Day One Hundred and Sixty-one - Numb3rs: Season 1, Episode 2, "Exceptional people deal with stress in exceptional ways."

As cheesy and dumbed down as the math is on Numb3rs, I definitely like it more than most procedurals due to episodes like this where Charlie (David Krumholtz) almost folds in on himself mentally when confronted with a near complete lack of control of a situation he helped create.

See, he gave the FBI a math model that helped his brother Don (Rob Morrow... who I still prefer as Joel) track down a pair of non-violent bank robbers, who suddenly turn vicious and homicidal when they're caught as it turns out that the robberies were just a distraction from their true crime. Charlie's model helped get a generic red shirt agent killed and gave his brother a mild case of the "almost killeds."

It's your typical TV close shave for Don, so the audience is generally immune to such things knowing that there's no way a safe, serialized procedural would kill one of its leads so soon. But the character Charlie doesn't know that... and thusly goes a little mental, focusing on an unsolvable equation to the detriment of all else as a distraction.

I love both Peter MacNicol and Judd Hirsch in their calming, wise mentor/father-figure roles in this episode.

Well, to be honest, I love Peter MacNicol in anything he does, but his recurring Yoda routine in the series always makes me so very happy. I especially love it when episodes literally revolve around his character, Larry, but that's not the case here, and I digress.

Numb3rs is a much more calming and engaging procedural than my other crime drama quest of the year, BONES. Yes, they're both filled with cheese and way too homogenized science, but Numb3rs manages to keep my suspension of disbelief so much better than BONES and its incessant need to go for self-indulgent gag episodes.

I think my only disappointment with this particular episode is the lack of hella-cute/hella-smart Amita (Navi Rawat). She's only mentioned in passing, though she's one of the main reasons I enjoy Numb3rs (aside from Peter MacNicol). Thankfully, she becomes more prominent as the show progresses.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~