There is one person who probably won’t be watching the second season opener of the NBC series “The Irrational” when it launches at 10 p.m. Oct. 8. That would be series star Jesse L. Martin. It’s not the quality of the show that will keep him away as he has found the role of world-renowned professor of behavioral science Alec Mercer to be one of the most compelling characters he has ever played. If he misses an episode, it is either because of his devotion to the series or his tendency to be hard on himself. “In most cases, I'm usually not home at that time because I'm probably working on the show. But if I did get a chance to watch it, I'm so biased in the experience that I see too many other things other than the actual story,” Martin says. “I can certainly enjoy it in ways but mostly, I'm thinking about, ‘oh yeah, that’s when the grip fell and busted his knee that day,’ or we had a bunch of Canadian geese walk through the set that day, or I was worried about my dog, so he came to visit us for lunch. “All those things kind of come up when I watch this show. But much later on - like when I was working on ‘Law & Order’ - I couldn’t watch the show because I started kind of doing everybody’s job. I'm like, oh, look at that lighting is weird on that one or that director told me to do one thing and I probably shouldn’t have done that, or I should have done better, at that point. But I only have any kind of real perspective much later in the experience. Like when it’s all said and done, I can very much enjoy it then.” When Martin finally gets to the point where he can enjoy “The Irrational,” he will discover a series where his character lends his unique expertise to high-stakes cases and mysteries. With the help of his trusted team and social-science experiments, Mercer solves crimes and uncovers the truth to answer intriguing, and irrational, questions.   In the season two premiere, when Rose (Karen David) goes missing, Mercer quickly discovers this is no ordinary kidnapping. While Rose plays a dangerous game to stall for time, Mercer takes matters into his own hands to find her.  Playing a character whose life revolves around science was an easy fit for Martin. He has always used science to back up what he does as an actor. “Actors, if you're worth your salt in any way, shape or form, your whole job is to look at human behavior and reflect it, whether it be on stage or on film or small screen, on television I've been doing that all my life,” Martin says. “Kids do it with their imaginations every single day.  You know, they figure out how to behave like a monster or a police officer, and I do that as a career. “I just didn’t have scientific terms for it coming up.  Now I do.  I can see it sort of from a science angle, but growing up as an actor training, it was always from sort of an emotional place. It gets people to feel this way or feel that way and what does that look like in the body?  Now it's sort of like I got terms to describe it.  So, I feel a little bit smarter.” Martin has had plenty of practice getting to this point in his career. The Tony Award winner is well known for his role as Det. Edward Green in the long-running series “Law & Order,” as well as starring in the CW series “The Flash.” He also had recurring roles on “Smash” and “Ally McBeal.” Additional credits include “New York Undercover,” “The X-Files” and “The Philanthropist,” as well as the telepics “A Christmas Carol” and “Deep in My Heart.” There is a procedural element to “The Irrational” like the structure Martin dealt with on “Law & Order.” A crime is committed, he investigates and the case is solved. He finds the foundation may be the same but there is something very different about his current series. “This feels like an evolution of the things I've gotten to do in a procedural.  ‘Law & Order,’ which was a great time and a great career space for me, it was mostly just the facts. You didn’t go home with the characters and you barely got to know anything about them,” Martin says. “I did the show for almost 10 years, and you didn’t know anything about Det. Ed Green. “In this space, first of all I'm not a detective, which I was very, very glad of.  Second, a professor.  If I wasn’t an actor, I can guarantee you that I probably would have been a teacher in some way, shape or form because I think it's the most noble job you could possibly ever have.”