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Don Eppes Numbers (TV series)
Donald "Don" Eppes is a fictional character and one of the protagonists of the CBS crime drama Numb3rs. He is portrayed by Rob Morrow.

Don is an FBI Special Agent who runs the FBI Violent Crimes Squad in Los Angeles. Don recruits his mathematical genius brother, Charlie Eppes, to help him and the Bureau solve some of their most difficult cases. Don makes great sacrifices in his personal life in order to devote himself to his career, which to him is more of a way of life than a mere job.  More important to him than his work is his family, especially Charlie, even though he doesn't understand his brother's way of looking at the world.

Backstory

Don is the older son of Alan Eppes and Margaret Mann-Eppes.  He was raised in a secular Jewish family. During the Vietnam War, his parents would take him to sit-ins, and he twice watched his father be arrested (as mentioned in the episode "Protest"). When Don became too attached to his toy gun, his parents put him in Little League, hoping Don would forget his love for guns. Don graduated high school on the same day as his younger brother Charlie, who is five years younger ("Soft Target"). He went to college on a baseball scholarship and then played Single-A with the Stockton Rangers (a fictional team) as a utility player. Charlie used to predict the number of walks he would get just from his stance at the plate. Despite the attraction, Don never took steroids, although his backup player did. That player made the major leagues and Don has since wondered if he should have taken steroids to help improve his game. The day after realizing that he would never be better than a single A player, Don quit the Rangers and signed up for the FBI entrance exam ("Identity Crisis").

In the FBI Academy, he dated fellow agent Terry Lake. As he later told his father, his favorite date ever was when he had pizza in a laundromat with her. Terry does not share that opinion. After graduating from the Academy, Don worked in Fugitive Recovery with Billy Cooper (episode "Man Hunt") and former Navy SEAL Petey Fox ("Friendly Fire") and was very good at it. He taught at the FBI Academy for a time after Fugitive Recovery to help him come back to civilization ("Longshot"). After that, he worked in the field office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and dated Kim Hall (Sarah Wayne Callies), and nearly married her.

Don gave up his position as Special Agent in Charge of the Albuquerque FBI office to move back to L.A. when his mother became ill with cancer, from which she eventually died.

Characterization

Don is a principled character and very devoted to his job, leaving him not much time for a social life. According to actor Rob Morrow, Don has a tendency to sacrifice, even at the expense of what he wants from life.   He enjoys the occasional game of baseball and is also often seen watching hockey, which he played in his youth. He went to college on a baseball scholarship. Don thought baseball was his first love, though his father Alan Eppes reminded him that a toy gun and playing a cop as a child was actually his first love, and comforted him in noticing that the FBI needs utility players. Charlie said that he was a "born cop." Don's giving up on the game is an emotional subject for him.

He and Charlie have had their differences over the years, and Don finds it hard to go to Charlie for help to do his job. In fact, in "One Hour" Don states that he does not like living in the shadow of his genius brother, though he respects him and his abilities very much and they have become closer. Sometimes, he feels that Charlie isn't doing all the great things he could be doing because he is working with the FBI. Still, he does often question his brother only to have his faith in Charlie's abilities restored. In "Burn Rate", their father says, "But have you ever known your brother to let his emotions trump his math?" Just because Don gets emotional, he thought this was the case with Charlie and even stated his brother was backing one of his own. In "Trust Metric", Charlie says that he has a giant ego.

He is a harsh taskmaster, likes being the boss, and is not very forgiving. One of his former tactical trainees from Quantico, Liz Warner has proclaimed to this and, after Colby confided in her that he made a mistake, she told him that the very fact that he still remains on Don's team means something. She also said that Don never spoke of his personal life while at the FBI Academy and was at the time fresh from the field in hunting fugitives (with friend Agent Cooper). Liz knows he has mellowed with age and he can hold a commitment with a woman for longer periods of time.

He believes that the death penalty is a form of revenge. 

Don has an ability to understand how criminals think, which causes him to suppress his thoughts in an effort to cope with the horrors that he sees on his job. 

Don's main weapon of choice is a Glock 19.

