TVSquad

(S03E07) Every week the previews for this show make the next installment sound like the most amazing hour of television ever conceived. That's never the case. Numb3rs is a lot like Criminal Minds. Neither show is great, but they're both good -- consistently.

This particular installment was well above par for Numb3rs. In fact, it was a pretty damn good episode and it had just about everything you could ask for from this show: romance, a great story, and it tied into a previous case which in my mind adds instant brownie points. I don't know, I just like it when they do that. To me, it makes more sense when a certain case will span a few episodes rather than the team stumbling onto something new each week. That makes sense right?

So as I said, this episode tied into a previous case. Last week's horse-racing case to be exact. The guy behind it all, Ivan Tabakian played a big role here. Since Tabakian was around, that meant Special Agent Liz Warner was too. Now if you recall, there was some flirtation between her and Don last week and it came to fruition in this episode during the opening scene. Kissing, clothes flying in all directions. We've never seen Don do anything with a woman before... weird.

It's about time though. Everyone kept talking to him about "Robin this" and "Robin that." It got annoying, and even more so because we haven't seen Robin since last season. Thank god she broke up with him (found that out) because if they kept dropping her name and she never guest-starred again? I dunno, that was just bugging me. I hope it works out for him and Liz now though.

On to the case. Power sub-stations all around the city have been sabotaged over the span of a week or so now and the one thing they all had in common? The overlapping area they supplied power to. That area contained a Federal detention holding facility which just so happened to contain a one Ivan Tabakian. He recently flipped and Liz was transporting him to a safe house. Here was the plan if you missed it though... well thought out. Over the span of three nights, the sub-stations were hit. Each night, the detention center had to switch to it's auxiliary diesel powered back-up generators. By day three, they needed more diesel and the men sent to kill Ivan (to keep him quiet) infiltrated the prison posing as the fuel delivery men.

Of course, Charlie and Larry's math had them making this conclusion (it was a break-in, not a break-out) days beforehand. But Don and the team finally caught on and saved Liz and Ivan.

You know one thing I've noticed over the past few episodes? Colby has become increasingly vocal about the relationship between Megan and Larry. Sounds like somebody's a bit jealous. I don't blame him. I've had a weird crush on Diane Farr ever since she was in season two of Rescue Me. Something about her holding that yellow hat, covered in soot... ahem, moving on.

The only other thing that I wanted to comment on were some of the topics that Numb3rs has been focusing on lately. It seems like they've been applying the math to some obvious topics recently. Horse racing last week and baseball stats in next week's episode according to the preview. One of the things I loved about this episode was the fact that it was a regular case and the math came naturally. It feels a little set-up when the topic is something that so readily lends itself to be mathematically analyzed, you know? Although, I suppose anything has the potential to be mathematically analyzed... so I guess it's a moot point.