PERCEPTION: Eric McCormack Sees Things You Don’t

With The Closer winding down a long and illustrious run, TNT is looking for the next great crime fighter. They already have Rizzoli & Isles, and Major Crimes will continue the work Brenda Leigh Johnson started when it debuts in August, but tonight viewers will meet the cable network’s first male to step into the role of quirky mystery solver in many years when Eric McCormack takes the lead in Perception.

“Quirky” doesn’t do McCormack’s Dr. Daniel Pierce justice, at least not in the first episode of the series. A Professor of Neuroscience, FBI Consultant and Paranoid Schizophrenic, Pierce is chock full of quirks to the point that I began to wonder if the character had any accessible qualities at all. Fortunately for us, he settles down in subsequent episodes and we are allowed to get to know the character. A brilliant man, Pierce’s schizophrenia manifests itself in hallucinations; his subconscious appears as another person who aids him in solving the mystery of the week. For example, in one episode there’s a code to crack, so Pierce’s mind presents a WWI-era cryptographer to assist with the task.

Rachel Leigh Cook co-stars as a former student turned FBI agent Kate Moretti who enlists Pierce’s help with a case in the first episode, leading to a longer term partnership, of the mystery solving variety that is. My primary exposure to Cook is the 1999 movie She’s All That, and I wasn’t confident she’d be able to pull off the role of FBI agent/straight man here. Yes, I’m guilty of typecasting, and I’m happy to be proven wrong. Cook does a fine job of grounding McCormack in their scenes together, and her Kate has a personal storyline that, while not the focus of the series, gives us insight into the woman behind the badge. In the first few episodes of Perception that I watched, the emphasis is on exploring Pierce, but the promise of character development for Kate is definitely present.

Rounding out the cast of Perception are LeVar Burton as Pierce’s “tough love” boss, Arjay Smith as his grad student/assistant/secret keeper, and Kelly Rowan as Pierce’s confidante. The mysteries of the week aren’t particularly original, but they are engaging enough to be the backdrop for the characters we’re getting to know in these first episodes. I would like to see a Big Bad introduced for either Kate or Pierce by the end of this first season, to give them a more personal connection to what they’re investigating. I also think it would be fascinating to explore Pierce’s reaction to a nemesis either for himself or his colleague.

But that’s on the wish list for later. For now, get inside the mind of the latest brilliant crime fighter and tune into the premiere of Perception, tonight at 10/9c on TNT.