While Ridley Scott is mostly known for making award-winning films, he also once served as the executive producer for a procedural crime drama from the 2000s entitled “Numb3rs.” The series was specifically produced by Ridley and Tony Scott’s Scott Free Productions, and starred Rob Morrow and David Krumholtz as Charlie and Don Eppes. Charlie is a math genius who helps his FBI agent brother Don solve major crimes using the power of applied mathematics. It may sound boring at first, but the show goes to great lengths to make the math come alive with very good analogies and practical application. And as with all great crime TV shows, there’s plenty of high speed chases and shootouts with criminals.
Of the Scott brothers, Tony was much more hands-on in his role as a producer for “Numb3rs,” and even directed the Season 4 premiere episode “Trust Metric.” Shortly after Tony Scott died in 2012, Krumholtz honored Tony in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) and shared his experience of working with him on the show. “I had come to know Tony as a warm, enthusiastic and whimsical general with great vision and pride for his work and for the art of action,” wrote Krumholtz.
Numb3rs was eventually canceled due to declining ratings
Despite early success, “Numb3rs” was eventually canceled in 2010 by CBS due to declining ratings in the later seasons. According to <a href="https://www.paramountpressexpress.com/cbs-<a href="https://comicvibe.com/nagaland-plans-live-entertainment-economy-framework-to-boost-jobs-tourism/” title=”Nagaland plans live entertainment economy framework to boost jobs, tourism”>entertainment/releases/?view=8842″ rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>CBS Entertainment, the pilot episode of the series was the most watched new drama of the 2005-2006 season and debuted to 24.92 million viewers. Things appeared to be going well for the series until the infamous Writers Guild of America strike in 2007-2008 that disrupted many ongoing shows. Viewership steadily declined afterward, with the final season capturing only 8.26 million viewers.
If there was ever a time that a reboot would make sense, it’s probably now. Unfortunately, though, it would probably have to go forth without any cameos or lead acting from David Krumholtz, who recently announced he was taking an extended break from acting. Still, there’s always room for crime dramas on TV, and “Numb3rs” had a cool gimmick that may now be worth revisiting. You can stream the series for free on The Roku Channel or purchase it as VOD on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
