Numb3rs

Season 3

Spree

1. Originally conceived as a single episode, the story was expanded into two parts with the following episode (Numb3rs: Two Daughters (2006)). This is the first multi-part story in the series, and marks the beginning of a much more serial, arc-driven format for the show.
2. This episode marks the first time in the series that a story is told from the suspect's point of view.
3. Third appearance of Lou Diamond Phillips as Special Agent Ian Edgerton.

Two Daughters

1. Originally conceived as a single episode, the story was expanded into two parts with the previous episode (Numb3rs: Spree (2006)). This is the first multi-part story in the series, and marks the beginning of a much more serial, arc-driven format for the show.
2. The license number on the van is 3PC1296 and the LAPD case number is 19376.

Provenance

1. The song played during the closing scene, "Hallelujah," was written by Jewish artist Leonard Cohen.
2. Agent Tollner mentions "a woman who got several Klimt paintings back from an Austrian national museum" in comparison to Mrs. Hellman and others like her. This is likely a reference to Maria Altmann, possibly the most well-known story of actual recovery of Nazi-looted possessions; her story was told in the movie "Woman in Gold," named for the portrait of her aunt Adele Bloch-Bauer that was called The Woman in Gold or The Lady in Gold after it was stolen from the family. As of 2019, it is currently housed in the Neue Galerie New York under the title Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I.

The Mole

1. At the end of the story, Larry and Charlie are playing with a Gordian's Knot Brain Teaser toy.

Traffic

Longshot

Blackout

1. At episode's end, Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz) is going to the kitchen to make some popcorn for his brother, Don (Rob Morrow), and father, Alan (Judd Hirsch), who are seated in front of the TV about to watch some 'classics'. As the scene fades to credits, the music heard is "Angela", the theme song from the show Taxi (1978); "father and son" are settling in to watch an episode of the show in which Judd Hirsch was one of the stars.

Hardball

1. While canvassing an Asian-urban-pedestrian-friendly area of town in their search for a suspect, Colby (Dylan Bruno) and David (Alimi Ballard) talk about a sci-fi film directed by Ridley Scott and co-starring Darryl Hanah, and wonder if their surroundings might prove that the film correctly predicted the future. The film they're referring to is Blade Runner (1982); Scott is also a co-executive-producer of "Numb3rs".

Waste Not

1. This episode introduces Dr. Millie Finch (Kathy Najimy). The character was introduced to help fill the void left later in the season when Larry (Peter MacNicol) spends several months on the International Space Station, then retreats to a monastery (in real life, MacNicol was playing a recurring character on the 6th season of 24 (2001)). Najimy was reluctant to commit to a TV role, but was persuaded by the quality of the show's writing. Nevertheless, her role only lasted 9 episodes; the character is mentioned in later seasons, but never appears.

Brutus

Killer Chat

1. Larry's cell phone ringtone is the "communicator" sound-effect from Star Trek (1966).
2. The plot device of Larry being selected to go into space was conceived as a way of explaining his character's absence while actor Peter MacNicol was busy with a role on the sixth season of 24 (2001). His character later returns to Earth and reappears for one episode (Numb3rs: The Art of Reckoning (2007)), then retreats to a monastery and is absent for the rest of the season.

Nine Wives

1. The brief scene in which Abner Stone kills a police officer who has pulled over his SUV was shot on a stretch of road that was also due to be used the same night by a crew from the TV show Big Love (2006), but "Big Love" canceled their shoot because the weather was unusually cold for Southern California that evening. Both this episode of Numb3rs (2005) and the series "Big Love" feature Anne Dudek playing a member of a fundamentalist polygamous cult.
2. The surname "Kirtland" figures prominently in the polygamist cult depicted. This is an inside reference to Kirtland, Ohio, where a Latter-day Saint community once thrived under Joseph Smith, to whom polygamist groups as well as mainstream Mormons trace their origins.
3. Guest star Teri Polo previously appeared as one of the characters introduced in the final season of Northern Exposure (1990), to help fill the void left as star Rob Morrow was being phased out due to contract disputes.
4. This episode is carefully written to avoid any direct references to Mormons or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. However, the subject of polygamy and numerous oblique references in dialogue make it clear that the Stone cult is intended to be derived from Mormonism.
5. Teri Polo and Joshua Malina both starred in The West Wing (1999). Julie Hébert, who wrote and directed this episode, also directed several episodes of "The West Wing".

Finders Keepers

Take Out

1. The restaurant where Don and his team is waiting for one of the robber teams is called "Three14" which is a reference to Pi usually shortened to 3.14
2. The numbers for this episode are "3 Course meal 1 Restaurant 4 Robbers 1592 Death Squad Murders." The first six digits of pi are 3.141592.
3. Pi is referenced at least twice, which has the approximate value of 3.14, the number of the episode itself: A. When Charlie meets Mildred in the garden, she's reading a book called "Life of Pi". B. When Charlie explains his idea using the refrigerator example, he counts various kinds of foods, and end his list with a pie (a homophone of Pi).
4. Pi is a number closely associated with circles--though as Charlie said in a previous episode, it also shows up in other places seemingly at random--and for many centuries mathematicians struggled to accurately calculate its digits. Some of the earliest advancements, after Archimedes, in approximating pi were achieved (separately) by Chinese and Indian mathematicians in the fifth century. The menus Charlie pulls out of his drawer when evaluating past targets to predict future targets are for an Indian restaurant, a pizza restaurant called "Pie Oh My!," and a Chinese/Mandarin restaurant; both the Indian and Chinese menus feature a circle prominently in their cover design. Additionally, it is pizza (sometimes referred to as "pie") that Millie brings to the Eppes house for dinner.
5. If one wanted to make the connection, the "circle circle tangent" joke Charlie mentions telling "the senator" at the fundraiser could be considered yet another reference to pi, both in the reference to circles, to which pi is closely associated, and even more loosely in a common fractional approximate to pi (22/7) which bears a passing resemblance to the 007 formula on which the joke is based.
6. The number three is recurring in this episode: three survivors of the village massacre, three deaths during the robberies (two police officers and a valet), three members of the Eppes family, three robbers captured at the restaurant. If rounded to a single digit, pi would be three.

