(S04E18) "I connected you to a dangerous terrorist in three links." - Charlie

I've got to say - four seasons into Numb3rs and I can't believe we got a story like this now. Brother vs. brother. As Alan said, it had to happen sooner or later. It's just such an obvious plot that I figured it would have been sooner. Better late than never I guess. That being said, I suppose we could have done without it. Blame the WGA strike, but this episode felt like a lot of stuff just randomly thrown together to make it sort of season finale-ish. Anti-climactic at best.

%Gallery-22649%

(S04E17) "I think if these were Travis Tritt fans, I might have better luck." - Colby

Sometimes I just don't know what they're thinking when they come up with stories for this show. Call me crazy, but the notion of a small rap label feud just doesn't strike me as something that the FBI is going to handle. And I do mean small. Besides the fact that the only real purpose that the case served was to play up the humorous stereotypes and clichés it created (like the scene with Larry and Charlie in the recording studio), I don't think it felt realistic. The music industry is far larger than the microcosm depicted in this episode and writers just hand-picked elements for this small, almost indie, rap label. I mean, c'mon - "2x4?" Really?

(S04E16) "It's not Heat?" - Colby, amazed that the Pacino/De Niro classic isn't Don's favorite movie

I think it's a given that sooner or later, every cop show is going to have an episode about religious cults. They're just so easy to make into a bad guy, especially with all the crazy stuff you always hear on the evening news. That's part of the problem though; that it is too easy to turn into an hour episode and things can get stale fast. You've seen one, you've seen 'em all. Fortunately, the folks behind Numb3rs must have realized this because this episode was way more than, how did Colby put it? A bunch of religious "nut jobs."
%Gallery-21664%

(S04E15) "I don't like a guy who thinks a purple heart gives him a free pass." - Colby

Well there's something you don't see too often on Numb3rs - resurrecting an old case from a previous episode. Usually, this show is pretty self-contained. Each week it's a wrap. Despite the fact that the last time we saw Clay Porter was when he escaped, his story still felt finished. But the writers took one small detail about his past and turned it into a pretty solid episode.

(S04E14) "Good morning! This is Charles Eppes. I'm in pursuit of a burgundy-ish, sort of merlot colored...um, well, what kind of car would you say that is?" - Charlie

I've got to honest, and I never thought I'd say it, but I've really enjoyed the return of Numb3rs. I can't decide if it's just because we haven't had new episodes in so long or it's because these new episodes are actually better, but I'm loving it. I even gave up reviewing Numb3rs last season because it got so stale and I reached a point where I had nothing new to say each week.

Something has changed though. It's not because the plots are unique and different, that's for sure. This entire episode pretty much mirrored last week's ep of CSI. A gang boss up for trial was sending coded messages to take out key witnesses and enemies and in each show, the ADA in charge of the cases became the next target. On CSI, the boss was using his urine to tint pages of library books with messages. Here, we had a guy using chess lessons to send out his wishes. Other than that, same plot.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(S03E02) I don't get why this episode wasn't called "Spree, Part 2." It was, after all, just the continuation of last week's premiere... right? So why confuse viewers into thinking that this episode may be separate from last week's? I would think you'd want to keep the title in the two-part format so that viewers are more apt to tune in for the conclusion. I think that makes sense.

Whatever, I'm rambling because there wasn't much else to talk about in this episode. It was just so-so regarding the way they wrapped up the Crystal and Buck storyline. Obviously Megan made it out alive following her abduction, but you knew that was going to be the case. There is one thing I did want to talk about though. Is it just me, or is this show using less and less math?

(S03E01) I wasn't all that excited about this episode. Last season ended on an uneventful note so there wasn't much to really look forward to. I mean, I love this show, don't get me wrong. If you ask me, it shouldn't be on Friday nights because it could easily hold it's own in another time slot. So yeah, I wasn't too excited. Well that changed, because five minutes into the episode what did we get? That's right, the triumphant return of Lou Diamond Phillips.