Evolution over the series

Having been Special Agent In Charge of the Albuquerque Office, Don took a demotion in order to obtain a position as Special Agent in the L.A. Field Office, but he did so to be with his family when his mother was diagnosed with cancer two years prior to the series pilot.  Margaret Eppes died approximately one year later, and according to the pilot, Don elicited Charlie's help on two cases between her death and the series pilot.  These cases involved IRS extortion and stock fraud.  Initially uncertain about what Charlie might actually be able to contribute, he reluctantly allows Charlie to assist with their attempts to track down a rapist and is pleasantly surprised when Charlie's math leads to the suspect's apprehension ("Pilot").

His relationship with Charlie was apparently somewhat strained even before their mother's death, as Don is stunned to learn that his little brother has enough security clearance to work with both the CDC and the NSA ("Vector").  He is even more surprised to discover that Charlie doesn't seem to know that his clearance will allow him to walk into the L.A. Office whenever he wishes, rather than obtaining a visitor's pass every time and being restricted in what he can do there.  Upon resolving Charlie's status, Don now apparently calls Charlie in on most of his cases.

In "Uncertainty Principle", Don loses his temper at Charlie when Charlie once again reverts to working on P vs. NP after Don is shot in the arm by the 'Charm School Boys'.  He vents his frustration and anger at Charlie for hiding in his math (members of the fandom refer to this state as 'Numbersville').  In "Vector", Don comforts Charlie when Charlie questions Don heartbrokenly about whether their mother was in pain during those last three months, showing that despite his anger that Charlie wasn't there for her, he cannot help but protect Charlie from whatever is hurting him.

After Charlie found a classical music composition for the piano (an Etude in G minor) that their mother wrote under her maiden name and his father admits that music was one of Margaret's first loves, Don and his brother remember the piano lessons that she made them take. While Don jokes about the dreadful teacher they had, he and Charlie realize why it was so important to their mother. At the end of "Running Man", Don comes home and finds the sheet music his mother wrote on the table. He sits down and starts playing, hesitantly at first, as Charlie and Alan listen from the garage.

When Megan Reeves was kidnapped, Don pushed his ethics to the limit to get her back. While he did not personally beat a suspect, he had Special Agent Ian Edgerton interrogate the teenager for information on where Megan was being held. It is never shown or said what Edgerton did during the interrogation, but it is heavily implied that he may have used physical force, up to and including applying pressure to the gunshot wound through the teen's wrist; Don expressed concern to his father over being willing to go that far, even if he wasn't doing it himself. After this discussion, he convinced his father that it is good to have someone to come home to, and that is why he comes around the Craftsman house so often rather than staying at his apartment.

In "Provenance," Don began to wonder why their family was not more religious and wanted to get in touch with his relatives, especially his grandmother's cousin who escaped World War II. A victim of the Holocaust found solace when Don had given a stolen painting which held much sentimentality back to her. Prior to this she had said that he knew pain in losing his mother. All of this had surfaced deep emotions in Don. Also in this episode, Don has jokingly stated he was a "lost cause," when his father expressed a failure in parenting him. On the other hand, in the previous season's "Calculated Risk," Don showed a connection to a boy who had lost his mother, giving hope to Alan that he had done something right.

Don was once nearly married to a fellow agent named Kim Hall, but that relationship ended when he returned to L.A.  Owing to his distant demeanor and predilection for isolation, Charlie was unaware of this relationship. As Don's fiancée long ago, Kim Hall had a chance to come to know Don and observed that the brothers had "one part exuberance, two parts obsession," after she was assigned to a case working alongside the two. He had also once dated an ATF agent, and was pained to find out that she called him before she was killed. The prosecutor Nadine Hodges (Sarah Carter [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0141931/]) seems to be smitten with him and vice versa. In the episode "Guns and Roses", he decides to investigate his flirtation with AUSA Robin Brooks (Michelle Nolden [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0634409/]). In "Blackout," after Robin broke up with him, Don became involved in a brief romance with Special Agent Liz Warner, whom he remembers for having an issue with adrenaline and being wild. He often makes reference to the difficulties in maintaining a relationship, given his career, as does his family. Don is now actively pursuing his love interest in Liz Warner ("End of Watch"), something he has not done in a long time. She is initially hesitant about entering the relationship, especially given his reputation for short relationships.  Don persuades her that they can still have an active relationship despite both being FBI agents and both working out of the L.A. Office ("Finders Keepers"). In "One Hour", Don's therapist questioned his motives concerning this relationship, and Don defended his actions. His supervisors in the FBI are aware of the relationship but the consequences have not been revealed. Finally, in the episode "Graphic," it is revealed that Don broke up with Liz, and was very depressed about it. With "In Security," Don's secrecy and his unwillingness to reveal information regarding his relationship with a woman in the Witness Protection Program, Leah Wexford ([http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1907725/ Jennifer Riker]), whom he knew in Albuquerque years ago, strained his relationship with Liz. He has spoken to his father on the matter.

