Numb3rs...the 3 is silent, but really cool

I've always been mystified by the programming schedule on prime time television. There always seems to be a night when nothing good is on, though it changes most seasons. And the graveyard of Friday nights was always a bit of a joke. However, I think the advent of TiVo and DVR, any night becomes fair game for good TV. Unfortunatley, the networks still don't think so. That's why Numb3rs is a great exception. It's been on for 3 seasons, and still manages to figure out a way to make math and mathematical modeling a part of most investigations. At first it seemed forced and a little ridiculous to bother every time, but they seem to have found better mathematicians to mine for ideas, and hire actual television writers to firm up the rest of the story, so the plots are much more realistic and based on the FBI rather than fun ways to use math. But the best part of this show is still Peter MacNicol. I loved him in his Ally McBeal days when his nose would whistle when he was nervous, and he had a bunch of other funny tics (a staple for David E. Kelly's characters it turns out), but he's much more fun in his current role as David Krumholtz's kookie, brilliant colleague who only eats white food and prefers to live off the grid. Apparantly he's been on 24 for a few episodes, and so they sent him into space on Numb3rs, and he just returned, a little stranger than usual...perhaps he met aliens.