Ridley Scott’s 118-Episode Police Procedural Has Aged Like Fine Wine

Police procedurals are among the most common TV genres, so it’s possible for many to fall through the cracks, even one produced by the great Sir Ridley Scott. Not every series can become a multi-spinoff procedural juggernaut like Law & Order or NCIS, so showsoften try to give their protagonists a hyper-specific skill or profession as an enticing hook.

For example, The Mentalist follows a former psychic fraudster with hyper-observational skills, while Bones pairs an FBI agent with a forensic anthropologist. These series ran seven and 12 seasons, respectively, and their distinct appeal is easy to see. But a police procedural centered around… math? That sounds like a harder sell.

Premiering in 2005 on CBS, Numb3rs centers on FBI Special Agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow), who recruits his mathematics professor and genius brother Charlie (David Krumholtz) to help solve crimes using his very specialized skill set. While Numb3rs was hardly a hit with critics—its premiere season earned a paltry 53% Rotten Tomatoes score—the police procedural series was popular enough with audiences to run for six seasons. It’s been over 16 years since Numb3rs ended, and looking back, it was incredibly underrated.

In A World Full Of Crime Procedurals, Numb3rs Still Looks Pretty Creative

The television landscape looks very different from when Numb3rs aired, butprocedurals still dominate traditional network TV. For the most part, they haven’t changed much, which only makes Numb3rs stand out even more.

While the series does embrace the unique job/quirk trope, Charlie’s mathematical abilities are hardly a gimmick. (If they were just that, Numb3rs could have found something a lot more alluring than math.) Rather, they’re the beating heart of the entire show. Whereas most procedurals rely on melodramatic interrogation scenes and repetitive lab reports, Numb3rs uses concepts like game theory, data mining, probability, and geographical profiling.

This may sound boring on paper, but Numb3rs uses inventive, entertaining devices to show Charlie’s thought process, like highly stylized, kinetic visual metaphors. In this regard, the show isn’t about math; it’s about math as Charlie’s superpower, and it’s unlike anything seen on TV, particularly in the well-trodden procedural genre. Numb3rs also employed several mathematical consultants to ensure the math was as accurate as possible, adding authenticity and credibility to an already singular series.

Despite Lasting 6 Seasons, Numb3rs Didn’t Get Enough Credit During Its Run

So, obviously, the math of it all wasn’t a deterrent for viewers, as Numb3rs lasted a respectable six seasons. Still, if someone relied only on the first season’s 53% Rotten Tomatoes score, they might think the show is mediocre and forgettable.

When Numb3rs premiered on CBS in 2005, the network’s iconic crime drama, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation​​​​​​, was in its prime. With so many CSI copycats flooding the airwaves, Numb3rs was unfairly lumped in with them, and its math angle was dismissed as a gimmick. As Numb3rs continued to perform well enough in the ratings to justify its six-season run, it slowly gained more street cred, but not enough to put it in league with bigger-name contemporaries like House, Bones, or Criminal Minds.

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Numb3rs was also ahead of its time. While the show’s focus on data modeling felt niche in the 2000s, it’s now part of the cultural vernacular used across myriad professional fields, from major tech companies to sports franchises. Had Numb3rs premiered today, it may have enjoyed a similar reception to the buzzy, AI-focused legal procedural Cupertino​​​​​​. But it’s still possible for Numb3rs to enjoy a renaissance, as the entire series is available to stream on The Roku Channel.