"Numb3rs" сериалының басты кейіпкері Дон Эппес туралы

Donald "Don" Eppes is a fictional character and one of the protagonists of the CBS crime drama Numb3rs. He is portrayed by Rob Morrow. Don is an FBI Special Agent who runs the FBI Violent Crimes Squad in Los Angeles. Don recruits his mathematical genius brother, Charlie Eppes, to help him and the Bureau solve some of their most difficult cases. Don makes great sacrifices in his personal life in order to devote himself to his career, which to him is more of a way of life than a mere job. More important to him than his work is his family, especially Charlie, even though he doesn't understand his brother's way of looking at the world.

Don is the older son of Alan Eppes and Margaret Mann Eppes. He was raised in a secular Jewish family. During the Vietnam War, his parents would take him to sit ins, and he twice watched his father be arrested (as mentioned in the episode "Protest"). When Don became too attached to his toy gun, his parents put him in Little League, hoping Don would forget his love for guns. Don graduated high school on the same day as his younger brother Charlie, who is five years younger ("Soft Target"). He went to college on a baseball scholarship and then played Single A with the Stockton Rangers (a fictional team) as a utility player. Charlie used to predict the number of walks he would get just from his stance at the plate. Despite the attraction, Don never took steroids, although his backup player did. That player made the major leagues and Don has since wondered if he should have taken steroids to help improve his game. The day after realizing that he would never be better than a single A player, Don quit the Rangers and signed up for the FBI entrance exam ("Identity Crisis"). In the FBI Academy, he dated fellow agent Terry Lake. As he later told his father, his favorite date ever was when he had pizza in a laundromat with her. Terry does not share that opinion. After graduating from the Academy, Don worked in Fugitive Recovery with Billy Cooper (episode "Man Hunt") and former Navy SEAL Petey Fox ("Friendly Fire") and was very good at it. He taught at the FBI Academy for a time after Fugitive Recovery to help him come back to civilization ("Longshot"). After that, he worked in the field office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and dated Kim Hall (Sarah Wayne Callies), and nearly married her. Don gave up his position as Special Agent in Charge of the Albuquerque FBI office to move back to L. A. when his mother became ill with cancer, from which she eventually died.

Don is a principled character and very devoted to his job, leaving him not much time for a social life. According to actor Rob Morrow, Don has a tendency to sacrifice, even at the expense of what he wants from life. He enjoys the occasional game of baseball and is also often seen watching ice hockey, which he played in his youth. He went to college on a baseball scholarship. Don thought baseball was his first love, though his father Alan Eppes reminded him that a toy gun and playing a cop as a child was actually his first love, and comforted him in noticing that the FBI needs utility players. Charlie said that he was a "born cop." Don's giving up on the game is an emotional subject for him. He and Charlie have had their differences over the years, and Don finds it hard to go to Charlie for help to do his job. In fact, in "One Hour" Don states that he does not like living in the shadow of his genius brother, though he respects him and his abilities very much and they have become closer. Sometimes, he feels that Charlie isn't doing all the great things he could be doing because he is working with the FBI. Still, he does often question his brother only to have his faith in Charlie's abilities restored. In "Burn Rate", their father says, "But have you ever known your brother to let his emotions trump his math?" Just because Don gets emotional, he thought this was the case with Charlie and even stated his brother was backing one of his own. In "Trust Metric", Charlie says that he has a giant ego. He is a harsh taskmaster, likes being the boss, and is not very forgiving. One of his former tactical trainees from Quantico, Liz Warner has proclaimed to this and, after Colby confided in her that he made a mistake, she told him that the very fact that he still remains on Don's team means something. She also said that Don never spoke of his personal life while at the FBI Academy and was at the time fresh from the field in hunting fugitives (with friend Agent Cooper). Liz knows he has mellowed with age and he can hold a commitment with a woman for longer periods of time. He believes that the death penalty is a form of revenge. Don has an ability to understand how criminals think, which causes him to suppress his thoughts in an effort to cope with the horrors that he sees on his job. Don's main weapon of choice is a Glock 19.

Don Eppes was created as Charlie's brother and as a link to the procedural part of the show. Gabriel Macht originally was cast as Don Eppes in the original pilot of Numb3rs. The believability of the family in terms of physical appearance and chemistry, however, created a need to recast the role. Rob Morrow replaced Macht when Macht left the show. At this point in development, Don was rewritten to be more intellectual than he was in the original pilot. Melanie McFarland, TV critic for the Seattle Post Intelligencer, stated that Don was not an original character as of the pilot. Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle, however, called Morrow, as Don, “likable”. Robert Bianco of USA Today stated that, although Don did not come across as an obvious choice of role for Morrow, Morrow was excellent as Don. Since then, Don has been more widely accepted. Morrow is now as recognized for his role as Don Eppes as he is for his role in Northern Exposure. In a public service announcement, Morrow congratulated the Federal Bureau of Investigation on their 100th anniversary. With 53 percent of the votes, Don took first place in the category of "Sexiest FBI Agent" in TV Guide's poll.