Numb3rs

Sunday 4 April 2010 at 6.00pm on Five USA

Continuing this week is the sixth series of the intriguing crime drama. In this episode, the FBI searches for a missing batch of guns with a dangerous design fault that makes them more deadly than normal. As the body count rises, Charlie fails to translate his theories into reality, and David struggles to comprehend the killings. Meanwhile, the Eppes brothers have trouble with their romantic commitments.

An innocent man is killed when a stray bullet passes through the outer wall of his home. The FBI establishes that the gun was fired from a warehouse several blocks away, and the fingerprints match those of one Arvin Lindell. As the agents search the warehouse, their suspect pulls up in a truck and opens fire with an incredibly powerful weapon. The agents duck behind their vehicle, but the bullets pass straight through the car. “What the hell is that thing?” asks a bewildered Colby.

After escaping back to base, the agents rush to identify the weapon. “You should have seen the way he came at us,” Liz tells Don. “He was standing in the street like he was invincible!” “With that much firepower in his hand, he pretty much was,” adds David. The team discovers that the gun is one of 5,000 new weapons that were due to be shipped to Saudi Arabia. However, the entire shipment mysteriously vanished.

David and Colby visit local arms dealer Randall Priest, who was named on the original weapons order. David is riled when Randall, who clearly knows who is hiding the guns, refuses to co-operate unless he can strike a deal with the agents. Randall remains cool when David questions the ethics of his profession. “Killing is human nature,” he says. “That’s why we keep on getting better and better at it.”

His demands met, Randall reveals that Arvin is a former docks worker with a sideline in hiding illegal arms imports. Charlie hopes to locate the shipping containers in which the guns are hidden by identifying their pattern of movement through the port. However, things change when Charlie’s colleague Otto spots a diagram of the gun on the wall and tells them it could never function properly in real life. Liz and Charlie initially dismiss his claim, but when Arvin is found dead from injuries consistent with his weapon exploding, the agents begin to give Otto’s theory credence. Otto reveals that the barrel wall is so thin that the gun would inevitably explode after firing more than one magazine. As the hunt for the deadly weapons intensifies, it transpires that Charlie’s method for finding the guns has failed.

Meanwhile, a drive-by shooting in downtown LA kills and injures scores of innocent bystanders. The agents realise that the weapon they are hunting is involved when it transpires that most of the victims were hurt or killed on blocks surrounding the target house. “The round came right through this house, slicing through the whole damn neighbourhood,” David says. Pushed to the limits by the latest incident, the agents seek to make Randall – their only potential source of help – see the error of his ways and lead them to the deadly weapons.

Elsewhere this week, Charlie and Amita find that even mathematical equations cannot help them fix a suitable wedding date. Meanwhile, Don is forced to re-evaluate his relationship with Robin after she turns down his marriage proposal.

Sunday 28 March 2010 at 6.00pm

Continuing this week is the sixth series of the intriguing crime drama. In this episode, the agents investigate a series of gunpoint robberies of lottery scratchcards. Charlie meets a kindred spirit when the lottery organisers send over one of their own agents to help solve the mystery, but is her ditzy maths genius act all a front?

The agents are called in when a convenience store owner shoots a robber dead during a botched holdup in which the armed assailants demanded nothing but one type of scratchcard. It soon emerges that the dead man, Wayne Peterson, was a lottery jackpot winner with a clean record. With the gang linked to the theft of no fewer than 10,000 tickets across the state, the lottery organisers send in their own agent, Nancy Hackett.

Like Charlie, Hackett is a numbers-obsessed maths genius. Feeding off each other’s enthusiasm, the duo swap theories but quickly reach an impasse. Meanwhile, Agents Betancourt and Warner visit a lottery support group led by multimillion-dollar winner Scott Wilson, and attended by Peterson before his death. Wilson refers the agents to the dead man’s financial adviser, Sara Lewis, who reveals that he frittered away his money within weeks of winning.

The LAPD eventually locates the van used in the robberies, with all but seven of the 10,000 missing tickets stashed inside. Yet the agents are still baffled as to why anyone would commit a heist with such high risks and low rewards. “Who pulls nine robberies for seven tickets worth less than $4,200?” Sinclair asks, incredulously.

