In real life, actor David Krumholtz flunked algebra… twice. “It was the bane of my existence," he admits during a recent screening event attended by FilmStew.
But on the CBS hit drama Numb3rs, he plays Charlie Eppes, a mathematician at CalSci who helps his FBI agent brother Don (Rob Morrow) solve crimes. Now in its third season, the cerebral procedural is the top-rated scripted show on Friday nights, and remains number one in its time slot, even against stiff competition from Law & Order and its sister shows Trial by Jury and Conviction.
According to executive producer Barry Schindel, who used to work onLaw & Order, math comprises 30 percent of the show, with the rest being crime solving and family dynamics. What sets the show apart from many procedurals, he suggests, is the family element of the relationship between the two brothers and their father, played by Judd Hirsch. "When we pitched this idea to CBS, we did so with little hope," recalls Cheryl Heuton, co-creator of the show along with Nick Falacci (that’s her, above right, with Schindel). "But they responded due to the CSI effect.”
“They had already seen that a show about science could work,” she continues. “But on our show, we have this clash of worlds, between the university and the FBI, between the family relationships and their relationships with women."
Then there’s Peter MacNicol, who plays physicist Dr. Larry Fleinhardt, a quirky, brilliant guy who’s got the hots for FBI Agent Megan Reeves (Diane Farr, Rescue Me). He will leave mid-season, around Episode Nine, at which point Heuton explains Kathy Najimy will descend upon CalSci as a character with full authority over Charlie and the addition of Navi Rawat (The OC), Charlie’s love interest and a grad student who finds it difficult transitioning to teacher.
CalSci is really Caltech, and the crew shoots many of its scenes on the campus in Pasadena. Last night, to celebrate the third season and this week’s DVD release of Numb3rs - The Complete Second Season, Heuton and Falacci, along with cast members Morrow, Krumholtz, Rawat and Dylan Bruno, appeared after a sneak screening of the October 20th episode. Lou Diamond Phillips, who has a recurring role as a cop, served as moderator for a panel that also included Bill Nye (The Science Guy), who has guest starred on the show a few times, and Gary Loren, a Professor at Caltech and math consultant on the show.
"I make notes on the scripts to suggest other ways they could go on something and they actually take some of my ideas,” Loren explains. “But often I’m humbled by what they come up with." For this extracurricular duty, the professor also seeks input from some of his seven colleagues in the math department, as well as that of another half-dozen professors in other departments.
Sometimes, Loren says, they work from the "crime in," and other times they try to fit a particular crime into an existing mathematical equation. In next week’s October 20th episode, someone is killing drivers throughoutLos Angeles, leading the Numb3rs team to ponder if the killings are random coincidences or the act of one person. While solving this particular case, Morrow’s character is also seen dealing with the burden of the job and seems depressed.
"This season, I will be dealing with the effects of my job, and why I’m not in a relationship and what really makes Don tick," Morrow says. He also insists that directing one episode a season is more than enough right now, given the time needed for all the individual episode prep work. Hirsch also begins dating this season, which will affect the family dynamic, as will the presence of a new FBI agent (Bruno). Ironically, in real life, Bruno graduated in engineering from MIT, but worked in the field for only two weeks before realizing that numbers game was not for him.
The success of Numb3rs has made math cooler, which is music to Nye’s ears. "Mathematics is elegant and beautiful,” he suggests, “and the show brings out that tension between the brain and emotions." For Krumholtz, who spent a lot of time walking the halls at Caltech and taking note of the tics of mathematics professors, he has come face to face with the idea that TV celebrity counts even in the halls of academia. "I was at a meeting recently and I realized that I was the only one in the room who counted… There were 18 of us."
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