Numb3rs

60 minutes of ridiculous mathematical equations.
22 episodes in a season.
9 characters that have become flatter than paper.
1 fed up blogger.

I can't take it anymore. Numb3rs has gone from one of my favorite shows (I wrote my very first TV Squad post about an episode), to one of the blandest things on TV. Apparently, those behind this once spectacular show are now content sticking with its standard procedural formula. This show has for more potential than that. I argued on numerous occasions, that if done right, then there's no reason why Numb3rs couldn't hold its ground on another night. I take it back. Numb3rs has become just another cop show.

(S03E14) Well, this is what I get when I ask for things. From the very first time I wrote a review for an episode of Numb3rs (and on numerous occasions since then), I've suggested ideas for making this show less of a procedural cop drama. Numb3rs could deal to take on some ongoing storylines. This show has what it takes and I absolutely hate that a show like The Unit is filling up a Tuesday night time-slot while Numb3rs flops around on Fridays.

So this is what I get. An out-of-the-blue story that has no basis for even existing.

(S03E13) Here we go again. Another Deadwood cast member makes an appearance on Numb3rs. I'm not against it -- everyone from the HBO show is a great actor. I just think it's funny how they keep popping up on Numb3rs. It must be a running joke for the producers or something:

"OK, we've landed Calamity Jane and Dan Dority. What are the chances of getting Swearengen to play a rival math professor of Charlie's?"

Add Titus Welliver (a.k.a Silas Adams) to that list. He played a crotchety NSA agent that reluctantly helped out Don and his team. I think they handled that story poorly though. Charlie was helping out the NSA instead of the FBI and that clearly put a strain on the relationship between him and his brother. I wish they had kept that tension going for a few more episodes as opposed to resolving it so quickly. Charlie and Don not getting along would have been an interesting to dynamic to develop.

(S03E12) Good start for 2007 here. This is the type of Numb3rs episode I'm talking about when I say this show could easily carry its weight on another weekday night. Edgy topic, great guest casting, and a tense story. It was all there.

It was great to see Deadwood's W. Earl Brown (aka Dan Dority) too. Once again, the cast of Deadwood strikes on a CBS drama. This is maybe the fourth time I think? Beyond that, Joshua Malina reprised his role as U.S. attorney Howard Meeks and Teri Polo guested as another investigator. Nice little West Wing reunion right there. This show is really pulling in some recognizable faces lately, huh? Not too shabby.

(S03E11) This was great Numb3rs episode. It made you think beyond just what was going on with Don and the team, especially since it dealt with such a hot topic: sex offenders. Despite the obviousness of the overall theme for this show being math, I still find it incredibly entertaining when they apply algebraic principles and theories to things that I would never think to apply them to. Credit to the writers and producing team behind Numb3rs, because the amount of research that goes into each episode must be staggering.

Can someone tell me how this happened?

The Family Friendly Programming Forum is an organization made of up advertisers, and the other day they gave out awards to the shows that "promote the development of and airing of family-oriented television programs during prime-time hours." But doesn't Numb3rs have plots about murderers and bombers and other nasty people? And it's on at 10pm Fridays. Prime time, sure, but you don't see many 10pm shows get a family award, especially crime shows that kids can watch (because it's the weekend and they're more likely to be up at that hour). Did they get the award because the show promotes the use of math?

I don't think Numb3rs is a violent or sexual show, but I just think it's interesting that this family group would choose it.

Other shows that got awards from the organization: Dancing with the Stars, Ugly Betty, The Ron Clark Story, and Everybody Hates Chris. Jennifer Love Hewitt (Ghost Whisperer) and Tony Shalhoub (Monk) got acting awards. Howie Mandel won an award for Deal Or No Deal.

(S03E10) What a disturbing episode. The whole idea of a government running experiments on it's own citizens is creepy enough and it's made even harder to swallow because there's plenty of truth to it. So I guess it's pretty cool that this show was willing to tackle a taboo topic like that.

So... government ran experiments. People got killed. Don and the team caught the bad guy. Savor that brief episode description because it's all you're going to get out of me. There are tons of other things I want to talk about.

(S03E09) 13 million tons of hazardous waste. 9.6 billion dollars on fines. 1,244 disposal sites. 1 sinkhole. Bit of an Erin Brokovich feel, no? Because that's exactly what it was, but I liked it. This was a solid episode of Numb3rs.

Following a disaster at a local school's playground, Don and the team were called in. At first they couldn't understand why. Enter Joshua Malina in a his second post-West Wing role (Malina was in an episode of The Nine a few weeks ago). Here he played U.S. Attorney Howard Meeks and it's been his mission as of late to take down the construction company that built the damaged playground. He didn't realize half the kids on the playground also happened to have cancer. Uh oh.

(S03E08) After I saw the previews for this episode last week, I wasn't too excited about it. Baseball stats just seemed like too easy a topic for this show to cover. But I was pleasantly surprised. It was pretty good actually.

The focus was a has-been player who was trying to make a big league comeback. So naturally he was juicing (it killed him) and there was involvement with a BALCO-type corporation. I loved how at one point there was a built-in PSA during a conversation between David and Colby. They were talking and all of a sudden Colby started listing off all the side-effects of steroid use. It was horribly cheesy and stood out like a sore thumb. Numb3rs -- watching out for America's youth.

(S03E07) Every week the previews for this show make the next installment sound like the most amazing hour of television ever conceived. That's never the case. Numb3rs is a lot like Criminal Minds. Neither show is great, but they're both good -- consistently.

This particular installment was well above par for Numb3rs. In fact, it was a pretty damn good episode and it had just about everything you could ask for from this show: romance, a great story, and it tied into a previous case which in my mind adds instant brownie points. I don't know, I just like it when they do that. To me, it makes more sense when a certain case will span a few episodes rather than the team stumbling onto something new each week. That makes sense right?

(S03E06) An epiosde all about horse racing. Makes sense since there's about a million different math related stories that could be pulled from the science of picking the right horse. Some people like Alan "The Rail Bird" Eppes just get it. Charlie, on the other hand, doesn't and when a young man is stabbed to death during a race... I could make a really bad "there's no time for horsing around" or an "all bets are off" comment but I'll restrain myself. Suffice to say that everyone is jockeying to find out whodunnit first. Sorry, couldn't resist.

(S03E05) I'm starting to get the feeling that writing for this show must be a real pain in the you know what. On the surface, a cop show. Bad guy commits crime, good guys get him. But with Numb3rs, all the writers and producers have to factor in all the mathematical equations and algorithms that Charlie, Amita, and Larry are going to use. The writers must have to spend countless hours consulting with mathematicians to determine what algebraic techniques will actually make the most sense in a given case, and then on top of all that, they have to write a story that actually incorporates them logically. It sounds tough, doesn't it?

(S03E04) I've seen every episode of Numb3rs. Some of them twice. The episodes with Lou Diamond Phillips? At least three times. But you know what? This was hands down the best episode of Numb3rs yet. It had everything.

Kathy Najimy is taking a dramatic turn in her career by joining the cast of CBS' Numb3rs. She's widely known as a comedic actress, with roles in Veronica's Closet, King of the Hill and both Sister Act movies. On Numb3rs, she'll play the division chair of the physics, math and astronomy departments at the university where Charlie works. Her role is being characterized as a 'recurring' one and I imagine it as comic relief, but who knows? Najimy begins filming for the show next week.

(S03E03) I suppose it was only a matter of time before we got this episode. Numb3rs is a cop show and you can't have one of those without the obligatory "priceless art theft" episode. So I suppose "generic" is a suitable word to describe this installment. It was good (Numb3rs always is), but you've seen this one before.