Trust Metric

Plot summary

Five weeks after "The Janus List", FBI Special Agent Megan Reeves and Dr. Larry Fleinhardt are at a Buddhist monastery. FBI Special Agent David Sinclair, Dr. Charlie Eppes, and Dr. Amita Ramanujan have resumed their routines; Charlie has returned to teaching full-time. Don Eppes spends the five weeks reviewing the tape of former FBI Special Agent Colby Granger, who is serving time for espionage.

Colby receives a visitor who gives him a key and hints at an event during his transport. During transport, a gang shootout allows Colby and fellow inmate Dwayne Carter to escape. Don, David, and Megan find their handcuffs at a warehouse.

Charlie, unable to determine their route, calls Larry for support. Using covering sets, Charlie, Amita, and Larry deduce Colby and Dwayne would flee to the subway. Don confronts them at a subway stop; Dwayne tries to shoot Don, but Colby stops him, and they escape onto a train.

Production

Tony Scott directed "Trust Metric" as his network television directorial debut. He and Ridley Scott wanted to direct an episode between movies; Scott had wanted to direct "The Janus List" but could not due to his schedule. Scott aimed to reinvent the show's effects, changing momentum and pace.

He did not leave actors much time between scenes to maintain acting momentum, and he refused rehearsals, filming as soon as actors arrived. Skip Chaisson changed the color shot at the end of the title scene to black and white and added a grainy appearance, using slo-mo and freeze-frame. Scott renovated the Eppes' living room and Charlie's office sets, added a classroom set, and removed the interrogation room's wall and ceiling for a camera angle.

He made suggestions about actors' hair after reviewing a reel of previous seasons. Filming took nine days: three on set and six on location. Location managers spent seven days finding locations; a short arrest scene was filmed at a real-life pool hall in North Hollywood.

Reception

Over 9.38 million people watched the episode. Critics received it positively; Lynn Elber of the AP News noted that due to Scott's involvement, the episode felt more like a film. Jeffrey Robinson of DVD Talk included it in his list of highlighted episodes, and Amazon.com editor Donald Liebenson called it "explosive" and "a Very Special Episode" with blazing action and a Big Name Star.

DVD notes

The Numb3rs season four DVDs include the bonus feature "Crunching NUMB3RS: Trust Metric", which has five segments: "Pre-Production", "Tony's Touch", "The Ambush", "The Freighter", and "Post-Production". The feature shows clips of filming the pool hall and ambush scenes, planning the freighter scene, and changes made to the title. It also includes a segment from a special viewing at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on September 27, 2007, followed by a panel with the cast, Cheryl Heuton, Nicolas Falacci, and Ken Sanzel.