In "Take Out," Don must see a therapist who is led to believe that he is "trigger happy." His father noted that this may be true, as he often shoots first. Further, Alan recalled how Don would take on others' burdens as a child and told him to get counseling, which he later willingly sought, especially considering that he viewed his life's work as a series of dirty deeds. In "One Hour", Don expressed that he doesn't have to trust his team, they have to trust him.  The exception to this may be Charlie, whom the therapist identified as a member of the team to Don's initial confusion.  It appears that Don considers Charlie more of an extension of himself than a member of his team, which may be true:  Charlie would likely not be involved in the volume of cases that he is if not for Don's continued requests for his assistance, despite the team's respect for Charlie's contributions. He also confessed to his psychiatrist that he "respects the Hell out of" Charlie for all that his brother does for the FBI, and that Charlie has never let them down despite often having the team's and Don's lives in his hands. When the psychiatrist pushes Don about his relationship with Charlie, indicating first that Don resents Charlie's presence at the FBI and then that Don enjoys having his little brother as his 'employee', Don vehemently snaps back and defends Charlie. This shows how far the relationship between the brothers has come, especially since being damaged by the unusual pressures of their childhood and the three months near the end of their mother's life that Charlie spent working on P vs. NP. The therapist reveals that Don has deep-seated fears of losing what he has worked for, together with self-esteem issues from growing up in Charlie's shadow and likely some abandonment issues as well. In "Money for Nothing", he acquiesces to the counselor's request to ask Charlie to come in for a visit. A looming issue was the day Charlie walked all the way home from a camping trip at the age of 8 (taken for Don's 13th birthday) just to get away from Don who did not want him sticking around. During the meeting, he learns that his brother was not as inept as he and his father thought and stated he likes working with Charlie. Both Don's therapist and Edgerton himself bring up the incident in which a suspect was tortured that nearly took Don over the edge ("One Hour" and "Pandora's Box"), but given the fact that it was done to obtain the whereabouts of a missing FBI agent, Don and Ian's superiors appear to be overlooking the matter for now.

He was distraught over his father working with him in "Under Pressure", fearing for his safety. His father though straightens him out and shows him that he can help, which garners Don's gratitude — this surprises Alan.

In "The Janus List", Don sympathizes with the brilliant cryptographer's desire to feel that his life had meaning, showing another side of him to his father, as he usually would not appreciate any sentiments of a criminal.

Though "Number-vision" (as it is called in the special features of the DVDs) usually only appears when Charlie's mind draws mathematical connections, it has been used twice to show Don's mind drawing connections in a similar fashion:

1)  During the pilot episode, Don was examining a crime scene relating to the investigation of a serial rapist.  While examining the position of cigarette butts on the scene, he suddenly drew several connections and determined the suspect's real motives for breaking his apparent pattern.

2)  During "The Janus List" (Season 3 Finale), Don is looking at pictures of the placement of explosive devices on a bridge in the L.A. office with Charlie.  Without warning, he sees a pattern in the explosives that translates into a musical scale, much to Charlie's surprise.  This pattern, though something he initially shrugged off as a coincidence, turned out to be part of the key to revealing the Janus list and Colby Granger's position as a spy for the Chinese government.

When Colby escapes in Trust Metric, Don is conflicted about tracking Colby, and does not know whether to trust him about his status as a triple agent. However, he and his team are hopeful and rescue him anyway. Prior to his escape, Don mulled over Granger's confession for five weeks.

In the episode "In Security," Don hides the level of intimacy he had with Leah Wexford and information contained in clearanced FBI files therein concerned, after she is killed. He appears close to her son, comforting him over his loss. Don feels overwhelmingly guilty, and so Charlie performs a Classification And Regression Tree (CART) analysis behind his back. The result shows that he was not responsible for her death, and that his assertions of such lessen Leah's bravery.

After protecting Robin Brooks, he has become close to her and they are dating again. In the season finale, he is upset that Charlie cannot help him anymore due to his extreme act of sending his friend's work to a terrorist. He drives off alone to another case.

