'The Irrational' review: Decently acted, achingly familiar

  That's about all. Nothing much else to pay close attention to here. We have seen this show before, multiple times. 

  But — understatement alert! — this isn't a normal fall which makes "The Irrational" something unusual, if not exactly special. The series is effectively one of just two new scripted series on the major networks (the other, NBC's "Found," arrives Oct. 3.) Even had this not been a strike-denuded fall lineup, there wasn't going to be a scripted bounty anyway. Under punishing budget restrictions, the major networks had already bulked up their lineups with football and unscripted shows.

  Instead, "Irrational" got lucky. A few episodes were wrapped before the writers' strike hit in May, and now they're seeing the light of day, while offering the comfortable illusion that it's business as usual at NBC. 

  Overall, "The Irrational" is decently acted, competently written, and adequately directed. You will learn fun things, and presumably true ones, about behavioral science, as well as its forensic applications in police work. Do you know, for example, what "attentional blindness" is? Or that the deadly isotope, polonium-210 is absorbed into tobacco leaves? I didn't but our hero Alec Mercer does. His support is solid too. It may take one skilled "behaviorist" to understand the case, but three to crack it — ideally, if two of them are young and cute, all the better to remind the senior-aged viewers at home of their own grandchildren. 

  "The Irrational" hits the right notes, too, or at least hits them at precisely the right moment. "Cuff him," someone actually says here, right before the last act. "Book 'em" or "just one more thing" could've worked fine too.

  Meanwhile, here's just one more thing about "The Irrational," the latest in an endless line of pot-roast-and-mashed-potatoes network procedurals. So much a part of their past, shows like this could perhaps be part of the networks' future, or (who's to say?) their salvation too. Easily and effortlessly consumed, they aren't part of some Byzantine fictional universe. They don't tax the mind. They send you off to bed with a reassuring pat on the head. 

  They're nice, or at least "The Irrational" is nice. In the midst of this new-normal world of supersized "Voice" editions, 'round the clock NFL and repeats, you could do worse.