Numb3rs

Pretty much the only network television show that I watch with any regularity is Friday night's Numb3rs. Despite the minor aggravation of typing a numeric digit into the title of the show, it has captured my attention and warmed over the cockles of my heart. The basis of the show is the relationship between two brothers. The first one, Don Eppes, is an FBI agent who fights crime with his gun and his wits. The second one, Charlie Eppes, is a math professor at CalSci who fights crime with his chalkboard and his brains. Together with their retired father, Alan Eppes, they make up an eccentric, humorous, and brilliant family.

Besides the family dynamics, the true shining aspect of this show, is the way it presents its mathematical side. Charlie's work is actual math that is being portrayed in a realistic manner! I have seen almost all of the episodes of the first three seasons (my parents are kind enough to buy them for me on DVD when they come out every year), and I find the unique blend of crime drama, nerdy antics, and character humor to be as seductive as when I first heard about the show.

I do have one complaint though, and that is that they got rid of my favorite character, Charlie's intellectual cohort, physicist Larry Fleinart. Larry is the epitome of an entertaining and well-developed side character. He is a physicist, but he always voices his belief that the universe and existance is much bigger than the science we currently use to describe it. He gets motion sickness and believes in eating all-white food for aesthetic reasons, yet he also took up living in between his car and the sewer system of CalSci at one point. Larry provided of semi-foil to Charlie's exuberant empiricism. He was his colleague and his friend and often helped him with a human insight that Charlie was over-looking in his rush to solve the problem.

They eventually wrote Larry off of the show by sending him into space on the show. Not being content with just having him mysteriously disappear, they sent him him into orbit in style, with the help of two famous Johns. Guest star, John Glenn, was called in to escort him from the FBI building to the NASA training facility and a few strains of Elton John's timeless classic "Rocketman" were used in an emotional scene where the characters watch the space shuttle supposedly carrying eccentric Larry Fleinart on his existential mission to slip the surly bonds of earth and somehow touch the face of God. It was quite beautiful.

If you even remotely have an interest in math or crime dramas and you have never seen this show, I heartily recommend it.