Pilot (Numb3rs)
| "Pilot" | |
|---|---|
| Numb3rs episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 1 |
| Directed by | Mick Jackson |
| Written by | Cheryl Heuton, Nicolas Falacci |
| Featured music | "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads |
| Production code | 001 |
| Original air date | January 23, 2005 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
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"Pilot" is the first episode of the American television show Numb3rs. Based on a real-life serial rape case, "Pilot" features two brothers, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and a mathematics professor at a Southern California university, using their individual skills to capture a serial rapist who has begun to kill his victims. "Pilot" also introduces the theme of mathematics being used to solve crimes.
Written by series creators Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci, the episode was filmed twice, once in Boston, Massachusetts and once in Los Angeles, California, with two different casts using two somewhat different scripts. The test audience could not believe that the three men who portrayed the family could be related to each other, so the producers made cast changes to the family. They also made several changes to the rest of the cast to accommodate the changes in the script. Heuton and Falacci changed the script to focus on the brothers' relationship with each other. When filming finished, CBS picked up the episode and the series three weeks later.
"Pilot" first aired in the United States on January 23, 2005. The episode received mixed reviews. Mathematicians and students at California Institute of Technology enjoyed the episode and were impressed with the mathematics in it. In contrast, television critics felt as though the episode's plot about a serial rapist was unoriginal, although one critic called the math boring.
FBI Special Agents Don Eppes (Rob Morrow), Terry Lake (Sabrina Lloyd) and David Sinclair (Alimi Ballard) investigate a serial rapist who has begun killing his victims. With the twelfth victim, Karen Silber (Kate Norby), changing her story again and the thirteenth victim's car missing, Don runs out of viable leads. Taking a map and a case file with him, Don goes to his childhood home, owned by his father Alan Eppes (Judd Hirsch), to take a shower. Don's younger brother, Dr. Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz) of CalSci's mathematics department, finds and studies the map which Don lays on the dining room table. As Don prepares to return to the office, Charlie tries to talk Don into letting him help with the investigation and is inspired by the pattern of drops emanating from the family's sprinkler. He tells Don that he can use a mathematical model to find the neighborhood where the rapist resides. Skeptical, Don agrees to let Charlie assist him in the investigation.
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