Tonight, Numb3rs finishes off its sixth season with episode 118, “Cause and Effect.” Will the show be back next season? A decision hasn’t been made yet but lots of people are betting that it will be cancelled.
Numb3rs follows FBI Agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) and his genius brother, Charlie (David Krumholtz), who helps the authorities solve cases with mathematics. The cast also features Judd Hirsch (as their father), Alimi Ballard, Dylan Bruno, Navi Rawat, Aya Sumika, and Peter MacNicol.
The series debuted in January 2005 and has long been a successful player for CBS on Friday nights. In season one, Numb3rs averaged a 3.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic and about 11.1 million viewers. They went up in season two, with an average of a 3.3 rating and 11.7 million viewers. Viewership has fallen since then however and last season, Numb3rs scored a 2.2 and 10.2 million.
This season, Numb3rs’ ratings have dropped further still — averaging a 1.8 rating and 8.26 million viewers each week. As a result of the decline in ratings, CBS (which is having a very good season) decided to cut back on the number of episodes and reduced their season order from 22 to 16 installments.
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The official reason for the decrease is that CBS had too much programming and needed space to try out new series. Next week, Numb3rs’ timeslot will be occupied by a new show, Miami Medical.
CBS has maintained that the fate of Numb3rs hasn’t been decided yet but, considering the series’ production costs and ratings, it seems fairly certain that the show is done.
In fact, ABC and FOX are betting on it. The networks have already cast Morrow and Krumholtz in new pilots.
Morrow will star in a dramatic pilot called The Whole Truth for ABC, opposite Joely Richardson. He’ll play a fiercely competitive and successful defense attorney who is close friends with his equally talented courtroom adversary (Richardson). Whole Truth is being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
Meanwhile, Krumholtz has been cast in a comedy pilot for FOX called Tax Man. The project’s being produced by Ron Howard and stars Krumholtz as an IRS Agent who’s trying to find nobility in his work. Judy Greer recently joined the cast.
If CBS does decide to bring Numb3rs back for another season, both Morrow and Krumholtz will be obligated to return. However, the other networks wouldn’t cast them in new pilots unless they felt it was a very strong possibility that Numb3rs would indeed be cancelled.
What do you think? Would you like to see Numb3rs return for a seventh season or is it time to say goodbye to the Eppes?
Image courtesy CBS.
Numb3rs is an intelligent, exciting and heartwarming soul which my family watches every Friday without fail, even the ones under 18 and over 49! Don’t cancel this quality show — there are so few out there!
I love numbers, if they bring it back they should cut back on Charle explaining everything with his math on the cases. I also thing they can do without Peter MacNicol, his whole character is boring and he annoys me at times. They should definitely bring Lou Diamond on a lot more., he is a great actor love his character as the sniper. Keep numbers on with a few changes.
I TOTALLY agree with the comments mentioned before pertaining to a certain ‘age bracket’! I think it is absolutely ludicrous to exclude any one who is over 49 years of age in your target group. After all, we are still tax paying citizens and so therefore an integral part of society and should definitely have a say in keeping a HIGH QUALITY show on such as NUMB3RS on CBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s nice to watch intelligent television shows. Why does CBS think that “CSI” has lasted for 10 years? And yes, Nicole and others, people 50 and over have lives and buy advertised products! If all of TV becomes reality TV (Survivor, American Idol, etc.), we’ll all unplug our cable like we’ve done w/landline phones! It won’t be worth it (especially in this economy)! We can get the news on our cell phones (and/or switch to watching TV episodes on Netflix). Or we can rent TV episodes from Family Video, etc. People used to gripe that society literally revolved around us… Read more »
You are right on! We need more intelligent TV, not the dumb reality shows….and if I hear CAKE one more time, I’ll gag…..or worse. Every show is exactly the same….Got a big fancy order, oooooh no… having problems, oooooh, we are running out of time,…..oh we got it fixed, ooooh we have to move it, etc etc ad nauseatum. Same script, different words. Talk about boring.
Charlie showed it was cool to be intelligent, how refreshing.
Keep it on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When Numb3rs debuted I was part of their target demographic. Over the last six years I have remained loyal to the show but have aged beyond their target audience. I am still loyal to the show and would like to see it continue but now they are telling me I no longer matter? I find it insulting to say to me, “Since you are over 49 we don’t care whether you watch or not. We are looking for a younger audience.” Why don’t you content yourself that you have a loyal audience and let it go at that?
Count me in as one who loves Numbers and is over 49. I love the interaction of the characters. Enough with the “reality” dreck.
Keep Numb3rs on!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please continue to show the series NUMBERS. It us the only show that I watch weekly and continue to watch the reruns daily.
Keep it on. It’s education and entertaining. Enough reality crap and teenage junk.
I love numb3rs! I just think they need to pick a better time slot for the show. Friday night is a difficult night because people are out and about doing things. They have kids and Friday night for most these days is going out and having fun night.
I TOTALLY agree with Denise, all t he shows are geared to the young kids anymore, and us “over 55” people are stuck with reruns of things we used to love and can’t get anymore. Ticks me off BigTime!! Don’t Cancel Numbers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Like this means a thing to CBS)
i completely agree denise. i love numbers as well. all of my kids set their dvrs to record shows and then watch w/o commercials. so do all of their friends. the only time they watch commercials is during superbowl. they take off a lot of great shows because they play to a limited age group.
I love numbers leave it on
Why is the big determining factor for keeping a show how it performs for the 18-49 group? Do you think that we seniors don’t buy what you are advertising? We probably watch the ads and buy more from those ads than the younger group that TIVO’s or DVR’s the shows so they can speed through the ads without even watching them. I love Numbers and so do all my friends (we are all over 55 yr.). We are sick of seeing all the shows geared just for the younger set.
I suspect a major part of the problem causing “Numb3rs”, “Law and Order”, “Better Off Ted” and others I consider well written and intelligent shows is that the rating services don’t know what they are doing and do not survey or otherwise have in their tally people who watch only a few shows each week. These people probably are not offered or would accept TV monitoring and would not respond to surveys—paper or online—since there are so few shows they could even comment on. Also they may not want to pay the outlandish cable fees so any monitoring of cable… Read more »