Numb3rs

When I was a kid, Friday night was a great night for TV. There was the hugely successful TGIF on ABC, and then the X-files became a hit on that night also. But for the past couple of years, it seemed like putting a show on Friday night was basically setting it up for failure. All of a sudden now though, Friday night is once again a hot spot for TV. Well, for me at least. Friday means Battlestar Galactica, Degrassi: the Next Generation, Instant Star, and my latest discovery, Numb3rs.

While I've never been a regular viewer of the abundance of law/crime shows, I have been known to enjoy episodes of shows like Law & Order, CSI, etc. on occasion. Numb3rs is a classic crime investigation with a twist: all the cases are solved with the help of math and science.

The premise and cast work extremely well. Don Eppes (played by Rob Morrow, who's pretty hot in a cop sort of way) is a Los Angeles FBI agent, who has recruited his younger brother, Charlie (played by David Krumholtz, who was Mr. Universe in Serenity), a math genius and professor at the fictional CalSci university, to help solve the more complex cases that fall into his hands. Don and Charlie's father, other agents, and two of Charlie's colleagues fill out the cast. There are a lot of familiar faces in the cast: Diane Farr (Maria's mother on Roswell), Alimi Ballard (Herbal from Dark Angel), Peter MacNicol (from Ally McBeal), and Navi Rawat (Theresa from The OC).

Admittedly, the math techniques that Charlie uses are pretty advanced and out there, and sometimes I find myself wondering if there really that many cases that can be solved with math, but being a geek myself, I still find the show pretty intriguing. I love that the geeks get to be the heroes for once, and I also love that the show is very vocal about its goal of trying to get more students interested in math.

The show isn't all business though. The family dynamics between Don, Charlie, and their father are well portrayed, and the way some cases relate to the main cast on a personal level can be surprisingly touching.

So, while not a show that you need to catch every week, if you happen to be sitting home with nothing to do on a Friday night, check out Numb3rs. You might like it!