Fantasies of control: Numb3rs, scientific rationalism, and the management of everyday security risks

Abstract

This paper examines the US-made television drama series Numb3rs as a key example of what has been called ‘post-9/11’ television – a form of drama production characterized by a strong reinvestment in scientific rationalism as a way of managing complex and often unseen security threats. Comparing and contrasting Numb3rs with CSI, I argue that the particular reinvestment in scientific rationalism that is manifest in Numb3rs is in some ways similar to, but in other ways quite distinct from, the CSI franchise. These differences position Numb3rs as a show less about the trauma and loss associated with the events of 11 September 2001 (as has been argued is the case with CSI), and more about the security cultures that have emerged in the wake of these events.

Notes

1. This issue is taken up even more explicitly in episode eleven of the first season, ‘Sacrifice’, where outrage at scientific attempts to predict human behaviour and human potential are found to be the motive for the crime under investigation (see Miller 2007, 90–2).