Man, there’s nothing like a hit primetime network television series to make you really miss the cable shows. At the moment I’m in the doldrums. I’m in between DVD releases of so many shows I like that I’m stuck taking chances on shows I’ve never seen before. The Wire’s third season is the slowest DVD release I’ve ever heard of. Battlestar Galactica hasn’t released the second half of season two yet. Ditto Sopranos (season six) and Rescue Me (season three). And Six Feet Under’s long buried. So what’s a guy to do?

My mother loves Numb3rs. At least, I’m pretty sure she might. I think she mentioned it once. But she’s a huge fan of CSI and NCIS and all kinds of other acronymical crime shows, so I’m guessing it’s not a big stretch to assume she’d go for another naming cliche. (Did any of us realize how lasting the bad precedent set by Se7en would be?) But I’ll leave this alone for now.

Numb3rs isn’t horrible, but here’s the thing about network television: “not horrible” gets interpreted as “good”. When so much shit is on the tube, it’s easy to mistake a show like this for better than it really is. There are aspects of it that I can’t fault — it’s certainly got the layman’s math lesson down pat — but there are too many others that I can, and will.

The basics: Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) is an FBI agent who apparently can’t clear any of his cases without help. So he recruits his kid brother, Charlie (David Krumholtz), an applied mathematics professor at a nonexistent university, to do his job for him. Charlie usually spins his wheels for an entire episode while everybody else runs down bad leads, and then he solves the case with some mathematical formula and they can all go home. The show is purportedly based on real-life cases (CSI claims the same thing on occasion, but how many people groaned when they did the urban legend about the scuba diver scooped out of a lake by a tanker plane?) and shows off some interesting math-related theories (although that’s about all it does). Those are the basics.

I’ll get the good stuff out of the way first. First of all, it’s nice to see Krumholtz getting a little recognition. He’s been reliably entertaining in a number of projects (Slums of Beverly Hills, Sidewalks of New York, Serenity, guest roles in Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared). Even if this show by comparison doesn’t give him much room to stretch, he’s still one of the more underrated young character actors working today. If nothing else, Numb3rs ought to be a good stepping-off point for him.

There’s no second of all. Bet you saw that one coming.

USA Today gave the show a rave review, and stated an obvious fact:

Yes, in essence, Numb3rs is just CSI with mathematics standing in for forensics.

I was totally going to say that! (So much for original thinking.) They went on to congratulate the show for its innovation in this department. But the mathematical aspect continually comes across as a gimmick. At times, Charlie sees the world like Neo sees the matrix, which is way too over-the-top in a show that wants to be taken as seriously as this one does. Each time this effect is used, it segues into an animation sequence that demonstrates the mathematical theory Charlie’s working from, while he narrates. (I can just imagine some digital effects shop furiously working every week to churn these little asides out. Burnout is probably high in that shop.)

USA’s review also lauds the show for its “very un-CSI interest in the characters’ family dynamics”, which is a load of crap. Charlie and Don have a father. The father is a widower. Charlie lives with Dad, and Don spends too much time visiting, and they never talk about anything except for their generic dead mother who would be so proud of her boys. There’s nothing happening here. I’m having a difficult time taking the show seriously, in case you couldn’t tell.

Let’s move on to the cast. With the exception of Krumholtz, the cast is a dud. Rob Morrow’s impossible to take seriously if you can’t shake the idea that his little brother is doing his work for him, which is exactly what happens in this show — never mind the fact that Morrow’s basically a one-note actor. The father is Judd Hirsch, who is sometimes a genuinely interesting and funny actor. He’s wasted here in an underwritten character. Sabrina Lloyd plays Morrow’s girl Friday, and she gets a raw deal. Her character and Morrow’s are supposed to have had a thing back in their academy days, which would explain the tension the two display… except there’s no tension. None. At all. And if you ever saw Sports Night, then you know as well as I do that she’s as good as anybody at playing romantic tension. Peter MacNicol’s character — one of Charlie’s fellow professors — serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. The eureka moments that he inspires Charlie to could just as easily have been duplicated by a kitchen appliance. Anthony Heald shows up in the pilot as the too-inept FBI director, and then disappears forever. The rest of the cast is populated with token ethnic characters who are so underdeveloped that they never feel as if they’re doing more than reading lines.

