Product Description
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FBI Special Agent Don Eppes recruits his mathematical genius
brother Charlie to help the Bureau solve a wide range of
challenging crimes in Los Angeles. The two brothers take on the
most confounding criminal cases from a very distinctive
perspective. Assisting Don at the FBI is behavioral spet
Megan Reeves and FBI agents David Sinclair and Colby Granger.
Charlies colleagues at the University where he teaches include
Dr. Larry Fleinhardt and former grad student Amita Ramanjuan,
both of whom offer their math expertise to assist Charlie with
the most perplexing cases. Don and Charlies her, Alan Eppes,
is pleased to see his two sons working together, but fears their
competitive nature will lead to trouble.
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Some key subtractions and additions invigorate the engrossing
third season of this smart series about an FBI team led by Don
Eppes (Rob Morrow) who gets assistance on its toughest cases by
Don's brother, Charlie (David Krumholtz), a mathematical genius.
Peter MacNicol, as eccentric physics professor Larry Fleinhardt,
Charlie's mentor, departed mid-season for a stint on 24. Diane
Farr, as FBI profiler Megan Reeves, left on maternity leave.
Enter Kathy Najimy as Charlie's new boss, Mildred ("Millie")
Finch, and the exotic Aya Sumika as Special Agent Liz Warner, to
give the show what the creators call, in a bonus season
retrospective, "more girl energy." What separates Numb3rs from
TV's other, and more grisly, procedural shows is that it
emphasizes brains over bleech and intellect over ick. Enjoyment
of Numb3rs is not dependent on your knowledge of "multi-attribute
compositional models," "hidden variable theory," or "quadratic
discriminate analysis," Just do what the confounded agents on
Don's team do whenever Charlie explains how he applies his
"intuitive synthesis of established mathematical principles and
theorems" to manhunting: "Nod your head and wait for the
punchline." Big picture, the cases are compelling in themselves:
a psyche-red teacher and her young lover embark on a murder
spree; a valuable painting originally stolen by Nazis is heisted
from an art gallery; someone is bent on killing, not catching,
child predators; a music mogul's son is kipped; a sinkhole
that destroys a school playground reveals the cover-up of illegal
toxic waste dumping.
Season 3 also es out the characters. The competitive
brothers express newfound respect for each other ("It's amazing
how you see things," Don tells Charlie at one point). Charlie and
Amita (Navi Rawat), who has accepted a position at the university
to teach and do research, attempt to take their budding romantic
relationship to the next level. Megan and Larry also become a
couple. And in the thrilling and suspenseful season finale, "The
Janus List," there is a startling revelation about one of the
members on Don's team. Among the notable guest stars include Lou
Diamond Phillips, reprising his role as Agent Edgerton, who is
willing to cross ethical lines that Don is not. In the episode
"Provenance," Gena Rowlands gives a heartbreaking performance as
a woman whose family was decimated by the Holocaust. Add such
extras as selected episode commentaries, bloopers, and an
entertaining set tour with Krumholtz, Morrow, and Judd Hirsch,
who helps to anchor the series as Don and Charlie's her, and
you have a season whose DVD release is a "special equation."
--Donald Liebenson