When did Christian Slater turn into everyone’s ornery dad? After dabbling in ambitious television work with last year’s NBC flop My Own Worst Enemy, he’s playing it safe this season as a former cop with a dark past on ABC’s aptly named The Forgotten. Or as ABC calls it: the forgotten. Lower-case must better convey just how sad not being remembered is.

Too bad the show is laughably implausible, because it has a promising take on the procedural genre. A group of ordinary citizens (though not too ordinary; no one wants to see a recognizably middle-class home on an hour-long drama) band together to ID John and Jane Does when the cops have to turn to newer cases. There’s Slater as former cop Alex Donovan, who has a tendency to become a little too involved in the cases because of his dark past; artist Tyler (Anthony Carrigan), working off his community service by joining the Forgotten Network and sculpting the faces of the victims; a science teacher Lindsey (Heather Stephens), who has a dark past of her own that’s only hinted at in the first episode; pretty Candace (Michelle Borth), who pairs off with Tyler as if they’re the Daphne and Fred; and telephone repairman Walter (Bob Stephenson), who has a photo of himself with Dennis Franz in his car. Not exactly a fun bunch.

But goodness, they’re certainly better than the cops at finding information! Among the more unlikely leads that they pursue in the pilot are the color of the Jane Doe’s nail polish (which leads them to the club she used to frequent) and a half-finished tattoo that magically suggests a school mascot for some reason. And just why it falls to Tyler to recreate the victim’s face when the police surely have more sophisticated technology at their disposal than grade school art class clay is never explained.

They all have personal reasons for doing the volunteer work they do, and they’re upbeat (except Slater), determined, and optimistic in the face of their forgotten victims and their presumably gleeful killers. And they’re insufferable. Even the skeptical Tyler eventually comes around to the group’s quietly heroic way of thinking, which would be fine if they weren’t so damn smug. Congratulations guys, you solved the case! Now, why are you all hanging out at the Jane Doe’s funeral, lapping up praise like spoiled housecats?

Photo Credit: Frank Ockenfels/ABC