Worried about the new season of Numb3rs...

- 3 minutes read - 444 words

Today I had the chance to watch the season premiere of Numb3rs and I’m pretty worried about where it’s going this season.

Here’s what made the first season work:

  1. Mathematically / scientifically competent technologists (nerds)

  2. #1, portrayed by hot women

  3. A really interesting family dynamic between genius Charlie (David Krumholz), FBI big-brother (Rob Morrow), and Dad (Judd Hirsch). What’s it like to be the older brother while your younger brother is at Ivy League?

  4. Assuming that the audience might actually be smart

It was for all these reasons that I was sure such an inventive show would be cancelled. It scraped by, but I’m sure the no-talent, formulaic bozos up in CBS management had some ideas on how to “improve” things.

  1. Sex it up more.

In the first episode I saw the addition of Diane Farr as psychology sexpot. This has the real advantage of her being office-based and being able to wear more form-fitting stuff versus that bulky FBI gear, or FBI-formal suits and skirts that was more commonly worn by the (lamentably departed) Agent Lake (portrayed ably by Sabrina Lloyd).

  1. More needless frame cuts so that the audience gets vertigo and concludes hours later that they just saw “edgy” television

Hm, it is a Ridley Scott associated endeavor, I suppose that was unavoidable

  1. See 1

More inclusion of single episode hotties: All bad guys’ girlfriends shall henceforth be strippers.

  1. Fix horrible intro with Talking Heads track

Good idea, no complaint. Intro sucked

Ideas for Improvement

  1. Cut Krumholtz’ hair. Man I know what you’re going through. You think it’s hep and happenin’. It’s not man.

  2. Why must everyone at the FBI act like they don’t get what Charlie is saying? Has anyone done a reality check on how freaking difficult it is to get a job at the FBI? Most people have graduate degrees, or bachelors degrees in (multiple!) highly technical fields. Here’s a sample:

Charlie: “We can use Baysian statistical filters to…”

(any character): I’m just a cave FBI-agent, I don’t understand your math with its pluses and minuses, what talk you about?

How about this, you lazy script writers (just because you don’t understand the concept of df/dx doesn’t mean you don’t have to do some research)

Charlie: “We can use Baysian statistical filters to…”

(any character): “Oh I heard about that, they use that to filter spam based on “key words” that, more often than not, denote spam: refinance”

Charlie: Texas Hold ’em

(any character, preferably female, a bit of a winking moment): Viagra?

Charlie: (rogueishly) I wouldn’t know

  1. Charlie should develop his romance w/ Amitra (Rawat’s character).

Anyway, I’m worried that it could be the beginning of the end.