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Will we truly tire of the savant sleuth? I suspect not – the satisfaction of seeing a fantastically gifted person solve absurdly complex cases remains among fiction’s surest appeals. As always, our screens teem with such characters: over the last twelve months we’ve been introduced to Ludwig, David Mitchell’s riddle-creator turned incredibly astute detective; seen the return of Natasha Lyonne’s human lie-detector Charlie Cale in Poker Face; and encountered once again with legal genius Elsbeth.

A Different Kind of Genius Detective

Returning for further intellectual feats is Morgan Gillory, the lead character of breezy procedural High Potential, now back for a new season. With an IQ of 160 – earning her “exceptional mental ability” – Morgan’s talent to unravel exceptionally convoluted sequences of events is downright astonishing. Yet there’s something distinctive about this particular clever-clogs crimestopper.

Ever since an reclusive drug addict named Sherlock Holmes set the genius detective mold, these types have usually had some flaws. Ludwig is withdrawn, his talents tempered by intense awkwardness. Cale is a unpredictable, commitment-phobic loner partial to a drink or two, while Elsbeth is a unfiltered eccentric who gives people the creeps.

Morgan – portrayed by Kaitlin Olson – has no such weaknesses. Initially, she’s working as a cleaner in the offices of the police department. Upon knocking over a pile of investigation notes and noticing some critical mistakes, she leaves a clue to point the officers in the right direction. Soon, she’s brought on to work alongside the police, where she duly solves a series of extraordinarily labyrinthine crimes almost single-handedly.

A Well-Rounded Lead

Morgan is not only exceptionally intelligent, she’s also a fearless, charming, glamorous, gorgeous go-getter with flawless instincts and off-the-charts emotional intelligence. She may be somewhat assertive at times, but now she’s in the business of protecting people and catching killers, a bit of urgency isn’t entirely inappropriate.

If Morgan is almost ideal in every way, that isn't the case for her life – at first. A single mother of three, she finds it hard to cover expenses, and mostly uses her mental acuity to get the most out of her coupon-assisted supermarket shop. Motherhood can, naturally, hinder women’s professional lives, but Morgan’s willingness to accept the demands and pay of a minimum-wage job seems unrealistic.

Juggling Realism and Drama

Similarly hard to buy is the show’s longest narrative thread: running through all her disparate cases is Morgan’s resolve to track down the father of her eldest child, who disappeared without a trace a decade and a half back. Despite her remarkable skills of deduction, she hasn’t the foggiest idea where he is.

But High Potential doesn't focus heavily with realism. Produced by ABC in the US, this is polished, easy-watching network TV. It’s crowd-pleasing and easy on the eye, the sort of thing you’d traditionally associate more with ITV than BBC Two. Morgan’s new colleagues are uniformly nice, two-dimensional guys: suave detective Karadec, investigators Daphne and Oz, plus Lt Selena Soto, possibly the most reasonable and most approachable police chief in cop drama history. No dark protagonists, little grit: the vibe is cosy and heartwarming and somewhat simple.

Tension and Thrills

Naturally, the crimes aren’t comforting or heartwarming or straightforward. The season one finale saw Morgan taunted by a kidnapper who compelled her to solve extremely challenging puzzles to save the lives. He returns in the opening double bill here, kidnapping a young mother on her way home from a night out – but his real target is clearly Morgan, whom he sees as a formidable rival in his actual match of chess.

Seeing her get agonizingly near to outwitting this man is tense and exciting, but something this out-there requires a flawless ending. The question is: does the show prove as clever as its protagonist?

Conclusion

Simply put, no. The show is quite effective at keeping the suspense going, but it fails to deliver the landing, and the storyline wraps up with a preposterous twist. Nevertheless, there’s always next time. Actually, Morgan’s subsequent case – while equally bizarre – is better thought through, ending with a neat and surprisingly moving finale. The quality of the plotting may be somewhat inconsistent, but like her many predecessors and peers, this virtuoso amateur investigator can always be relied upon to save the day.