Numb3rs®: Six Season Pack (31pc) (Ws)

This was a great series and lasted too short a time. To have the complete series in a boxed set is a treat and it's wonderful to be able to sit and savor an episode without enduring the commercials of network tv.

Numb3rs - The full six seasons.

I got this set because the only time there are any Numb3rs reruns is from 3 - 5 AM, on one of the basic cable channels, and I am very fond of the show. On the one hand, there is a sense of being a copy of the CSI / Bones / Criminal Intent / NCIS formula, but I believe there are important differences.

One is the level of realism. Unlike the `forensic specialists' in the series I mentioned above, the `science guy', Professor Charles Eppes (David Krumholtz), never goes running around after bad guys or knowingly puts himself in dangerous situations. That is left to his brother, the Supervisory Special Agent of the FBI, Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) and his team. The other side of the equation (to coin a phrase) is that when Charlie does his stuff, you can get much closer to the technique he is using than you can with either Abby Schiuto or Temperance Brennan (unless you happen to have aced a course in anatomy. Math is something you can explain entirely in words and symbols which can come across on the screen. (This would even have been a great radio premise, if this kind of show were trendy in radio days). I confess I am much more comfortable with set theory, Venn diagrams, and Fibonacci numbers than I am with tibias, fibulas, and kerf marks. Similarly, the FBI action part seems far more realistic than what we see on Bones or Criminal Minds. I believe the FBI agents do not operate like Seeley Booth, as one man operations, or like the profilers in Criminal Minds, who often find themselves in gunfights, even the geeky one.

On top of the police action, there is the constant interplay between the three family members, who head the cast, filled out by the masterful Judd Hirsch. We get a small, dysfunctional (actually rather painful) sense of this when Ryan O'Neal showed up as Temperance Brennan's father, where the story was laden with lots of improbabilities and events to which few people can relate. Problems between these three are real, everyday things, like who will fix the pump in the Koi pond and dust the cobwebs from the wainscoting. There are big ones too, as when pressure on Charlie breaks his usually cool abstractness and he can't apply himself to one of Don's cases.

The third dimension is the connections between Charlie and the FBI with Charlie's CalSci colleagues, Physics professor Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol) and Eppes protégé / Professor / Lover Amita Ramanujan (Navi Rawat). The most delightful aspect of this dimension is when Larry enters a romantic relation with FBI profiler, Megan Reeves (Diane Farr). The writers avoid the mistake of overplaying the oddness of this pairing. In the seasons where this was a factor, I saw but two references to the `Odd Couple' aspect.

A fourth dimension is the interplay between the lead FBI agents in Don Eppes' team, David Sinclair (Almi Ballard) and Colby Grainger (Dylan Bruno). These come to a head in the fourth season opener, directed by Executive Producer Tony Scott, and guest starring Val Kilmer.
The writing on this series is simultaneously just a bit banal and deeply insightful. Every two or three episodes, there is a statement which makes you sit up and take notice. One can attribute the banality to the fact that conversations between FBI agents is probably a bit routine. On the other hand, we can expect that the conversation between a world class mathematician, his Physics mentor, and his mathematics protégé will have some substance to it, even if more time is spend on their personal interactions and problems than on math and physics.

So, if you are fond of this show, having all six years is almost a necessity; however, the earlier seasons do tend to be better than the last two, when actor, Diane Farr leaves the cast and the Larry Fleinhardt character becomes less interesting. I also tend to find the extras in the earlier seasons to be more interesting, and more abundant in the earlier seasons, where we get several episodes with alternate commentary soundtracks from actors, director, writer, and producer. Two of the six seasons are shorter than usual, because it was a late first season addition and the fourth season fell during a writer's strike. But that is true of most shows.

My only disappointments with the series was the way it was abruptly brought to a close with Charlie and Amita's quick, informal wedding, Diane Farr's departure, and the role of the Head of the Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy department, Mildred Finch, played by Kathy Najimy. Except as a fill-in, while MacNicol left the cast for a few months, the part added little to the character mix.

If you simply don't like Numb3rs, you gain nothing by buying this. But if you are a big fan of the show, you need this set.

In the 6 seasons that Numb3rs was on the air with new episodes, I had never watched it.December, 2010 was the first time I saw it, as a rerun. With only 1 Episode I was hooked!!I immediately purchased the Complete series, 6 season dvd set.I received the dvd set in Dec & I have watched all of the episodes, twice over already, 3 or 4 a night.I just can't get enough.I am very sad that it was cancelled.
Of course, Rob Morrow as the star, is my favorite.He is HOT!!! All of the actors on this are so great, the scripts so detailed. The actors also have a great chemistry together. I simply love the Eppes Family!! What a great way to discover a new series that I had never watched. I don't have to wait each week for a new one, I just watched all 6 years!!!Great marathon for Crime Drama TV dvd lovers!!!

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