End of Watch

Contenders

One Hour

1. The plot and structure of this episode came about when the the showrunners needed to account for two unusual cast requirements: 1) Rob Morrow needed to work an abbreviated schedule on the episode because he had to leave to shoot a movie, and 2) Diane Farr was by that time very visibly pregnant and due to go into labor at any time, so her un-pregnant character needed to be able to sit the whole time and disguise her midriff with desks, computers, and other obstacles. The time frame of the plot was designed to be a short-enough period so that it wouldn't seem unnatural for Don (Rob Morrow) to be incommunicado or Megan (Diane Farr) to be seated.
2. Che Lobo is under investigation for a number of cases, and is tagged as 18th Street Mexicali, a gang also involved in s03e15 "End Of Watch".

Democracy

1. At the beginning of the season, Diane Farr (Megan Reeves) had informed the producers that she was pregnant, and as the season progressed, her character was increasingly relegated to office duties, where her pregnant belly could be hidden behind desks, folders, etc.(even so, in some shots it is noticeable). At the time of filming this episode, she had reached full term, and an obstetrician and a midwife from Florida were on set in case she went into labor on set. While filming, Farr had early contractions but insisted on working. The producers and writers rushed to alter the script and rearrange the shooting schedule so that that day could be Farr's last day on set. She delivered her baby before the episode wrapped. Her character, written to be on special assignment in Washington, is absent until the season finale (Numb3rs: The Janus List (2007)), although Farr is still credited in every episode.
2. Charlie is not quite correct when he says that 12345 is the ZIP code for Schenectady, NY. It is actually the ZIP code used exclusively by the General Electric plant, located in Schenectady, NY, not for the city itself. Side note - because 12345 is such an easy and obvious ZIP code, GE processes THOUSANDS of pieces of mail each year that are made out to "people" such as Mickey Mouse, Humpty Dumpty, etc. In addition, people using various dating apps and the like will often use it as a fake ZIP code, resulting in the appearance that Schenectady has over a million residents when, in fact, the population is somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000.
3. "Democracy" marked the return of Jay Baruchel as Oswald Kittner. Originally a one-time role, executive producer Cheryl Heuton arranged for him to return due to fan response after his previous appearance (Numb3rs: Hardball (2006)).
4. Diane Farr (Megan) and William Sadler (Tuttle) previously starred together in "Roswell." Their characters in that show were romantically involved.

Pandora's Box

1. This is the first episode since the character "Agent Megan Reeves"s introduction that actress Diane Farr is absent from the team, purportedly serving on special assignment with the Dept. of Justice. In reality the actress temporarily left the show to give birth to her first child, son Beckett, who was born in March 2007.

Burn Rate

The Art of Reckoning

1. This episode marks the final on-screen appearance of Kathy Najimy as Dr. Millie Finch. She is mentioned in later seasons, but never seen.
2. Larry (Peter MacNicol) returns to Earth in this episode, but only as a minor character, then retreats to a monastery and is absent for the rest of the season. Larry's absence (in space, then the monastery) is due to a scheduling conflict while MacNicol had a recurring role in the 6th season of 24 (2001).

Under Pressure

1. The use of stadium flip-cards as an analogy for a terrorist cell also refers to something now known as Great Rose Bowl Hoax. In the 1961 Rose Bowl game the Washington State Huskies played the Minnesota Golden Gophers; a halftime card display by Washington was supposed to end by spelling out "Huskies" and "Washington" and an American flag. A group of Caltech students substituted an altered set of instructions before the game, with the end result that the word "HUSKIES" was spelled backwards, and the next display spelled out "CALTECH" (the final image of the flag never showed). This image was broadcast to an estimated 30,000,000 TV sets across the country, ensuring its notoriety. Caltech is the inspiration (and frequent film location) for the California Institute of Science of Numb3rs.

Money for Nothing

The Janus List

1. The Taylor Ashby character's life story and specifics of death were inspired by the life and death of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko had been a high-level officer in the KGB and the Russian Federal Security Service, but in 2006, after whistle-blowing and claiming that the Russian government and secret service had been responsible for terrorist bombings that helped Vladimir Putin's election, Litvinenko became gravely ill. It was discovered that he had been poisoned with a rare and highly radioactive isotope of an element called polonium (210). From his deathbed, Litvinenko continued to speak out against the corruption he saw in the Russian government and even accused Putin himself of being behind the poisoning. He died from radiation poisoning on November 23, 2006.
2. For some reason, when Dave Sinclair visits the federal prison (around 30 minutes into the episode), an American flag with only 48 stars is displayed.