TV or not TV? Blog

You can watch an all-new episode of NUMB3RS tonight at 9 on CBS channel 5.

Photo Courtesy Mary Leah Sutton

Twelve angry men (and women) sit in a room. This is a murder case, and the defendant will be convicted, without a doubt. The evidence is overwhelming, the case is a shoo-in. Done, and done.

The verdict: not guilty. Sound familiar?

In the 1957 film adaptation of Reginald Rose’s play, “Twelve Angry Men,” the jury established that the suspect was not “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” But the forensic evidence presented in criminal courts 50 years ago wasn’t quite as advanced as it is today. It’s more difficult to establish a reasonable doubt in some cases — “an airtight case” is an airtight case. There’s no way a murderer can not be convicted after an FBI agent practically witnesses him kill another man.

Tonight’s episode of CBS’s primetime crime drama NUMB3RS (pronounced “Numbers”) features a story about a black market arms dealer that is set free after he murders an FBI informant right in front of FBI Special Agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow). The main character, Don, can’t let this go, so the NUMB3RS team decides to investigate the jury in “Guilt Trip.”

When Mary Leah Sutton was summoned to jury duty a couple of years ago, she wondered how her name was chosen. As a writers’ assistant for NUMB3RS, she’s always looking for real life mathematical applications that she might be able to build a script upon. She was surprised to find that the jury selection process is actually based on a mathematical algorithm that randomly selects who serves jury duty each week.

Thus, the idea for an episode was born, and everything fell into place: high-tech jury tampering in a high profile criminal case that may have put a co-conspirator on the jury. Tonight’s “Guilt Trip” is the first produced TV episode she’s written, and it has been dubbed a “must-see” by Entertainment Weekly, she said.

Photo Courtesy Mary Leah Sutton

Sutton, a 2002 graduate of the University of Miami, got her start in the TV business with an internship through the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. During her summer in Los Angeles, she worked on CBS’s “The District,” made contacts in the business and eventually moved to Hollywood to follow her dream of writing for TV.

Though she’s worked on several other shows such as Crossing Jordan, The Practice, Boston Public and Alias, she says she likes writing for NUMB3RS because it’s different than any other experience.

“I always start with the math because if you come up with something at the core of it that has math, it’s easier than coming up with a crime and then fitting math into it,” she said.

The writers go to great lengths to make sure the math accurately corresponds with everything in the show, employing two in-house researchers and math consultants all over the country, including Gary Lorden, a math professor at California Institute of Technology.

“Every piece of math you hear and see — including all of the equations, data sets and diagrams up on Charlie’s blackboards and on the FBI screens — is absolutely real and accurate to the story we’re telling,” Sutton said.

NUMB3RS even had a partnership with Texas Instruments for the show’s first four seasons, providing school activities which corresponded with each episode to help teachers make math fun.

Sutton said the complexity of accurately working the numbers into each story makes it more difficult, but more rewarding, to write. Tonight’s episode had a 30-page math packet along with the script, covering topics related to probability, convictions and acquittals.

“You don’t necessarily have to understand math or be a math superstar (to enjoy or write for the show),” she said. “It’s more about storytelling.”

Writing for TV is so fun and different, she said, because of its pace. “It happens so quick, and it has to happen so quick,” she said.

Writers will pitch a story idea, CBS approves it, the writer is given a couple of weeks to write an outline, a couple of weeks to write the first draft, get notes, rewrite, get notes, rewrite, get notes… They do location scouting and casting, “then suddenly you’re on stage shooting the episode,” she said.

It is then cut and edited, over and over, through a chain of command including the director, producers and writers. Up until yesterday, Sutton said, they were all still editing the show before it would be sent out to air tonight.

It’s the pace of it all, the culmination and getting to see it aired that is the best part, she said.

Eight TV writers sit in a room. This is different because it’s Mary Leah Sutton’s first produced episode they’re discussing.

“TV is so personal. How many other ways can you go into people’s homes every night, talk to them and tell them a story?” she said. “It unites people.”

SECRETS ABOUT TONIGHT’S EPISODE, “GUILT TRIP”:

Photo Courtesy Mary Leah Sutton

• The villains, Fox Carter (James Marsters, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Mitch Langford (Ray Wise, from Reaper), are named after friends or personal aspects of Sutton’s life. She chose to name the villains after them because they would be most prominently featured in the show. “I like to name characters after people I know,” she said, and it makes it more fun for friends and family to watch. “It all comes down to entertaining.”

• Fox Carter combines “Fox” Mulder (David Duchovny’s character on The X-Files) and Chris “Carter” (creator of The X-Files) as an homage to the TV show that inspired her to get into TV writing. Sutton got her internship with the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences after she sent in an X-Files script she had written.

• Mitch Langford is named after a family friend, Marty Langford. The legal department changed the name from Marty to Mitch because “Marty Langford” wasn’t common enough. Each proposed name has to be cleared by the legal department, so a search is done to see how many people in the country have that name. If it’s more than five to 10 people, Sutton said, it can be used. Otherwise, the few Marty Langfords in the country might be able to say that they were purposely and falsely represented on the show.

• NUMB3RS is based at California Institute of Technology, while another CBS show, The Big Bang Theory, is about a group of physicists at CalTech. “There aren’t many math and science shows on TV,” Sutton said. “So we have similar viewers.” At one point the NUMB3RS team has to crack a password. As a nod to the shared viewers, she said, the password is LeonordSheldon4A — from The Big Bang Theory’s main characters, Leonard and Sheldon who live in apartment 4A on the show.

Tags: Big Bang Theory, CBS, Chris Carter, Fox Mulder, James Marsters, Mary Leah, NUMB3RS, Ray Wise, Sara J. Martinez, Sutton, TV, tv or not tv, X-Files

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 11:00 am and is filed under Columns, Online Exclusives, tv or not tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.