TVSquad

(S02E11)

As a change of pace, I asked TV know-it-all Paul Goebel to write a rebuttal to today's review. Goebel is an actor and comedian who appeared as the "TV Geek" on the short-lived Comedy Central quiz show Beat the Geeks and has appeared on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ally McBeal, Will and Grace and other shows. He currently hosts a show at the UCB Theater in Los Angeles, and does a weekly podcast with his pal Jim Bruce called "The Paul Goebel Show." If you like TV, you should check it out. His response is after my review.

Ever since Linda Lavin helmed the CBS Schoolbreak Special "Flour Babies" in 1990, the idea of students being assigned fake babies has been spoofed numerous times. The winner for best spoof goes to the Strangers with Candy episode "A Burden's Burden" in which Jerri and her classmates are assigned actually babies. There's also the South Park episode "Follow That Egg" that manages to tackle both gay marriage and child custody battles when the kids are given eggs and told to treat them like real babies.

(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?