When season five opens, Don asks Amita and Larry to help with the math since Charlie no longer had his clearance, which neither brother wants to fight for.  After Charlie helps the team find Don during a shootout on a mountainside and find a victim, Don decides to tell Charlie to ask for his clearance back.  When they do begin the process of getting Charlie's clearance back, Don learns that FBI Security Officer Carl McGowan (Keith Carradine) wants to open an investigation into Don instead of opening an investigation about Charlie's e-mail to Pakistan.  In the formal interview, Don tells McGowan to reinstate Charlie's clearance, or Don quits the FBI.  McGowan recommends disciplinary action against Don for his actions during the Crystal Hoyle and Clay Porter incidents, which Don expects.  When the ADIC overturns McGowan's recommendations about Charlie and Don, Don is glad that Charlie is working with him again but feels lost in regards to the recommendation concerning him.

The fight with McGowan, coupled with seeing a fellow agent reach out for a picture of his family before dying in a shootout, causes Don to explore Judaism.  His decision surprises his family and Robin.

Buck Winters breaks out of prison to go after Don, causing Don to fear that he may have to shoot Buck.  After Charlie tells him that he cannot go back in time and reverse his actions, Don then makes a plan to capture Buck alive.  Don, the team, and Buck go into the temple where Buck reveals that he wanted a death-by-cop.  The team arrest Buck.

When Charlie gets an offer from DARPA, he confides to Alan that he does not know whether he wants Charlie to take it.  Don later tells Charlie that there was a better offer with the FBI.  Don also teams up with Larry to tell Jane Karellen that Charlie was not taking DARPA up on their offer.

Toward the end of season five, David applies to be Don's primary relief supervisor.  Don first leaves the letter of recommendation on his desk for David to read.  After the request is granted and some on-the-job training in being Liz's handler, Don breaks the news about the request to David.

Don asks Charlie to help him during a home invasion case.  Charlie's results confirm the area that the suspects would hit next.  While checking out the property after a gun battle with the four suspects, a fifth man comes out and stabs Don, puncturing Don's left lung and nicking Don's pulmonary artery.  After Don is out of surgery, he goes into cardiac arrest and flatlines.  The doctors are able to revive him.  Don finally wakes up to Alan by his bedside.  Later, his team comes for a visit.  He tells them that he is allowed to return to desk duty initially and then full duty about a week later.

While recovering at home, Don realizes that his job does not influence him as much as it has in the past.  He shows concerns for Charlie's reaction to his stabbing.  About three weeks after the stabbing, Don goes to Charlie's new office for the first time, being pleased about Charlie's new office.  After finding Charlie's converted police scanner, Don cautions Charlie about the risk of burnout from police work.  Fifteen minutes after leaving, Don receives a phone call from Charlie saying that Amita has been kidnapped.  Throughout the investigation, Don keeps putting himself in Charlie's shoes and even asks Larry to help with the math.  When they find Amita, Don is the one to reunite Amita and Charlie.  At home, Don confides in Alan that he had his faith in God's existence shaken by the stabbing and that he does not know whether he wants to continue his spiritual journey.

Since the beginning of season 6, there are signs that Don becomes fragile and more hesitant. His chase toward a runaway sniper in season premiere and his hunt to a rogue agent in episode 2 are not as quick and overwhelming in previous seasons. He also admits that the stabbing really shocked him, meaning that he has more concern on his safety now. Although, he admits he has a "lost a step" to his father, not remembering when he has beaten David or Colby in a sprint, he is quick enough to kill his old, tough FBI pal Pete "Petey" Fox, who is an expert in a gunfight and has fallen to the wrong side of the law. He grieves the loss of his adrenaline-chasing friend.  In response to a mid-life crisis sparked by his stabbing and the loss of Petey, Don buys a motorcycle.
Midway through season six, he proposes to Robin.  She rejects his proposal, stating that she felt he is still in the middle of significant changes in his life.  She does promise to accept his proposal when he finds what he wants from life. In the sixth season finale, Don is at peace with himself after recovering his Glock, decides to take a head FBI position, and proposes once more to his now-fiancee Robin on his brother's wedding day. He promises to remain close with Charlie.

