One of My Top Ten Shows of All-Time!
It's combination of police procedural, mind-blowing math and philosophy, warm family comedy-drama, and intense action dealing with many current issues is unique. Great, great cast. What other crime drama uses a house as a sort of character in the show? The visual manifestation of Charlie's math analogies is so creative and artistic.
I am surprised to see this great show rated only a 6.9 out of 10 on IMDB. As one commenter in the thread before this said, this is a show that should never have run on a major network. We were quite lucky that it did.
Top cast members: Rob Morrow and David Krumholtz as the brothers Eppes, Peter MacNichol as the head in the clouds wise man Larry, and Diane Farr as Megan, managing to display toughness and compassion simultaneously, a rare accomplishment. All the other agents were good, too--Colby, David Sinclair, Liz Warner, and Nikki Betancourt all brought much to the table. Sabrina Lloyd as Teri Lake was also strong in Season 1. Don and Charlie's love interests were both reasonably good, but not as interesting as the others. I'd be remiss in not mentioning great guest stars like Henry Winkler, and Lou Diamond Phillips in one of his greatest roles as hunter/sniper Ian Edgerton who is a weird mix of twinkle-in-the-eye mischief and super macho--he has a bit of magic in him, the way he pops up out of nowhere.
But there really has never been a show like this and Morrow does a masterful job of leading a stellar cast. The multi-season story arcs are also successfully pulled off--another rarity. From Don's moral and spiritual crisis that spread over a few seasons, to Larry and Megan's ups and downs, all the way to Colby's being a triple agent, and David Sinclair's personal growth heading toward a leadershop post, the only show I can think of that pulled this off as effectively would be the old sitcom Barney Miller. There's a good argument to be made that long-suffering Don is similar to Barney Miller as he tries to keep his equilibrium in a crazy world.
All this and a couple of math or life lessons each week--nothing like it--check it out on DVD or Netflix!!!!