Meanwhile, Charlie’s father, Alan, finds an old list detailing his life’s ambitions. Determined to finally tick off everything on the list, he buys a set of scratchcards, hoping a win could fund his dream. As Charlie watches his father, he realises that the robbers scratched off the panel hiding the serial number on each ticket. Charlie concludes that the gang were seeking the information on the winning tickets rather than the cash prizes. Working together, Charlie and Hackett realise that the robbers’ aim was to crack the code linking the serial number to the value of the card –which would eventually help them locate the big-money tickets.

Just as Charlie’s theory comes together, the agents are alerted to a person attempting to cash in one of the missing tickets. At the scene, Betancourt and Warner apprehend the suspect. Warner pulls back the suspect’s hood to reveal he is none other than Zack, the wisecracking teenage son of support group leader Scott Wilson. In his pocket are the seven missing scratchcards. “Did your dad withhold a few thousand from your allowance this week?” Betancourt asks, prompting the teenager to make an unforeseen disclosure about his father’s fortune.

Meanwhile, lottery executive Boyd Keene reveals that computer records show Nancy Hackett had been accessing information about the location of each robbery before it had even taken place. The agents are convinced that the gang was led by Hackett, who did the number-crunching while bankrupt members of the lottery support group did the dirty work. Charlie’s gut feeling is that the agents are barking up the wrong tree, but once again Alan’s list helps reveal the truth.

Wednesday 31 March 2010 at 11.00pm

Continuing this week is the sixth series of the intriguing crime drama. In this episode, the FBI searches for a missing batch of guns with a dangerous design fault that makes them more deadly than normal. As the body count rises, Charlie fails to translate his theories into reality, and David struggles to comprehend the killings. Meanwhile, the Eppes brothers have trouble with their romantic commitments.

An innocent man is killed when a stray bullet passes through the outer wall of his home. The FBI establishes that the gun was fired from a warehouse several blocks away, and the fingerprints match those of one Arvin Lindell. As the agents search the warehouse, their suspect pulls up in a truck and opens fire with an incredibly powerful weapon. The agents duck behind their vehicle, but the bullets pass straight through the car. “What the hell is that thing?” asks a bewildered Colby.

After escaping back to base, the agents rush to identify the weapon. “You should have seen the way he came at us,” Liz tells Don. “He was standing in the street like he was invincible!” “With that much firepower in his hand, he pretty much was,” adds David. The team discovers that the gun is one of 5,000 new weapons that were due to be shipped to Saudi Arabia. However, the entire shipment mysteriously vanished.

David and Colby visit local arms dealer Randall Priest, who was named on the original weapons order. David is riled when Randall, who clearly knows who is hiding the guns, refuses to co-operate unless he can strike a deal with the agents. Randall remains cool when David questions the ethics of his profession. “Killing is human nature,” he says. “That’s why we keep on getting better and better at it.”

His demands met, Randall reveals that Arvin is a former docks worker with a sideline in hiding illegal arms imports. Charlie hopes to locate the shipping containers in which the guns are hidden by identifying their pattern of movement through the port. However, things change when Charlie’s colleague Otto spots a diagram of the gun on the wall and tells them it could never function properly in real life. Liz and Charlie initially dismiss his claim, but when Arvin is found dead from injuries consistent with his weapon exploding, the agents begin to give Otto’s theory credence. Otto reveals that the barrel wall is so thin that the gun would inevitably explode after firing more than one magazine. As the hunt for the deadly weapons intensifies, it transpires that Charlie’s method for finding the guns has failed.

Meanwhile, a drive-by shooting in downtown LA kills and injures scores of innocent bystanders. The agents realise that the weapon they are hunting is involved when it transpires that most of the victims were hurt or killed on blocks surrounding the target house. “The round came right through this house, slicing through the whole damn neighbourhood,” David says. Pushed to the limits by the latest incident, the agents seek to make Randall – their only potential source of help – see the error of his ways and lead them to the deadly weapons.

Elsewhere this week, Charlie and Amita find that even mathematical equations cannot help them fix a suitable wedding date. Meanwhile, Don is forced to re-evaluate his relationship with Robin after she turns down his marriage proposal.

Wednesday 17th February 10.00pm

Continuing this week is the sixth season of the explosive crime drama. In this instalment, the agents investigate a mysterious death at a decommissioned military airbase. Elsewhere, Alan welcomes Amita into the Eppes family.

