Collectibles & Merchandise on TVcrazy.net

Rating: - Grade "A" Police Procedural
Television has had a love affair with cop and detective shows for decades, from Dragnet through Hill Street Blues to CSI - Large-Metropolitin-City-of-your-Choice.

The best ones endure in memory and frankly make compelling viewing. Not meaning to cast stones, but the mediocre ones are the television equivalent of cotton candy. There are a few (The Mentalist) that almost, but don't QUITE reach the highest heights.

Right now there are two "cop shows" that started with a unique angle, then added great casts and writing. In my mind "NUMB3RS" joins "Dexter" at the top of the current police heap.

Both have writing - dialogue and storylines - that easily match up with the best cop movies. (Why couldn't someone have provided a better vehicle for Pacino and De Niro than "Righteous Kill", which looks like a high-school production compared to Dexter and Numbers?) But I digress.

NUMB3RS is the "genius" drama. (The Big Band Theory is the genius comedy, and it really IS comic genius.) Rob Morrow, from another of our favorite shows, Northern Exposure, shows impressive range. On NE his Dr. Fleischman was a slight of stature New York Doctor transplanted to Alaska. In NUMB3RS he plays Don Eppes, a tough dedicated-to-his-career FBI professional with commanding stature. Almost every episode features Don and a team of FBI professionals storming a room with weapons brandished. On "Exposure" he played the intellectual. Although Eppes is not dumb - he's an observant professional - Don is easily the least intelligent of the leading characters. Don's math genius brother is Charles, played by David Krumholtz. Five years younger than Don, Charles has become an internationally renowned mathematician. The sibling rivalry angle provides many plot points, and we see goes back to the time that Charles graduated in the same high school class as Don - only at age thirteen.

Charles, now 30-ish, still lives at home with their father, played brilliantly with heart and intelligence by Judd Hirsch.

Don was building his federal law enforcement career away from home until their now deceased mother became sick. The series begins apparently soon after their mother's death, leaving a house with two men, frequently visited by still-single brother Don.

Alimi Ballard is solid as a fellow FBI man, and Navi Rawat looks like a young Catherine Zeta-Jones as a graduate student who studies under Charlie. Peter MacNicol gets another hit TV show (after Ally McBeal and 24) as a physicist colleague of Charlie.

The show is equal parts brains and heart - contemplation and action. Almost every episode has me at the edge of my seat, and while the scripts sometimes require at least a momentary suspension of disbelief, they are smart and not insulting.

As cop shows go - right now NUMB3RS is good enough to spend my time.

Television Show Collectibles

Movie Searches