Not to be spoken of in the same category as the Wire (official Best TV Series Ever) still Numb3rs new series (in the States) is also pretty good as entertainment. 

Sadly, they are almost at the limits of how they can bring maths into the crime-solving arena, so we seem to be getting less Math and more standard crime series stuff. (Which at least avoids the issue of how it is that experienced FBI agents need a maths – sorry, Math – professor to develop complex algorithms to point out some crime-solving things that would be glaringly obvious to the newest recruit with an ounce of common sense.)

Good stuff in the first programs includes – a pursuit algorithm. The use of maths to detect forged artwork, though I found the idea you could do it from a jpeg of a scanned photo to be unconvincing. Their scanner must be better than any I’ve ever seen by several orders of magnitude.

Bad stuff – the level of family values propaganda crammed into each episode is verging on the comical. Get rid of the guy who used to be in Taxi, please.

Odd stuff – the way they say “provenance” in the art theft episode. The first FBI art expert pronounces it as  “pro” (as in sports) “ven arnts.”  A few others do the same. You just think ‘Ok, this must be like saying “rowt” for route and “baysil” for basil. It’s just an American thing.’ Then, confusingly, someone says it as an English person would.