The agents are called to the decommissioned Goathart airbase when a woman is killed by a bolt of electricity. The team is surprised when a man named Floyd Mayborne appears on the scene, claiming to be from ‘Department 44’ in the Pentagon. Mayborne insists he is not allowed to describe the current responsibilities of the department. “Then why are you here?” David asks. “This incident involves military property,” Mayborne replies.

Back at FBI headquarters, the leader of a group tracking the existence of UFOs shows Colby and Nikki footage he recorded of the incident. In it the victim is struck by a strange shaft of blue light. “This is the first confirmed observation of alien weapon technology!” he shouts. “Everything you know is wrong!” Elsewhere, the medical examiner is unable to identify the victim, but confirms that the cause of death is coronary arrest. The burns on the body indicate contact with a high-energy source.

Meanwhile, Charlie, Amita and the university’s plasma physics expert, Otto Bahnhoff, consider the possibility that the victim was hit by a ball of lightning. Otto is extremely excited by the possibility that somebody at the base has come up with a way of aiming lightning at a source. “The important thing here is that one of these things killed someone,” Charlie reminds him.

Colby, David and Nikki stake out the base in the hope of seeing another incident. They spot a van in the area and are shocked when the vehicle is struck by another stream of blue lightning! Don arrives and learns that there were three men in the van and they are horribly burned. “It’s going to take some time to figure out what’s flesh and what’s clothes,” he says. Charlie examines the vehicle and notes that it contains a number of hi-tech instruments. “It looks like diagnostic equipment.

It’s very sophisticated and expensive,” he says. The agents discover that all of the victims had ID on them from a company called Neox Industries, and guess that the first victim also worked for the company. “I wonder why they haven’t reported four missing employees,” Nikki says. “I can’t wait to ask them,” David replies. The pair interview the head of Neox, Darren Drew, but he claims he did not even know the men were working that night.

He also insists he cannot give the team any more information about the top-secret project. “I signed a confidentiality agreement with the government,” he claims.

Nikki comes up with a possible ID for the first victim – one Cynthia Abbott, the project’s lead scientist. She interviews Cynthia’s boyfriend, who reveals that her work was classified. “She didn’t talk about it but it involved her speciality – plasma physics,” he says. Amita then examines Cynthia’s laptop and learns that a new form of aircraft, containing high-energy weaponry, was being tested at Goathart…

Charlie and Amita visit the base again and find a dead sheep and a series of targeting coordinates. “The likely explanation is that it was killed by the high-energy weapon,” Charlie says. When they spot the wreckage of a small light aircraft they realise they have the murder weapon – but they are still no closer to understanding why the scientists were hit. How did their experiments go so disastrously wrong?

Elsewhere, Amita is touched when Alan gives her a gold necklace that belonged to his wife. “We never had a daughter, so Margaret wanted me to give it to our daughter-in-law,” he tells her. It seems Amita has finally become part of the Eppes family.

Wednesday 10th February 10.00pm

Continuing this week is the sixth season of the explosive crime drama. In this instalment, the kidnapping of a young girl becomes more complicated when the agents learn she could be the first human clone. ‘Arrested Development’ star Tony Hale guest stars as genetics professor Russell Lazlo.

The agents begin a desperate hunt for five-yearold CJ Bramon after she is abducted by her birth mother, Anne Flynn. “That woman is crazy and dangerous and she has my little girl!” her father cries. By tracking the ‘acoustic signature’ of the kidnapper’s vehicle – the specific sound made by an engine – Charlie and Amita trace Anne’s SUV. However, when Liz and Colby arrive at her house, she and CJ have already gone.

Back at FBI headquarters, Don is surprised to learn that CJ’s father, Dr Trey Bramon, has left the office. Don and David then find Bramon in his car, surrounded by a group of heavies. The group’s leader, Jeremiah Miller, explains that Bramon works for a pharmaceutical company called Leemans, which is paying his team to find CJ. “The company just wants to make sure he doesn’t lose it completely and start leaking information,” he says. “You’re a rent-a-cop for a pharmaceutical company – how much kidnap-recovery experience do you have?” David asks.

While searching Anne’s house, Liz and Colby come across a bloodstained T-shirt. Elsewhere, David interviews Anne’s lawyer, Carla Reed. “I can tell you without hesitation that I would never have taken Anne’s case if I thought she was insane,” she snaps. David is stunned when Reed goes on to explain that Flynn was used as a surrogate for CJ – Bramon has no genetic connection to his child whatsoever. “You’re being played,” she says.

