Roush Review: Jesse L. Martin Solves ‘Irrational’ Crimes in a Rare Scripted Fall Original

The Irrational

Matt's Rating:

So what’s new?

That’s a question being asked this month by many viewers, surveying a fall TV season of patchwork lineups on the broadcast networks, which have been disproportionately affected by the production shutdown during the writers’ and actors’ strikes. A fresh scripted series (not counting imports from other countries) is almost as rare as a camera-shy Kardashian, but NBC bucks the numbing trend of wall-to-wall reality and game shows with the premiere of The Irrational.

This unconventional crime drama would be worth a look in any season, with a charismatic star (Law & Order veteran Jesse L. Martin) and an intriguing premise. The puzzles are also unusually perplexing, posing questions like why someone would confess to a murder he didn’t commit, or why a pilot would intentionally crash a plane in a way that lets half the passengers survive.

Enter Alec Mercer (Martin), a professor and expert in behavioral science, consulted by authorities in moments of crisis to interpret why people do inexplicable things. As he puts it, in elaborate voice-overs that sound like lectures, “People are irrational, but predictably so. … We rely on instincts which are almost always wrong, sometimes dangerously wrong. One error in judgment leads to another, which is why eventually someone ends up calling me.”

We first see him in action using a technique he calls “paradoxical persuasion” to defuse a dangerous hostage situation. (In next week’s episode, the best of the three made available for review, a dying journalist who once tried to debunk his “junk science,” played by Bosch alum Amy Aquino, asks Mercer to find out who poisoned her, and why.)

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Employing psychological tricks to trap his quarry — too often the most obvious suspect — Mercer uses these cases as teaching moments for his team of young research assistants, spouting observations like “Memory is the great con man of human nature.” He should know, because he still struggles to remember details of the church bombing that scarred him 20 years ago. Surely you didn’t think he’d be spared a tortured backstory.

Thankfully, Martin rarely sheds his cool-cat persona, even when, to the dismay of his FBI agent ex-wife (Maahra Hill), he risks his neck to crack a case. Sounds irrational, but that’s how Mercer rolls.

The Irrational, Series Premiere, Monday, September 25, 10/9c, NBC

This is an excerpt from TV Guide Magazine’s 2023 Returning Favorites issue. For more first looks at fall’s returning shows, pick up the issue, on newsstands now.