Creation

Don Eppes was created as Charlie's brother and as a link to the procedural part of the show.   Gabriel Macht originally was cast as Don Eppes in the original pilot of Numb3rs.   The believability of the family in terms of physical appearance and chemistry, however, created a need to recast the role.   Rob Morrow replaced Macht when Macht left the show.   At this point in development, Don was rewritten to be more intellectual than he was in the original pilot.  To prepare for his role as Don Eppes, Morrow did some training with the FBI as well as reading about and talking to real-life police officers.

Reception

Early critical reception of Don was mixed.  Gillian Flynn of Entertainment Weekly said that Morrow’s performance was “with full CSI-inspired stoicism”.   Melanie McFarland, TV critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, stated that Don was not an original character as of the pilot.   Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle, however, called Morrow, as Don, “likable”.   Robert Bianco of USA Today stated that, although Don did not come across as an obvious choice of role for Morrow, Morrow was excellent as Don. 

Since then, Don has been more widely accepted.  Morrow is now as recognized for his role as Don Eppes as he is for his role in Northern Exposure.   In a public service announcement, Morrow congratulated the Federal Bureau of Investigation on their 100th anniversary.   With 53 percent of the votes, Don took first place in the category of "Sexiest FBI Agent" in TV Guides poll. Numbers (stylized NUMB3RS) is an American crime drama television series that ran on CBS from January 23, 2005, to March 12, 2010. The series was created by Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton, and follows FBI Special Agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) and his brother Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz), a college mathematics professor and prodigy who helps Don solve crimes for the FBI. Brothers Ridley and Tony Scott produced Numbers; its production companies are the Scott brothers' Scott Free Productions, CBS Television Studios (originally Paramount Television, and later CBS Paramount Television).

The show focuses equally on the relationships among Don Eppes, his brother Charlie Eppes, and their father, Alan Eppes (Judd Hirsch), and on the brothers' efforts to fight crime, normally in Los Angeles. A typical episode begins with a crime, which is subsequently investigated by a team of FBI agents led by Don and mathematically modeled by Charlie, with the help of Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol) and Amita Ramanujan (Navi Rawat). The insights provided by Charlie's mathematics were always in some way crucial to solving the crime.

In May 2010, CBS announced that Numbers had been canceled after six seasons. 

Cast and characters

The show revolved around three intersecting groups of characters: the FBI, scientists at the fictitious California Institute of Science (CalSci), and the Eppes family.

* Don Eppes (Rob Morrow), Charlie's older brother, is the lead FBI agent at the Los Angeles Violent Crimes Squad.
* Prof. Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz) is a mathematical genius who, in addition to teaching at CalSci, consults for the FBI and NSA.
* Alan Eppes (Judd Hirsch) is a former L.A. city planner, a widower, and the father of both Charlie and Don Eppes. Alan lives in a historic two-story house (filmed at [https://www.google.com/maps/place/2515+4th+Ave,+Los+Angeles,+CA+90018/@34.034002,-118.3238247,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x80c2b869ec3fde99:0x627e93a3a95a80da 2525 4th Avenue]) furnished with period Arts and Crafts furniture.
* David Sinclair (Alimi Ballard) is an FBI field agent and was later made Don's second-in-command and promoted to supervisor.
* Terry Lake (Sabrina Lloyd) is a forensic psychologist and FBI agent.
* Prof. Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol) is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at CalSci. Charlie's former mentor and now best friend, he also frequently consults for the FBI.
* Prof. Amita Ramanujan (Navi Rawat) is a mathematician at CalSci and an FBI consultant. In season 2, she begins dating Charlie, to whom she is engaged and married in season 6. Charlie was her thesis advisor. Her name is a reference to influential autodidactic Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
* Megan Reeves (Diane Farr) is an FBI behavioral specialist. She was involved romantically with Larry Fleinhardt and left the FBI to counsel troubled young women.
* Colby Granger (Dylan Bruno) is an FBI field agent. Once thought to have betrayed his colleagues, he is now back in their good graces and confidence.
* Liz Warner (Aya Sumika) is an FBI agent, formerly involved with Agent Eppes.
* Nikki Betancourt (Sophina Brown) is an FBI agent with four years' experience in the LAPD and a law degree.

Temporary characters on the show were often named after famous mathematicians. For example, in the episode "In Plain Sight" (season 2, episode 8), one of the criminals is named Rolle and Charlie's father mentions a meeting with a man named Robert Peterson.

