Note to writers: If your main character feels the need to reveal their IQ completely unprompted, it takes me at least 30 minutes before I’m willing to take them seriously as a nice person again. If you’re willing to take that risk, go for it, but otherwise it might be wise to just let your character prove their intelligence.

Maybe a third of the way through the pilot episode for ABC’s new procedural dramedy High potentialthere’s an outpouring of exposition as outrageous as I’ve ever seen. Kaitlin Olson’s Morgan not only volunteers her IQ to a high-ranking LAPD officer — 160, if you care about such things, which you really shouldn’t — but the conversation continues.

“The technical term is high-potential intellectual,” Morgan says of her own virtuosity. “That means you have advanced cognitive abilities. Intellectual creativity, photographic memory. That kind of thing.”

Sounds good, right? WRONG!

“No, not a gift,” says 160-IQ Morgan. “I obsess over every little problem I see. My mind is constantly spinning out of control, making it impossible to hold a job, a relationship, or a conversation. Not a gift.”

It’s a bad scene, but it’s short and, if nothing else, establishes the premise of High potentialwhich shouldn’t be as hard as this series makes it seem. Viewers are already familiar with Goodwill hunting (or Abbott Elementary School) and thus the not-so-shocking idea that someone can be both super-intelligent AND work on a surveillance team. Viewers are even more familiar with the idea that police departments often hire citizen consultants to lend their expertise to struggling detectives.

Still, although the three episodes were sent to critics, High potential is still struggling to figure out the most basic parts of what should honestly be the clearest concept. It’s a difficult process that I’m willing to tolerate a little longer for exactly one reason: Kaitlin Olson.

As mentioned above, Olson plays Morgan, a single mother to sulky teen Ava (Amirah J), ultra-nerdy Elliot (Matthew Lamb), and baby Chloe (some babies). Morgan arrives at the LAPD early in the morning, when the offices are completely empty—crime, in the city of Los Angeles, apparently sleeps—plugs in her headphones and dances around while cleaning. One day, in the middle of her dance, she knocks over a trunk, stares at the clues, and then makes a crucial change to a crime board that maps out a mystery involving a murder and a missing woman.

Detective Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) isn’t happy about someone messing with his crime board, so he orders a security feed to track down the culprit—because it’s another hour when the LAPD is locked down and no one has any idea who could be around. Morgan is called in and arrested for tampering with evidence until she does one of those neat “Let me explain this in the most despicable way possible!” tricks that makes almost everyone realize she has a brilliant mind. No. Wait. That’s the title of another televised procedural premiering this month.

Anyway, that’s about when Morgan gives her credentials, and by that I mean “her IQ.” She adds that she watches a lot of TV documentaries, and therefore knows everything about the history of European church construction, naming conventions in Madagascar, the burning speed of candles, and literally everything else that goes into solving a case as part of the LAPD’s Major Crimes Unit, which in the early episodes seems to be tasked with some pretty mid-level crimes, if you ask me.

Karadec remains skeptical, but he and Morgan joke in the way that detectives and civilian contractors always joke. Karadec’s boss, Selena (Judy Reyes), is just grateful to have someone who can increase the department’s solve rates, while their other colleagues — Oz (Deniz Akdeniz) and Daphne (Javicia Leslie) — welcome her with subpar candor.

High potential is created by Drew Goddard and adapted from a French format, which is confusing because “genius single mom police consultant” feels like the kind of premise you could just call “original” without much risk, but what do I know? If there are distinctive elements to the French formula, they float loosely through this American equivalent, which looks and feels like a work in flux. Goddard immediately handed the show over to original showrunner Rob Thomas and half of the creative team from iZombie (another “civilian consultant” dramedy), who then quickly passed the show on to new showrunner Todd Harthan. His credits include Rosewoodwhere the civilian advisor was a private pathologist.

This is a lot of creative people — a lot of TALENTED creative people — who are unable to solve one big mystery: How much does Morgan’s “high potential” actually tell her?

If Morgan knew a lot about one subject, you need other characters, even if she’s trying to direct research on the one thing she knows. If she knew a little about everything, you need at least someone in the office on a computer Googling the lofty concepts she knows but can’t fully explain. As it stands, she knows everything about everything, which makes everyone else redundant.

So what narrative purpose do you have everyone serve? Well, Selena is the understanding boss, with the always great Garret Dillahunt joining the cast in the second episode as an additional, more disbelieving, authority figure. Oz and Daphne, both currently between specialties, are there to smile appreciatively.

And Karadec? He’s stuck in the trap of being stern, disapproving, and consistently wrong except when it comes to matters of extremely basic police procedure. Look, Morgan watches 10-12 hours of TV and YouTube a night, but she doesn’t watch true crime documentaries or Dick Wolf dramas (I assume, although this is a problem that could have been solved with a single line of dialogue). So Karadec’s primary purpose is to explain things like “chain of custody” and “gloves” to Morgan. So Morgan makes all the other detectives look stupid, and Karadec is there to make the LAPD look ethically rigorous. Which, if we’re being completely honest, is more hilarious than any bit of dialogue I’ve ever had.

The process of figuring out what Morgan knows and when she knows it is probably the biggest concern in the first three episodes – certainly bigger than the cases of the week, which are completely disposable. So far, High potential does a better job of visualizing Morgan’s various waves of inspiration with cheeky cutaways and such, several of which actually made me laugh out loud. More of that and more unusual Los Angeles locations, please. Send in what makes your show stand out!

For now, the distinctiveness is largely limited to Olson. It took a while for the industry to realize how often even Olson’s wildest comedic work was It’s always sunny in Philadelphia was rooted in dramatic plausibility (see “Hundred Dollar Baby” and “Dennis and Dee Go on Welfare”) but The Mick and her Emmy nomination Tricks work has proven her versatility. This is hardly a “serious” performance — the costumes and the dusting during the dancing would jeopardize that hope — but Olson is strong enough to ground even the ridiculous beats and silly enough to make it clear that High potential acknowledges the absurdity of some of those moments.

On the domestic side of things, she has believably sweet moments with Lamb and Amirah J and even the babies, though the show has yet to tap into Taran Killam as her lazy ex, whose character is best described as “Named Ludo.” Olson and Sunjata are still figuring out their chemistry — in the pilot, he appears to be reading cue cards off-screen, but it’s getting better and better — though thankfully there’s no indication that we should hope for a future romance there.

With the ability to go to whatever tonal extreme the story eventually lands on – the problem with placing Morgan on a Major Crimes team is that she’s arguably a character better suited to solving, well, Frivolous Crimes – Olson represents the high potential of this series. Everything else has to catch up with her.

(Final note: Unless your main character is a bouncer for a strip club that belongs to Mensa, there is no reason for ANYONE to ever mention their IQ in your movie or TV show. But I would absolutely watch your show about a strip club bouncer that belongs to Mensa.)