Original pilot Two pilots were filmed. Fascinated by mathematicians, creators
Cheryl Heuton and
Nicolas Falacci decided to create a show about one. With the encouragement of CBS development executives, they wrote several pilots revolving around mathematicians and scientists, including the pilot for
Numb3rs, over the course of 14 years. Knowing that mathematics would not be readily accepted by the general public on its own, Heuton and Falacci in 2003 decided to use the police procedural format to facilitate the acceptance. Although they had considered several story ideas, Heuton and Falacci wanted to feature a case in which math was used to solve a traditional type of crime. They decided to base the episode on a real-life serial rapist case in which police asked Dr. Kim Rossmo to assist them in the investigation. In 1998, Rossmo, then with the
Vancouver Police Department, was called in to help
Lafayette, Louisiana, police investigator McCullan Gallien find the South Side Rapist. Rossmo and Gallien visited the crime scenes, and Rossmo used criminal
geographic targeting, a
mathematical model used to find the area in which the suspect would most likely reside. Together, Rossmo and Gallien developed a map indicating the most likely location of the rapist's residence. After DNA cleared everyone living in the area, Gallien learned that a sheriff's deputy in a neighboring department, Randy Comeaux, was a potential suspect. He had lived in the area during the time frame of the rapes but moved to a residence in the neighboring jurisdiction some time later. DNA on a cigarette butt left by Comeaux confirmed that he was the rapist, and Comeaux was arrested. The pilot was originally filmed in Boston, which was selected because of Falacci's familiarity with the area and because of the contrast between academia and the working class. Filming began in the spring of 2004. Although the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) refused to allow filming on campus, Although initially hesitant about auditioning, Other original cast members were
Len Cariou as Alan;
Peter MacNicol as Charlie's mentor; Jennifer Bransford, and
Alimi Ballard as FBI agents; and
Navi Rawat as a
MIT graduate student. When filming was completed, executive producers
Ridley Scott and
Tony Scott and producer Skip Chaisson added graphics and music to the footage. They also added transitions to assist the storytelling. To accommodate these changes, CBS allowed the producers to delay the delivery of the pilot to the studio by two weeks. Among the problems with the original pilot was the believability of the Eppes family in terms of both physical appearance and chemistry, with the chemistry of the actors being the larger issue. Although Heuton and Falacci liked Cariou, Macht, and Krumholtz, Heuton and Falacci did not know how the three actors playing the Eppes family would interact with each other until filming began. Dr. Gary Lorden, one of Caltech's math professors, served as math consultant of the second pilot. The producers kept Krumholtz, MacNicol, Rawat, and Ballard. Other casting changes included the addition of Sabrina Lloyd as an FBI agent, Judd Hirsch as Alan, and Anthony Heald as Don's boss. The producers rewrote the script to accommodate changes in story, characters, and basic idea of the series. They decreased the role of Don's boss to focus the main conflict on the brothers' worldviews. They rewrote the structure and composition of Don's team. They also revised the start of Charlie's involvement with the investigation to incorporate Heuton and Falacci's original idea of Don taking the work home with him. ==Previews==