Episodes

Opening: (Voice-over by David Krumholtz) We all use math every day. To predict weather…to tell time…to handle money. Math is more than formulas and equations. It’s logic; it’s rationality. It’s using your mind to solve the biggest mysteries we know.

Season 1 (2005)

The first season run of the show aired between January 23, 2005, and May 13, 2005, at 10:00 p.m. on Fridays. It sees the start of the working relationship between Los Angeles' FBI field office and Charlie Eppes. The main FBI agents are Charlie's brother, Don Eppes, and Terry Lake, as well as David Sinclair. Don and Charlie's father, Alan Eppes, provides emotional support for the pair, while Professor Larry Fleinhardt and doctoral student Amita Ramanujan provide mathematical support and insights to Charlie. Season One was a half-season, producing only 13 episodes. Sabrina Lloyd played Terry Lake, an agent, in this season; she was later replaced by Diane Farr, who played Megan Reeves.

Season 2 (2005–06)

The second season run of the show aired between September 23, 2005, and May 19, 2006, again at 10:00 p.m. on Fridays. Season Two sees several changes to Don's FBI team: Terry Lake is reassigned to Washington and two new members join Don and David Sinclair: Megan Reeves and Colby Granger. Charlie is challenged on one of his long-standing pieces of mathematical work and also starts work on a new theory, Cognitive Emergence Theory. Larry sells his home and assumes a nomadic lifestyle, while he becomes romantically involved with Megan. Amita receives an offer for an assistant professor position at Harvard University, but is plagued by doubt as her relationship with Charlie is challenged and her career is in upheaval. Alan begins work and dating again, although he struggles with the loss of his wife, and both he and Charlie dream of her.

Season 3 (2006–07)

Numb3rs was renewed for a third season,  which began airing at 10:00 p.m. on Friday, September 22, 2006, and ended on May 18, 2007. Charlie and Amita intensify their relationship, as do Larry and Megan, especially after Megan's kidnapping. Amita has troubles adjusting in her new role as a CalSci professor, and Larry announces his leave of absence—he will be on the International Space Station for six months, which greatly distresses Charlie. Charlie and his colleagues are troubled by Dr. Mildred Finch, the newly appointed Chair of the CalSci Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy Division, whom they learn has begun dating Alan. Meanwhile, Don dates Agent Liz Warner and questions his ethics and self-worth, and receives counseling. Charlie sees Don's therapist and the two understand one another more. Despite Don's concerns, Alan engages in some FBI consulting with his knowledge of engineering, and Larry returns from the space station, disillusioned. The finale wraps up with a revelation that Colby was actually a double agent for the Chinese.

Noticeable changes from previous seasons include the removal of the opening credit sequence (credits are now done during the first segment of the show), the absence of Peter MacNicol's character for much of the season, and the absence of Diane Farr's character for a few episodes. Peter MacNicol appeared in the first eleven episodes before leaving for the television show 24, but returned to Numbers for the 21st episode of season 3 ("The Art of Reckoning"). His character's absence was written into the show by having him become a Payload Specialist on the International Space Station. Diane Farr, pregnant for most of the season, left the show for maternity leave in episode 18 ("Democracy"); her character's absence is explained as a special assignment to the Department of Justice.

Season 4 (2007–08)

The season premiere aired on September 28, 2007, in the same time slot as in previous seasons, 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time.  Because of the writer's strike, only 12 episodes were initially produced. However, once the strike ended, CBS announced the show's return April 4, 2008, with six episodes.  The season ended on May 16, 2008.

As this season starts, Colby Granger escapes from jail, and is revealed to be a triple agent. He then rejoins the team. Don and Liz break up halfway through this season, after Liz has trouble with Don's trust issues. Amita's parents come to visit, which becomes a secondary theme throughout most of the season. Due to her work at the D.O.J., Megan is conflicted by her work, and turns to Larry for help. Near the end of the season, Don's girlfriend from season 2, Robin Brooks, returns. Don and Robin then continue their relationship. Charlie attends FBI training camp because he has been working with Don for several years and wants to better understand what his brother does. In the season finale, Megan leaves the team to move back to Washington, D.C., and Charlie goes head-to-head with Don about a case. This causes Charlie to send information to scientists in Pakistan. He is subsequently arrested and has his security clearance revoked, so he can no longer help Don on cases. At the end of the episode, Don drives away to another case and Charlie admits that giving up FBI work will be harder than he expected.

