ABC's High Potential is reviving the importance of the episodic television landscape

In a world where the television landscape is changing to shortened seasons that risk feeling like each episode is a small part of one larger movie, ABC's High Potential is reminding fans what they love about episodic procedurals.

High Potential follows Morgan, a woman with a high IQ who struggles to hold down a job for long periods of time until she accidentally becomes an integral part of solving a murder and kidnapping case. From that moment on, Morgan's life changes, as once she accepts a stable job working with the police detectives to solve cases, she is given an outlet to focus her desire to put puzzle pieces together, which also helps her financially support her three children.

Rather than a brooding police drama, High Potential follows the lead of CBS's light-hearted crime-solving mystery series Elsbeth in understanding the joys of watching a more comical approach to police investigations.

Since each episode is its own storyline, it allows the audience to become engaged with new mysteries and plot lines, only having to deal with a handful of subplots that make their way through multiple episodes, such as Morgan trying to find the truth about what really happened to her eldest daughter's father years before, Morgan trying to juggle her work and the responsibilities of being a parent, or the constant back-and-forth bickering between Morgan and her co-worker Detective Karadec.

Morgan delivers heart and comedy to the series, as High Potential encourages her intelligence in spotting things other people can not while still having her learn what it means to go about things in a legal fashion. High Potential's decision to balance showing Morgan in a professional setting and in a home setting allow for her character to be given more depth as an individual, as the early episodes of the series have made a point of it to show Morgan interact with her children, rather than focusing only on her work life.

While some networks and streaming services may believe that audiences enjoy shows that use seasons as full-length films, that may be true for some viewers, but not all. Instead, High Potential is proving that audiences are heavily engaging with a show that embraces what television used to be and can be, again, an outlet to tell various stories in each episode and still allow for interesting characters and relationships.