math

(S04E05) "I dunno. I just like watching things explode." - Larry

For a show that most folks (I include myself now) often refer to as just another cop show, Numb3rs can sure as hell be confusing sometimes. It's almost as if the writers are trying to one-up each other by making every episode more intricate than the last one. It's a good thing I watched this early this morning though. Had I sat down and put it on last night, I don't think I could have kept up with all the twists and turns.

(S04E03) "Oh... well. Enter Fleinhardt." - Larry

That might very well have been the funniest thing to come out of Larry's mouth yet. I'm glad they brought his character back into the fold, although it'd be nice if he were utilized more and the whole "I live at a monastery" story was dropped. He's barely even talking with Megan we found out and let's be honest -- he isn't learning anything from those monks if he lets her slip away.

Anyway, despite the fact that this episode was like watching a scene from any of the three horrible Fast and the Furious films, I still liked it for a handful of reasons.

(S04E02) "Nothing like this at the monastery and you know how I love a good soak." - Larry

I'm one of the biggest critics of this show, so if I've got something positive to say, then you know things must be changing. That's the way it seems though. Everything I hoped for last year seems to be coming into play this season. Charlie's math is playing a much more prominent role. Home life with Alan and Amita is more than just dinner. And the biggest one of all? There's solid character development and it's actually happening at the beginning of the season.

(S04E01) "Because I hate owing you." - Colby

Yeah, yeah... I know. Here it is, the end of the the fall premiere week and I'm blogging about a show that only seven months ago I said I was done with. "It's bland" I decried, and it's lost the spark that originally drew me in. So what am I doing here? Well, despite the fact that I stopped writing about Numb3rs, I'm a sucker for pretty much anything on TV. (Case in point? I reviewed the entire first season of Dirt!) That's right. I put my pen down and I watched Don and Charlie's antics for the whole rest of the third season anyway. And you know what? I sort of got sucked back in. Last season's finale was right up there but I still bit my tongue when I considered throwing up a post. I knew I'd end up being negative despite the fact that I enjoyed it. So I here I am, starting from scratch, attempting once again to remember why I liked this show in the first place.

(S02E21) Boy, did this episode speak to me.

Like Chris, I've never been very good at math. This is an example of how my brain tries to solve a basic math problem:

Problem: x + 9 = 18 - 2x

My Brain: I haven't had Corn Flakes in a long time.

See? It's like it doesn't even try. If numbers are involved, my brain pretty much shuts down and starts playing elevator music. Perhaps if I had been offered pizza like Chris' class I would have done better, but I doubt it. At least Chris had some outside help from his mother and grandmother. I also had outside help from a tutor, but despite her efforts, she just couldn't get through to me.

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.

(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?

(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?

There is an interesting article over at USA Today (via our friends at AOL TV) running down some of the numbers for what it takes to win the top prize on NBC's Deal or No Deal. Get your slide-rule and head over there for the full breakdown.

They do point out that the contestant has a 3.8% chance of picking the $1,000,000 as their case, but they miss one important aspect. Even if the contestant does manage to have the top prize in their case, whether or not they keep it has a lot to do with what the last model's case holds. If the $1 is still in play and the banker is offering $500,000, that is a tough gamble to make, which further reduces the chances.

The oddest stat in the article is that L is the most common letter in the first names of the models. Personally, I'm waiting for that whole cloning thing to be perfected so we can have 26 Anya's (pictured) to choose from.

Yes, I'm a girl. But I'm not blind. I know that Danica McKellar, the actress who played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years, is drop-dead gorgeous. She's also wicked smart. As you may remember from Ryan's retrospective earlier this year, McKellar graduated from UCLA with a degree in Mathematics. She's putting that knowledge to work by writing a book for middle-school girls about how to master math. It's called 'Math Doesn't Suck' and it's being published next year by Hudson Street Press. McKellar said she wants to help break the stereotype about how only geeks are good at math. OK. So she probably wouldn't enjoy my headline.

If you're not into math books for middle school girls (and I would totally question you if you were), you can see McKellar soon on the Lifetime series, Inspector Mom, and on her new Yoga DVDs, Daily Dose of Dharma. You just saw the word 'yoga' and forgot everything I wrote about math, didn't you?

[Via TV Tattle]

Anyone who works in the field of comedy, whether it be writing, acting, or whatever, will tell you that humor always works better when the gag is specific rather than generalized. This is abundantly clear after watching just a few episodes of The Simpsons, but what sets The Simpsons even further apart from other comedies is how far its writers are willing to go to make even the most esoteric jokes as precises as possible, even if that means only a handful of people watching will get it. I've heard for the longest time that math and science jokes on the show are usually based on fact, rather than just a jumble of numbers and scientific jargon thrown together. This article in Science News looks at some of the mathematical moments in The Simpsons, not only episodes such as the 1995 Halloween episode where Homer enters the third dimension and equations and formulas zip by in the background, but also episodes such as Girls Just Want To Have Sums that focused on gender bias in the field of mathematics. It's a fascinating read, even if trying to understand all the theories and formulas presented in the article did cause my brain to try and eat its way out of my skull.

Special thanks to Guillermo for the tip!

(S02E24) This was an extremely satisfying season finale. No bells and whistles. No ridiculous cliffhanger. Just the answers to a few lingering questions allowing us some closure and making it far easier for a new viewer to join-in (without too much catch-up) when season three rolls around.

The vast majority of the episode dealt with a 40-something momma's boy who had finally been cut off from the family trust fund by who else, his mother (in a nice turn by Olympia Dukakis). He didn't react too well. So he got a hold of his mother's valium and morphine (she had a hip replaced recently) and went around drugging and killing woman after he had his way with them. Like I said, he didn't react too well.

The rest of the episode (and it was far more interesting) dealt with the one character in this show who's frequently mentioned, yet we've never met: Margaret Eppes.

(S02E23) 361 seaports. 16 million containers. 9 H5 sub-types. 1 mutation.

Someone want to explain to me what's with all this bird-flu nonsense all of a sudden? I realize it's out there. I understand the extremely scary threat that it poses. But do we really need all this crazy television coverage? First ABC has that bird-flu TV movie, and now CBS has an entire episode of Numb3rs devoted to it. I guess people just like to be scared.

Fortunately, this episode had a lot of other good stuff happening. Larry is back, and it's a good thing. His comic relief was sorely missed in last week's episode. Plus, the romance between Charlie and Amita has started to heat up... well, sort of.

(S02E22) Well that was tense. Note to self: I don't ever want to be targeted by the Russian mob. After watching this episode, I get the feeling that it may get in the way doing certain things that I enjoy. Such as living.

After busting a couple of "phishers," Don suddenly finds that his bank accounts have been cleared out. Phishing, by the way, is the term given to sending out phony mass e-mails from banks to lure people into sending in their banking information. Elderly folks are generally targeted because they tend to have larger accounts that aren't used so often. That and many of them don't get this whole "internet" thing that much.

The two computer geeks give up the names of the Russians, but then they somehow make bail (I missed how that happened). Afterwards, their bodies were found underneath a bridge. Again, Russian mob. Bad.

(S17E19) "Honey, you're just as smart as a man. Sometimes when I'm with you I feel like I'm doing it with a dude." --Homer, to Marge

Last night's episode grew on me slowly. To quote Lisa from an early episode, it started off kind of "meh" but by the end I was drawn into its hysterical appraisal of both sexes and their inherent flaws. The Itchy and Scratchy musical at the beginning had some moments that cracked me up, but spoofing the Lion King musical seems like an idea whose time had passed long ago.