Several characters from previous seasons did not appear in season 4, most notably Mildred Finch and Ian Edgerton.

Season 5 (2008–09)

The fifth season premiered on October 3, 2008, and the season finale aired on May 15, 2009. The season premiere was moved back one week to accommodate the 2008 presidential debates. 

Season five opens three weeks after "When Worlds Collide" (season four's season finale), with the government dropping the charges against Charlie. Charlie gets his security clearance back after he and Don fight FBI Security Officer Carl McGowan. Don begins to explore Judaism. The team adds new agent Nikki Betancourt, who arrives shortly after Megan Reeves' departure. Robin is offered a promotion but turns it down. Buck Winters (from the episodes, "Spree" and "Two Daughters") breaks out of prison and comes after Don. Alan suddenly finds himself coaching CalSci's basketball team. David becomes Don's primary relief supervisor. DARPA tries to recruit Charlie, but he turns down their offer. Toward the end of the season, Don is stabbed, and Charlie blames himself for it. The aftermath of Don's stabbing causes Charlie to focus more on his FBI consultation work. Amita is kidnapped, and the team races to find her. After she is rescued, Charlie proposes to Amita. Her response is left unidentified.

Notes about Season Five:
"Disturbed" marked the 100th episode of Numbers. 

Season 6 (2009–10)

The sixth and final season premiered Friday, September 25, 2009, at 10:00 p.m. EDT  and the season finale aired on March 12, 2010, 3 days before Hirsch's 75th birthday.

The season starts with the engagement of Charlie and Amita. Soon after, Larry turns down an opportunity to meet with mathematicians at CERN, in Geneva, and drops his course load for the following semester. This leads Charlie to realize Larry is once again leaving, and leaving all of his work to Charlie. Don learns that his former mentor is crooked, causing Don angst when he has to shoot his mentor. Charlie and Don learn that Alan has lost a substantial amount of money in his 401(k). After some delay, Larry leaves Los Angeles, only to find a vacant piece of land for sale within driving distance of the city. Alan decides to return to work and finds a job as a software technical consultant. David asks Don for advice about career paths within the FBI. Larry returns from the desert with a new theory about the universe's fate. Charlie and Amita begin planning their wedding and decide to join the Big Brother/Big Sister program to practice parenting skills. They get married before their move to England to teach at the University of Cambridge. Don loses his gun, recovers it after it is used in some vigilante murders, and gets engaged. He also decides to leave the team, taking an administrative position within the FBI. Before leaving, Charlie and Amita decide that the family garage should be converted to a guest house so Alan can continue living with them. Leaving Colby, Liz, and Nikki behind, David departs for Washington, D.C., to take a position as an anti-corruption team leader.

DVD releases

CBS DVD (Distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment) has released all six seasons of Numb3rs on DVD in Region 1. The first five seasons have been released in Regions 2 and 4.

Awards and nominations

Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton, the show's creators, have won several awards for the show, including the Carl Sagan Award for Public Understanding of Science in 2006,  and the National Science Board's Public Service Award in 2007.  Also, the show's stunt coordinator, Jim Vickers, was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Stunt Coordination in 2006 for episode 14 of Season 2, "Harvest". 

Representation of mathematics

Several mathematicians work as consultants for each episode.    Actual mathematics is presented in the show; the equations on the chalkboards are mathematically valid, and are somewhat applicable to the situations presented in each show. This mathematical validity and applicability of the equations has been asserted by professional mathematicians.  

However, "getting the math right and getting it to fit with the plot [were] not priorities for the NUMB3RS team", according to creator Cheryl Heuton. 

A book entitled The Numbers Behind NUMB3RS: Solving Crime with Mathematics (ISBN 0452288576; published August 28, 2007), written by Keith Devlin and Dr. Gary Lorden, a consultant to the show, explains some of the mathematical techniques that have been used both in actual FBI cases and in other law enforcement departments.  

Since the premiere season, the blog edited by Prof. Mark Bridger (Northeastern University) has explained the mathematics behind each episode of the show. 

Wolfram Research (the developers of Mathematica) is the chief math consultant, reviewing scripts and providing background mathematics for the show. Starting with season four, their website in collaboration with CBS is entitled "The math behind NUMB3RS". 