Colby tests the blood on the T-shirt recovered from Anne’s house and gets a match to Jordan Smith, a former research assistant at Leemans. When the agents examine photographs of Smith as a child, they prove to be identical to snaps of CJ. Amita then learns that Smith did not have a science background and was training as a personal chef. She appears to have been employed mainly because of her flawless genetic code. “Smith’s DNA, as far as we can tell, is almost perfect,” Amita says. “CJ is her clone,” Charlie adds.

Charlie visits genetics professor Russell Lazlo (Tony Hale, ‘Arrested Development’) to try and determine if the cloning theory is correct. Meanwhile, Don leans on Bramon –who is forced to admit that CJ is indeed a clone. “We’re sitting on a powder keg here,” Miller admits. “The government may not have sanctioned this but they sure as hell don’t want it getting out.”

Amita learns that Bramon spends up to 100 hours a week in his lab carrying out experiments on CJ. “It explains why she’s not smiling in any of the photos we have of her,” Amita remarks. David visits Reed again and persuades her to give him Anne and CJ’s whereabouts. However, when Liz and Colby finally catch up with Anne, she is alone and gazing over the edge of a cliff. “They’ll never get her now,” she says, ominously.

Bramon is furious when he learns of CJ’s demise. “Ten years of research and work just gone,” he fumes. “I don’t cry when I toss out a petri dish, but the years are gone forever.” However, Liz refuses to believe that Anne killed her own child and asks to interview her. She opens up about her own experiences of losing a baby in the hope that Anne will tell her where CJ is. Can the agents find the little girl before Miller, and prevent her from spending the rest of her life in a laboratory?

Sunday 7th February 7.00pm

Continuing this week is the sixth season of the explosive crime drama. In this instalment, a movie producer’s mummified body is found in the desert. The investigation leads the agents into a complex case of art imitating life…

A young couple on a scavenger hunt in the desert are horrified when they come across a corpse in a sealed container. The victim has been stabbed, shot in the head and encased in a white substance that has mummified the body. Colby arrives on the scene and a detective tells him that the body was wrapped in a form of desiccant.

Elsewhere, Liz asks Amita and Charlie to examine a pirate DVD of a recently released movie, ‘Bixel Street’, and see if they can trace the bootleggers. As the two watch the footage, Colby arrives to tell Don about the case in the desert. The agents are stunned when they realise the murder has been based on a scene from the film. “This is exactly it!” Colby exclaims.

Charlie explains that every desiccant has its own level of absorption, and gets to work to determine a time frame for when the victim was killed. Colby and David visit the studio that produced the movie and meet the executive, Carolyn White. “What kind of sick mind came up with this?” Colby asks. Carolyn introduces the pair to the writer, Chris McNall, who arrogantly informs them that the movie is the hottest release of the year.

The victim is identified as movie producer Brent Fuller. When Colby checks the cast list and discovers that props advisor Victor Stokes worked on three of Fuller’s movies, the agents decide to pay him a visit. Stokes reveals that Fuller planned to make ‘Bixel Street’ but headed off to Asia nine months ago to shoot another film. Back at FBI headquarters, the team tries to make sense of the situation. “The guy is supposed to produce the movie, then he ends up in a scene stolen from the movie,” Liz remarks.

Charlie then discovers that Fuller’s body would have had to be packed into the desiccant around nine months ago –meaning he was killed before the movie was made. The agents revisit McNall. “The murder happened before you wrote your script, Chris,” Liz tells him. “Either you committed it or you know who did.” However, with no further evidence the team cannot arrest him.

In search of further clues, David and Colby visit Fuller’s house and find that his assistant, Tyler, has moved in to the property. Tyler searches through Fuller’s lunch receipts and finds a bill linking McNall to Fuller and a third person named ‘DW’. Colby examines McNall’s bank details and discovers that he withdrew $120,000 nine months ago and made payments to both Fuller and another producer named Deborah Westbourne – the mysterious ‘DW’.

When Liz and David go to Deborah’s house, they are shocked to discover that she has been killed and strung up in another murder copied from ‘Bixel Street’. “He is taunting us,” Liz sighs. The agents examine the previous films made by Westbourne, Fuller and McNall and learn that they were all lowbudget B-movies. Liz guesses that when McNall received interest from big-time producer Carolyn White, he tried to pay off Fuller and Westbourne – and when that did not work, he killed them.

