‘NUMB3RS’ counts to ‘X’ for Halloween episode on CBS

In "Dreamland,” written by series creators (and spouses) Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci and directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal (father of Jake and Maggie), strange, possibly paranormal events at a decommissioned air base culminate in a woman’s death.

This brings in FBI Agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) and his mathematician — and part-time crime-solver — brother, Charlie (David Krumholtz).

For scene 31, Don’s team is consulting with Floyd Mayborne (John Michael Higgins) of the Pentagon’s high-level Department 44. They’re examining some sort of a flying probe that has proved a menace to both humans and farm animals.

Mayborne — who pauses every now and then to converse with the incorporeal air — risks dirtying his dark windowpane-check suit (it may be black, but it’s hard to tell with the lighting in the downtown Los Angeles parking garage where this is being filmed) to crawl underneath and take a look.

"That was the director’s idea,” Higgins says, "because I would never get my hands dirty like that — although I wouldn’t have put it past me. I was just a little lazy.”

As a math professor, Charlie isn’t very comfortable with the idea of the paranormal.

"It’s a little out there for our show,” Krumholtz says. "It’s cool, the whole alien-conspiracy thing. Charlie, he hates conspiracies. Anything that doesn’t scream logic screams absurdity. He’s trying to figure out what went wrong.

"Of course, the government’s involved. It’s the government being bad again. Bad government.”

Charlie isn’t too nuts about probes either, and neither is Krumholtz.

"Who hasn’t been abducted?” he says. "I have been. I’m abducted about once every couple weeks. There’s a lot we’re not being told about, but that’s fine. There are aliens among us. I’m almost positive that Nick Falacci is not a human being. He’s an alien.

"There’s something weird with him. I see his eyes sort of schism. He’s getting a message from the outer planets. Something’s coming through.”