdly complex cases is one of fiction\u2019s most reliable draws. As ever, our screens are swarming with them: in the past year alone we\u2019ve been introduced to Ludwig, David Mitchell\u2019s puzzle-setter turned incredibly astute (if reluctant) detective; been reunited with Natasha Lyonne\u2019s human lie-detector Charlie Cale in Poker Face; and crossed paths once again with brainiac attorney Elsbeth, whose forays into policing are chronicled in the Good Wife spin-off of the same name.<\/p>\n
Also back for more mental gymnastics is Morgan Gillory, the protagonist of breezy procedural High Potential, which returns for a second season. With an IQ of 160 \u2013 giving her \u201chigh intellectual potential\u201d (Mensa typically requires a score of about 130) \u2013 Morgan\u2019s ability to unravel mind-bendingly complicated sequences of events is downright astonishing. Yet there\u2019s something a little different about this particular clever-clogs crimestopper. Ever since an antisocial drug addict by the name of Sherlock Holmes set the genius detective tone, such characters have usually had a few issues. Ludwig is reclusive, his talents tempered by intense awkwardness. Cale is a chaotic, commitment-phobic outsider partial to a drink or two, while Elsbeth is a no-filter weirdo who gives people the creeps.<\/p>\n
Morgan \u2013 played by Kaitlin Olson (It\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Hacks) \u2013 has no comparable weaknesses. When we first meet her she\u2019s working as a cleaner in the offices of the LAPD. After accidentally knocking over a pile of investigation notes and spotting some serious errors, she leaves a clue behind to point the officers in the right direction. Soon, she\u2019s recruited to work alongside the police, where she duly solves a series of extraordinarily labyrinthine crimes with practically no assistance. Morgan is not just inordinately smart, she\u2019s also a fearless, charismatic, glamorous, gorgeous go-getter with flawless instincts and off-the-charts emotional intelligence. She may be a little pushy at times, but now she\u2019s in the business of saving lives and catching killers, a bit of urgency isn\u2019t exactly inappropriate.<\/p>\n
If Morgan is practically perfect in every way, the same can\u2019t be said for her life \u2013 initially, at least. A single mother of three, she struggles to make ends meet, and mostly uses her mind palace to get the most out of her coupon-assisted supermarket shop. Motherhood can, of course, stymie women\u2019s professional lives, but Morgan\u2019s willingness to put up with the demands and pay of a minimum-wage job doesn\u2019t quite ring true. Similarly hard to buy is the show\u2019s longest narrative thread: underpinning all her disparate cases is Morgan\u2019s determination to track down the father of her eldest child, who disappeared without a trace 15 years ago. Despite her incredible powers of deduction, she hasn\u2019t the foggiest idea where he is.<\/p>\n
Uniformly nice and two-dimensional \u2026 the cast of High Potential. Photograph: Andrew Eccles\/Disney<\/p>\n
But High Potential isn\u2019t overly concerned with realism. Made by ABC in the US, this is slick, narcotic network TV. It\u2019s crowd-pleasing and easy on the eye, the sort of thing you\u2019d traditionally associate more with ITV than BBC Two. Morgan\u2019s new colleagues are uniformly nice, two-dimensional guys: suave detective Karadec (Daniel Sunjata), investigators Daphne and Oz, plus Lt Selena Soto (Scrubs\u2019 Judy Reyes), possibly the most reasonable and least fearsome police chief in cop drama history. No antiheroes, no edge: the vibe is cosy and heartwarming and rather basic.<\/p>\n
Obviously, the crimes aren\u2019t cosy or heartwarming or basic. The season one finale saw Morgan taunted by a kidnapper who forced her to solve ludicrously difficult puzzles to save the lives of his victims. He returns in the opening double bill here, abducting a young mother on her way home from a night out \u2013 but his real target is clearly Morgan, whom he sees as a worthy opponent in his real-life game of chess. Watching her get tantalisingly close to outwitting this man is tense and thrilling, but something this out-there requires a watertight ending. The question is: is High Potential as clever as its protagonist?<\/p>\n
In a word, no. The show is very good at keeping the suspense going, but it can\u2019t quite stick the landing, and the storyline concludes with a preposterous gotcha. Still, there\u2019s always next time. (In fact, Morgan\u2019s subsequent case \u2013 although equally bananas \u2013 is better thought through, ending with a neat and surprisingly moving climax.) The quality of the plotting may be a tad inconsistent, but like her many predecessors and peers, this virtuoso citizen detective can always be relied upon to save the day.<\/p>\n
High Potential is on Disney+ now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will we ever grow bored of the savant sleuth? I suspect not \u2013 the satisfaction of witnessing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-27772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}