However, Charlie questions Liz’s theory when he examines a scriptwriting program used by McNall and deduces that ‘Bixel Street’ differs vastly from his other projects. “You think Chris McNall didn’t even write ‘Bixel Street’?” Larry asks. But if McNall is not responsible for the script – or the murders – then who is?

Wednesday 3rd February 9.00pm

Continuing this week is the sixth season of the explosive crime drama. In this instalment, a number of apparent suicides are linked to a sinister game of Russian roulette. Can the agents put a stop to the sick practice?

The agents are called to the latest in a string of ‘suicides’ in abandoned buildings. Each of the three victims appear to have shot themselves in the head voluntarily. “It’s got to be some sort of cult thing, right?” says David. All of the guns used were stolen and the victims are of disparate ethnicity. The only thing they have in common is a history of financial problems.

Charlie uses ‘geographic profiling’ to see if any of the men have crossed paths, and comes up with an IP address. David and Colby visit the location, a strip club in a violent neighbourhood. “I hope the jello shots have penicillin in them,” Colby remarks. The pair question the club’s fiery boss, Margo, before noticing an all-male VIP room. When they storm the area, they find an illegal gaming suite.

David and Colby take Margo back to the station, where she admits each of the victims owed her a large amount of money in gambling debts. The team makes a breakthrough when a local mother checks her ‘nanny cam’ and the images are interrupted by a video feed from across her street. The footage reveals a sinister game of Russian roulette, where gamers are betting on who will take the shot.

Larry, who previously suffered with a gambling problem himself, tries to offer the team some insight into why anyone would play such a dangerous game. “Logic, emotion, greed – they all play a part here,” he says. David gets an ID for one of the game’s participants, Glen Olin, and Don visits Glen’s wife, Nancy. “Glen was laid off last year. We may lose the house,” she admits.

Colby leans on Margo for more information. “There was a time in my life when a ruthless woman was a turn-on,” he says, flirtatiously. Margo admits that she sold on the debts of the victims. “This guy comes in looking for talent – deadbeats. He wanted a list,” she says. The feisty madam ultimately agrees to show Colby a tape of the man who asked her for the contacts, reality-TV producer Kai Kragen.

David does some digging and learns that Kragen has fallen on hard times following a fatality on one of his shows. He now produces low-budget infomercials. However, Kragen denies all knowledge of the roulette site. “Next time you want to talk to me, call my lawyers,” he sneers.

The team watches footage of another tournament and Charlie manages to get a trace to the address. David and Colby race to the scene and interrupt the game. They arrest Glen, but another long-time player known as ‘The Immortal’ escapes. Don interviews Glen, but he lawyers up and leaves the station. “How can a man so completely lose touch with reality?” Charlie asks. However, Larry is sure there is a method to his madness…

Larry and Charlie mock up a game of Russian roulette. They deduce that the tournament is being manipulated by placing the bullets in marked chambers, which are then stopped or released by remote control. “Glen Olin knew these contests were rigged,” says Larry. From the statistics, the two realise that The Immortal is also in on the fix.

Colby finds that one of the tapes of the roulette games contains footage from an infomercial, proving Kragen was involved. The agents race to his house, only to find he has just been shot. They run after the killer and are shocked to discover it is The Immortal himself. Nikki then finds that a number of files containing details of the online gamblers have been stolen from the house. It seems The Immortal decided to cut Kragen out of the game. But what else is he planning?

Wednesday 27th January 10.00pm

Continuing this week is the sixth season of the explosive crime drama. In this instalment, a number of apparent suicides are linked to a sinister game of Russian roulette. Can the agents put a stop to the sick practice?

The agents are called to the latest in a string of ‘suicides’ in abandoned buildings. Each of the three victims appear to have shot themselves in the head voluntarily. “It’s got to be some sort of cult thing, right?” says David. All of the guns used were stolen and the victims are of disparate ethnicity. The only thing they have in common is a history of financial problems.

Charlie uses ‘geographic profiling’ to see if any of the men have crossed paths, and comes up with an IP address. David and Colby visit the location, a strip club in a violent neighbourhood. “I hope the jello shots have penicillin in them,” Colby remarks. The pair question the club’s fiery boss, Margo, before noticing an all-male VIP room. When they storm the area, they find an illegal gaming suite.