A mathematician consultant to the show has expressed concern with its use of mathematics, which is inserted after the script and written to provide plausible sounding jargon, rather than having consultants involved at all stages of story development. Another criticism include the show's portrayal of female mathematicians and inappropriate aspects of the relationship between Charlie Eppes and his graduate student Amita Ramanujan.

Production

The idea for Numbers was generated in the late 1990s when Nick Falacci and Cheryl Heuton, the show's creators, attended a lecture given by Bill Nye, a popular science educator.  The premise of the show is similar to that of author Colin Bruce's reimaginings of the Sherlock Holmes character,  and to the "Mathnet" segment on the children's television show Square One.

Gabriel Macht was originally cast to portray the character of Don Eppes.  Also, the original concept for the show had the events take place at Massachusetts Institute of Technology;  this was later changed to the fictional California Institute of Science, commonly called CalSci. Scenes which take place at CalSci are filmed at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Southern California. One of the most frequent campus locations at Caltech is the vicinity of Millikan Library, including the bridge over Millikan Pond, the Trustees room, and the arcades of nearby buildings. At USC, locations include Doheny Library and the Town and Gown dining room. Exteriors for the FBI offices are on the distinctive bridge at Los Angeles Center Studios. 

Another common location is the Craftsman home of the Eppes family. The house shown in the first season is real; it is owned by David Raposa and Edward Trosper,  although a replica set was used from the second season onwards. 

Title of the show

The show uses the number three in its title instead of the letter "e".  In interviews with Tom Jicha of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and with Alan Pergament of the The Buffalo News, Heuton mentioned that the use of the number three in the title derives from leet, a form of computer jargon that replaces letters with numbers.    Dr. Gary Lorden, a California Institute of Technology mathematics professor who served as the show's mathematics consultant, told NPR's Ira Flatow that it was created on a normal computer keyboard.  Lorden also mentioned that the use of the number three in the title can serve as a restriction in Internet searches about the series. 

Both entertainment reporters and psychologists noticed the title's spelling.  Some reporters, such as Joanne Ostrow of the Denver Post,  the staff members of People Magazine,  the editors of The Futon Critic,  the staff of the Scripps Howard News Service,  and Mike Hughes of USA Today  acknowledged the presence of the number three in the title.  Lynette Rice of Entertainment Weekly asked Krumholtz about the three in the title; his response was, "Isn't that annoying? I think it should be the mathematical symbol for sigma, which looks like an E. I've been fighting that for weeks."   (The sigma (∑) stands for summation. )  Others used varying adjectives to describe the title.  The TV site Zap2it.com called it "their typographical silliness, not ours".   Brad Aspey of The Muskegon Chronicle, stated, "No, that wasn’t an ugly typo you just read - “NUMB3ERS” (pronounced numbers) is the idiosyncratic title of filmmakers Ridley and Tony Scott’s astute and crafty psychological drama which shows that even math can make for edge-of-your-seat entertainment."   Ellen Gray of The Philadelphia Daily News, said, "Some of you may have noticed that in promoting "Numb3rs," which premieres Sunday before moving to its regular 10 p.m. Friday slot, CBS has chosen to put a 3 in place of the "e" in the title….I won't be going along with this particular affectation, which slows down my typing and seems to be the graphic equivalent of the reversed "R" in Toys R Us.  So there." 

Still others had a more positive view of the title.  When NPR's Flatow asked both Lorden and Dr. Keith Devlin, NPR's mathematics reporter, about the title, both men denied creating the title; Devlin believed that executive producer Tony Scott originated the title.  Lorden stated that he initially thought that the title was "kind of hokey" but later saw it as "brilliant" and a "catchy logo".  Jonathan Storm of The Philadelphia Inquirer, in his review of the series stated, "You'd think CBS's new Numbers, which premieres at 10 tonight after the Patriots-Steelers football game, is just another one of those shows with numskull titles trying to draw attention to themselves.  But the "3" substituting for the "e" is actually based on a real thing"….  He later said that the show was "written by people familiar with the Dead Cow Cult".   David Brooks of The Telegraph (Nashua, NH) devoted the majority of his entire review to the use of leet in the series title.   In addition, three psychologists, Manuel Perea, Jon Andoni Duñabeitia, and Manuel Carreiras mentioned the television series in their 2008 article for the American Psychological Association's Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 

American television ratings

Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Numb3rs on CBS. 

Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.
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