TV review: Numb3rs

We'd planned to review ABC's Less Than Perfect but it didn't air this Friday. Faced with choosing an alternative show, we didn't have a great deal of choices. ABC's 20/20 was leading off with a "hard hitting story" about ABC's Lost. NBC was broadcasting some version of Law & Order with it's usual, we're sure, "ripped from the headlines" approach (which seems to excuse a lack of characterization or anything beyond basic plot). That left us with attempting to watch and review a show on Saturday night (while attempting to contribute to other features for this edition) or else going with CBS on Friday night. NUMB3RS is a new show on CBS, one that's been getting some attention. How bad could it be?

After we'd committed to it, we just wished we could run the numbers again. Yes, it's that bad.

Possibly the tip off should have come from the title: NUMB3RS. (That's not a typo.)

Let's start with the positive. Gloria Reuben guest-starred. She's always worth watching and almost able to make sense of this show. Almost. For a few seconds, due to her talent, we almost believed people were interacting. They aren't. We'll get to that shortly, but we'll note that Reuben raised the show a notch but even someone as talented as she is can only do so much.

Here's the concept of the show (courtesy of IMDB):

Working for the FBI, a mathematician uses equations to help solve various crimes.

Oh, that it were that simple.

The mathematician, he's the brother of FBI agent Rob Morrow. His father's Judd Hirsch. So we've already got a family drama on our hands. Add to it the "quirky" co-workers of the mathematician who seem to exist just to await cues from the "mathematician." That would be Charlie played by David Krumholtz.

Time and again in this episode, Charlie would advise the other two of what they needed to do to solve something. Immediately, it was keyboard time, with no "how to"s provided by Charlie. See, they know how to do, they just need Charlie to figure out what to do. These people are supposed geniuses so watching the script repeatedly toss to Charlie made us wonder if the other two geniuses also needed to be told to turn off the light when leaving a room or to flush the toilet before leaving the bathroom? We're sure they know how to do both those things, but without Charlie giving them their cues, would they think to do them?

Peter MacNicol plays one of the two co-workers and he should never have been told his "quirks" were charming on Ally McBeal. Ever since then, it's as though all he has to offer are quirks and, the way he grins at the camera, you never forget how much pride he takes in them. Sometimes quirks can round out a character. But a character cannot be built on a variety of quirks alone. There needs to be something underneath. The great underbelly of MacNicol is a false bottom.

Judd Hirsch's belly? Don't get us started. We both gasped when he was shown walking on a golf course. Whatever happened to the cast of Taxi? Apparently Judd ate them.

But that wasn't enough to satisfy him because he still has a need to chew the scenery. The role's obviously meant to be similar to Tyne Daly's role on CBS's Judging Amy. But Daly's got an actual character to play. Hirsch is playing the latest concept of "father figure." It's not a character, it's an ethereal idea. And Hirsch is far too heavy (in acting and physique) to carry it off (though we wonder if anyone could).

Which brings us to David Krumholtz's Charlie. How old is the man supposed to be? And why does he come off like the lead teenager in an after-school special? Is it his acting or someone else's unworked out Daddy issues? Regardless, when he's not passing himself off to his two co-workers as Valerie from the cartoon Josie & the Pussycats ("According to my calculations . . ."), he seems nothing but teenage neurosis at their worst. There's bundle of nerves and then there's an ocean. Krumholtz is sinking and taking the show down with him.

Top-billed isn't Kurmholtz or Hirsch, it's Rob Morrow who was so likeable as Dr. Joel Fleischman
on Northern Exposure and hilarious as Albert Brooks' equally neurotic brother in Mother. What the hell happened?

The mother wasn't mentioned on this show. We'll assume she split or is dead. But was she ever around? If so, did she not teach Morrow's Don to chew with his mouth closed? Watching Morrow attempt to regular-guy it was laughable throughout (not in the good way) but it reached it's zenith as he flashed his mouthful of food repeatedly to appear "average guy." Between that and either a new dialect or "regular guy" speaking he's attempting, we were left wondering what happened to Joel?

We'll also assume this new "acting choice" explains his sideburns which are truly something to see. Two-thirds of the way down, they do this slight zig-zag that we're not understanding. Maybe it's "chaos theory" or "splish-splash?" Those words were bandied about on NUMB3RS. We don't understand them but then we never believed the actors did either.

And that's at the heart of the problem with this show. When not going all touchy-feely on Daddy issues (seriously, it's as though someone just stumbled onto The Fisher King and decided to turn it into a TV series), we get scenes where actors don't communicate and aren't given lines. Instead they shout out footnotes. All this jargon which occassionally one of them will explain (usually in a statement beginning, "It means . . ."). But there's no need to explain because there's no conversation. It's as though Don says, "It's hot today" and Charlie, nodding, replies,
"I've always enjoyed kittens." What?

The writers work overtime to create the impression of "smart" (and fail) when they should be attempting to portray communication and interaction.

Here's something else they might want to work on, charges are not guilt. Don and his partner rush around trying to save the city based on information Charlie and the techno-crats are feeding them. We're going to try to keep this as simple as possible (something the writers of NUMB3RS might want to emulate). Don goes to see Man #1. We need information about this plane? Man #1 says that's Man #2's plane. They can't find Man #2 but they do find his son and they tell his son not that they need to speak to Man #2, not that they need information on Man #2 but that the son better tell them everything truthfully or he will face charges for helping his father (Man #2) commit terrorism. Somewhere along the line Don not only dispensed with the need for a trial, he also dispensed with the need for evidence. (Which we're guessing perfectly captures the mood of our own Justice Dept. under the Bully Boy and Alberto Torture Czar Gonazles.)

The plot's this horrible goulash that might be a UFO, turns out to be a small aircraft, that might be used for terrorism, turns out the pilot is dead (no terrorism took place) and might have been murdered, turns out it was accident due to calibration.

"Turns Out" should be the title of the show. It's nothing but MacGuffins. Alfred Hitchcock knew how to use one of those in a scene but he didn't build an entire film around one MacGuffin after another. NUMB3RS wants to constantly get you excited about a new development only to then pull the rug out from under you repeatedly.

Some people play the numbers. Friday nights on CBS, NUMB3RS plays you.