‘The Irrational’: Why Jesse L. Martin’s Return to NBC Is More Than a Whodunit

For a show about why people make bad decisions, NBC has made the best one by bringing Jesse L. Martin back to the network. Having just wrapped his run as The Flash’s dutiful father figure Det. Joe West, the fan favorite who spent nine seasons as Law & Order’s NYPD detective Ed Green is returning to the procedural game, and the crafty new drama The Irrational finally lets Martin shine as a leading man. He “is such a talented actor and exudes an easy charm,” raves NBC’s president of scripted content Lisa Katz. “We have always wanted to bring Jesse back to NBC and were just waiting for the right vehicle and the right time.”

“It feels really great to be back on NBC after all these years,” the chronically good-natured Martin said while filming behind-the-scenes content for the crime thriller, before the actors’ strike. “And the funny thing is that of course, I’ve played detectives in most of my TV career.”

(Credit: NBC)

Not quite this time, though. Inspired by Duke University professor Dan Ariely’s nonfiction work Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, the drama follows Alec Mercer, a professor of behavioral science at the Washington, D.C., area’s fictional Wylton University. Thanks to his genius-level ability to read people, Mercer — whom Martin describes as “an emotional detective” — has become the go-to guy for federal officials and local law enforcement in need of speedy insight on high-stakes cases.

“It’s your standard procedural with nothing standard about it,” Martin continued with a laugh. “Alec has the bonus of being very tuned in on human behavior, and the deficit of being very tuned in on human behavior.” Kind of like So You Think You Can Get Away With Murder?

“We’re not just asking whodunit; we’re asking why,” added showrunner Arika Lisanne Mittman during the behind-the-scenes shoot. “We’re asking questions that relate to psychology, that relate to human motivation, and those are sometimes even more interesting than just figuring out who the killer is.”

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In the opener, we learn that while Mercer is astute at figuring out how other people think and react to certain stimuli (Google “paradoxical persuasion” or “the cocktail-party effect”), he has a few blind spots when it comes to his own mind. Having survived a church bombing 20 years earlier that left him with burns over 60 percent of his body, the still-scarred Alec has blocked out details of the night and shuns professional help for the trauma. But after a shocking development at the parole hearing for the man charged with the explosion, Mercer starts to suspect that what he can’t remember could hold the key to a much larger conspiracy. At the same time, the headline-grabbing murder of a social media influencer with ties to a D.C. political player (Lauren Holly, who has her own procedural history with NCIS) has Mercer and his team looking for clues in a way that could strike a chord with viewers.

“My deepest hope is that people will watch and start to think, ‘I would never do that…or wait, would I? Could I be convinced of this or that?’” Mittman said, commenting that the actual science behind Mercer’s methods has the power to “change the way people look at themselves.”

The Irrational, Premieres Monday, Sept. 25, 10/9c, NBC

This is an abbreviated version of the cover story from TV Guide Magazine’s 2023 Fall Preview issue. For more first looks at fall’s new shows, pick up the issue, on newsstands now.