David and Colby take Margo back to the station, where she admits each of the victims owed her a large amount of money in gambling debts. The team makes a breakthrough when a local mother checks her ‘nanny cam’ and the images are interrupted by a video feed from across her street. The footage reveals a sinister game of Russian roulette, where gamers are betting on who will take the shot. “It’s the kind of game you don’t win even if you survive,” says Nikki.

Larry, who previously suffered with a gambling problem himself, tries to offer the team some insight into why anyone would play such a dangerous game. “Logic, emotion, greed – they all play a part here,” he says. David gets an ID for one of the game’s participants, Glen Olin, and Don visits Glen’s wife, Nancy. “Glen was laid off last year. We may lose the house,” she admits.

Colby leans on Margo for more information. “There was a time in my life when a ruthless woman was a turn-on,” he says, flirtatiously. Margo admits that she sold on the debts of the victims. “This guy comes in looking for talent – deadbeats. He wanted a list,” she says. The feisty madam ultimately agrees to show Colby a tape of the man who asked her for the contacts, reality-TV producer Kai Kragen.

David does some digging and learns that Kragen has fallen on hard times following a fatality on one of his shows. He now produces low-budget infomercials. However, Kragen denies any knowledge of the roulette site. “Next time you want to talk to me, call my lawyers,” he sneers.

The team watches footage of another tournament and Charlie manages to get a trace to the address. David and Colby race to the scene and interrupt the game. They arrest Glen, but another long-time player known as ‘The Immortal’ escapes. Don interviews Glen, but he lawyers up and leaves the station. “How can a man so completely lose touch with reality?” Charlie asks. However, Larry is sure there is a method to his madness…

Larry and Charlie mock up a game of Russian roulette. They deduce that the tournament is being manipulated by placing the bullets in marked chambers, which are then stopped or released by remote control. “Glen Olin knew these contests were rigged,” says Larry. From the statistics, the two realise that The Immortal is also in on the fix.

Colby finds that one of the tapes of the roulette games contains footage from an infomercial, proving Kragen was involved. The agents race to his house, only to find he has just been shot. They run after the killer and are shocked to discover it is The Immortal himself. Nikki then finds that a number of files containing details of the online gamblers have been stolen from the house. It seems The Immortal decided to cut Kragen out of the game. But what else is he planning?

Wednesday 20th January 8.00pm

Continuing this week is the sixth season of the explosive crime drama. In this instalment, the team investigates a shootout at a bank. When the statements of the agents involved do not match Charlie’s theory about what happened, suspicion falls on one of Don’s mentors. Elsewhere, Larry faces a crossroads in his career.

The agents are called to a bank heist that has spiralled out of control. Don’s former mentor, Pete Fox, headed up a team of FBI agents planning to capture the leader of an armed gang. However, during the robbery, agents Ryba and Hale were killed and the suspect fled. The third member of the team, Tina Gordon, has been taken to hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg. “The fugitive’s name is Jim Wilson,” Fox tells Don. “He’s violent and he’s good at what he does.”

The team learns that only one of the security cameras at the bank was working, giving them an incomplete picture of events. Charlie arrives at the scene and decides the best way of getting a picture of what happened is to put together the statements of all those involved. “Your witnesses’ memories are like a series of snapshots,” he says. Using all the testimonies, he plans to put together a 3D reconstruction of what happened.

David checks Wilson’s phone records and notices the number for a vet’s surgery was dialled after the robbery. Realising the burglar has targeted the vet in order to stitch up his wounds, Colby and David visit the surgery. They find Wilson forcing one of the vets to give him treatment, and David takes him out with a tranquiliser dart. However, when Don interrogates Wilson, he denies shooting Hale and Ryba. “I didn’t kill your guys. You don’t believe me? Run a polygraph,” he insists.

Charlie runs through the possible scenarios and realises there are some holes in Fox’s story. “Either Fox’s memory is really bad…” he says. “Or he’s lying about what really happened,” David suggests. Don completes a training exercise with Fox and tells him the agents have some doubts about the chain of events at the bank. “A lot of stuff went wrong out there, Pete,” he says. Fox counters by claiming that Ryba, Hale and Gordon were all inexperienced agents, accounting for the mistakes made during the heist.

