I like "Numb3rs" ? and it’s been renewed!

I always liked Rob Morrow on “Northern Exposure” and I thought David Krumholtz was great in “The Slums of Beverly Hills”.

I would describe the show as CSI, but instead of shamefully titillating the audience by carving up buxom Vegas girls with scalpels, it entertains by encouraging us to use our minds and follow the mental acrobatics of a “math consultant (Krumholtz)” in his advisling his FBI-agent brother (Morrow).

Invariably Charlie (a prodigy, and prof. at the fictitious “Cal-Sci” can bring his mathematical acumen to a case a bring it to resolution.

Surely such an intersting blend of intellect and entertainment is doomed for the first season scrap heap, no? Much to my surprise CBS has picked it up for another season. I’d wager that the fact that Ridley “I-can’t-hold-the-camera-still-for-less-than-6-seconds” Scott and his brother, Tony, has something to do with the show getting renewed. Fortunately the show doesn’t suffer under the weight of Scott’s hyperkinetic camerawork; however, it does implement flights of mental fancy: after inducing a particularly interesting idea, the camera will enter a chalkboard like space where diagrams and similar mock-ups can be presented for the (quite possibly) lay audience.

I feel a bit sorry for Morrow as it usually falls to him to re-package the insights his brother presents. It’s usuall y something on the par of:

CHARLIE: “So you see, by absorbing all frequencies of visible radiation, it is not easily seen”

DON: “So it’s black?”

CHARLIE: Right.

I worry about it’s timeslot though - Friday night? Allegedly there’s not a huge market of eyes out about that time.

Over at the geomblog, one commenter took the opportunity to have fun with the show’s premise by imagining what would happen if the anti-science and progress contingent of our political spectrum were to get the next show of this nature:

Thursday, May 19, 2005 Numb3rs renewed

I got review fatigue and stopped posting Numb3rs reviews (I haven’t even finished watching the episodes saved up), but I do like the series, and now news comes that CBS is renewing it for this fall. What’s even more interesting is that Law and Order: Trial by Jury, that was up against it in the same time slot, was cancelled.

posted by Suresh at 5/19/2005 03:13:00 PM 2 Comments:

[Colorization mine - sg ] Of course, NBC is going to run in this slot a new series about a police investigator that solves murders using intelligent design.

Posted by Anonymous
5/19/2005 05:35:46 PM

“Intelligent Design” for those of you not keeping score at home is the religious right’s attemt to make sure that American students fill their heads with idiocy and superstition instead of good scientific principles. It also has the fringe benefit of making sure that American science based-disciplines like genetic research, medicine, and other hard-to-outsource capabilites will be outpaced by South Korea, China and India faster. Whee! I’m so glad an invisible, non-personal force’s interests are guiding our educational policy.

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