High Potential

Like Matlock, ABC’s High Potential is that rare bird of today’s television landscape: a network ratings smash with nearly universal critical acclaim (currently rated 96% on Rotten Tomatoes). Also, it’s suitable for watching with tweens, teens, and beyond; it's the only show my 20-year-old daughter watches that my husband and I also watch.

The weekly procedural, with one successful season in the books and a second season coming this fall, follows the sassy, funny Morgan Gillory, played with fizz and flair by Kaitlin Olson. Morgan is a single mom of a teen girl, a brilliant young boy, and a baby. She struggles to pay the bills despite her off-the-charts IQ. When, during her night job cleaning the police station, she accidentally solves a crime that had been baffling the police, she is hired as a special consultant to the force, working as a partner with the stoic, rule-following Detective Karadac (Daniel Sunjata, the perfect dry-witted foil). At first, Karadac can barely stand Morgan’s chatty, gum-chewing, wisecracking ways, but I think we all know what is going on here. If the writers are not setting up the classic enemies-to-lovers trope, then I don’t know my tropes as well as I thought I did.

Still, I like them as friends, and I was pleased to see that no romance was rushed. If anything, the two operate beautifully as colleagues who have each other’s backs, even if they do bicker constantly. (Or maybe it’s bantering, not bickering.)

Aside from the mysteries pulled apart and put back together in each episode, High Potential often showcases Morgan the Mom, as she devotes love and attention to her three kids. One overarching mystery involves what happened to the father of her eldest daughter, a sometimes sullen, sometimes delightful teenager who pines for her lost father and feels out of place in a family where both her mom and her little brother have phenomenal IQs, and she just has a normal brain. Christian viewers will appreciate how this show highlights the fact that everyone has different gifts, which should be appreciated and used but never flaunted. Morgan makes sure her daughter knows she is gifted, too, in a different but equally valuable way.

This family unit has its issues, but overall, they are loving and supportive of each other as Morgan takes on a new and demanding role outside the home.

Olson is perfect as the scrappy, tough-talking police consultant with a secret heart of gold. She shows a warmth that cushions her biting wit and brilliant mind, and a compassion for those who are hurting and grieving.

Though the show has not sketched its side characters as much as it should, they show promise, too, especially the patient and wise police lieutenant, played by Judy Reyes, and Morgan’s long-suffering ex, who takes care of the kids while she is off solving crimes in a cheetah print mini skirt and a dizzying array of neon-hued fuzzy tops.

Fans of Castle will warm to the delightful chemistry between Morgan and Karadac, as well as the lighthearted approach to the classic police procedural. Season 2 drops Sept. 16. (Rated TV-14 for violence, mild language, and mild sexual innuendo. Watch on ABC, Hulu, and other streaming platforms.)