Charlie shows David a simulation of what he believes happened during the burglary, and he realises that Gordon lied about her position at the time of Ryba’s shooting. David and Colby visit Gordon in hospital and she admits she was not completely honest. “I didn’t tell you the truth,” she admits. “But it wasn’t to protect me, it was to protect Hale.” She goes on to insist that Hale shot and killed Ryba due to his own incompetence, before being hit himself.

The plot thickens when Nikki discovers that Fox’s police record is less than unblemished. “He must have naked pictures of someone to get away with breaking protocol like this,” she says. Colby then learns that Ryba was working undercover for Internal Affairs in order to investigate Fox. Not only was Fox having an affair with Gordon, he was secreting FBI funds into a number of bank accounts. Was Ryba really killed by friendly fire? Or could Gordon and Fox have something more to do with his death?

Elsewhere, Charlie becomes concerned when he learns that Larry has decided not to go to CERN and has also cut back on his classes. “You passed up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with the greatest minds in the world!” he says. Is Larry heading for a career crisis?

Before taking up the role of Agent David Sinclair on ‘Numb3rs’ five years ago, Alimi Ballard starred in US TV series ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’ and ‘Dark Angel’. Ahead of the premiere of season six, he tells us what to expect in the new series.

How did you first get involved in ‘Numb3rs’?
We shot the pilot in March 2004. My agent called and said “Hey, man, we’ve got an audition for a new series.” I said, “I love it, I’ll take it, let’s go!” I read for it, and then I read for it again, and after the fifth audition I got the job! We shot a pilot and the network didn’t like it so we shot another one. Tony Scott helped out for the second pilot and then the show was approved. We went on the air at the top of 2005 and we were a hit!

Do you have a good rapport with your co-stars?
We are great. I’ve just spent some time in New York with Rob Morrow – we went to see a show. I spoke to Dylan Bruno the other day – he just had a baby. I speak to all the people in the cast, they’re great. We have a good time and I’m very proud that we’ve maintained a healthy, fun, working relationship.

‘Numb3rs’ is executive produced by Tony and Ridley Scott –what is it like working with them?
Tony directed an episode two years ago (see the season four episode ‘Trust Metric’), and that was a powder keg! He is a dynamic, small Englishman. He’s got more power in his pinkie than I think I have in my whole body. He’s so charismatic and energetic. He blew me away. He and his brother are visionaries. They are fantastic film-makers.

Do you have a favourite episode?
I had an episode recently called ‘36 Hours’. It grabbed you by the heart and never let go. It was about trying to save these people that were caught in a train wreck, and they had toxic waste sitting on top of them. We had to get inside this train wreck, and we only managed to save two people. It was heart-wrenching. It was the most demanding episode I’ve done in a long time. We poured ourselves into that episode spiritually and emotionally. It was magnificent.

We don’t see much of your character David’s personal life –will that change this season?
Oh God, I hope so! I want to see how his personal life affects his work. Most people take their life with them to work. A lot of times your personal life affects your performance. When you clock out of work some of the interesting stuff really starts. And I would like to see some of that and see how that affects him at his job.

Is there a love interest on the horizon for David?
I’m working out especially hard, even on my vacation! I’m in the gym. I want to get my six pack in, my pecs really taught and tight. I’m hoping I’ll get the chance to disrobe and show my upper body. I’m really looking forward to getting some sex appeal on the show. So far I haven’t had any luck but I’m working. I have not given up!

Mathematical theory plays a central role in ‘Numb3rs’ – were you good at maths at school?
Not even remotely. I failed miserably!

Prior to ‘Numb3rs’ you starred in ‘Dark Angel’. What was it like working with Jessica Alba?
She was lovely. That was about ten years ago now. She was great. She was sweet, hard-working – a complete doll. I loved meeting James Cameron and working with him. He was very intense!

Do you have any other projects coming up?
‘Marvel Super Hero Squad’! I play the character of Falcon. It’s an animated series on the Cartoon Network in the States, starting in September. It’s created by Stan Lee, the creator of ‘The Hulk’, ‘XMen’, ‘Fantastic Four’ – he’s a legend in the world of comic books. That’s what I’m really excited about recently, as well as ‘Numb3rs’. We’re going into season 6 and we’re looking to tear the roof off, man! Be prepared to be blown away. We’re swinging for the fences!