And all of this really sucks, because I really wanted to like the show. Without the gimmicks (do mathematicians really hang chalkboards from the ceiling and stand on ladders to write on them, or is it just something that looks good in a montage?), and with some stronger writing, it might have sold me.

Monday, June 19, 2006   

1. ashley wrote:
   June 20th, 2006 at 6:46 am

   i am so glad that someone finally said it. while i adore D.Krumholtz, (mostly for his simply wonderful role in serenity) the whole show does feel like a gimmick, and every episode feels like it’s written with a stencil, same format, a few new lines.
   i also feel like a real injustice is committed with the misuse of Sabrina Lloyd, Sports Night is definitely in my top 5 favorite shows, and she can be so much more wonderful than they ever let her be on this show. it seems as though someone pitched this show on a whim, never realizing that it would get picked up, and then went ‘oh crap!’ when they took him seriously. i guess a little primetime pseudointellectualism makes people feel like they have done something productive once a week.
   mostly, when it comes on i just start yelling “No don’t kill Mr. Universe!” until somebody changes the channel. :0)

2. Jason wrote:
   June 20th, 2006 at 8:52 am

   The moment that sealed the deal for me was when Charlie used the Dyson vacuum to explain tornados, weather, something…I’m not even sure anymore. I checked out at the obvious, hits-you-in-your-face Trump-like product placement.

3. Liz wrote:
   June 20th, 2006 at 10:49 am

   Yesyesyes. I remember watching the first episode with mom and dad and halfway through saying, “This is going to bomb and get canceled before you can say Joey.” And then it didn’t and then I caught mom and dad watching it on more than one occasion and… (sigh).

   But the same goes for all the shows out there. Especially the CSI series. I mean, one CSI is enough, seriously. And if the characters in the show do this job on a daily basis, why are they consistently over-the-top appauled at the evidence they uncover?

   I miss Six Feet Under.

4. G wrote:
   June 20th, 2006 at 2:37 pm

   I’ve never seen it. But then again, I’m oblivious to all entertainment-related culture past Nickelodeon these days… too busy to even write my friends emails. Instead bemoaning my current state online.. Ahh Web 2.0. anyway. Always liked this show:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probe_(TV_series)

   Got canceled very quickly, but so what. Ratings don’t always count. (Prime example being the POS TV show that Friends was.)

   Peace. Love. Nuggies.

5. Jg wrote:
   June 20th, 2006 at 3:12 pm

   Ehh, there are quite a few of shows I really liked that got the boot too soon. Sports Night, of course. But does anybody remember Misfits of Science? Loved that one. Of course, I was seven years old and loved a lot of things I can’t stand now. But still.

6. Liz wrote:
   June 21st, 2006 at 6:53 am

   Wow. I was only four when we saw Misfits of Science? I remember it, too… lying on the floor of the trailer in Anchorage… weird.

7. Esther wrote:
   June 23rd, 2006 at 12:00 pm

   Hmm… I do not watch Numb3rs, but I thought I would mention that they used my friend’s house for filming a couple episodes of the show. Pretty cool, I say.

8. Stan wrote:
   December 18th, 2006 at 2:59 am

   It seems very much from the way things are posted that the people who dislike Numb3rs are not very fond of math in the first place. If you don’t understand any of the stuff Krumholtz is writing, the show is obviously not going to register.

   If you are watching this show for drama, you are in the wrong place, as accordance with the probable intelligence level (intelligent people would have known better).

   Krumholtz is supposed to be a genius and as such, his mind is realistically potrayed. The so-called “nonexistent university” is supposed to anologize Cal Tech.

   Yes, the math is a little over-the-top. Is there anything in entertainment that isn’t? The fundamental principles of math shown and narrated, however, is accurate enough for tv.

the blog and design portfolio of Jason Gurley. (Learn more.) This site has been around since 1998; me, since 1978. In 2005 I drove 3,000 miles to see a movie. 2009 is pretty aimless so far, but I'm sure I'll get around to something sooner or later.

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