Reception
The episode had 18.85 million American viewers. In Chris Carabott of IGN's review of "Numbers", in which Rousseau makes her second appearance, Carabott described Hurley and Rousseau's encounter as "the episode's best moment", as "Hurley finds comfort with someone who we would least expect." Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams commended Furlan for giving the character "heart and soul", and managed to make her "identifiable and complex".
After the episode aired, numerous people used the eponymous figures (4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42) as lottery entries. According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, within three days, the numbers were tried over 500 times by local players. Likewise, in the same period, over 200 people in Michigan alone used the sequence for the Mega Millions lottery and by October, thousands had tried them for the multi-state Powerball lottery. The issue came to attention after a Mega Millions drawing for a near-record US$380,000,000 jackpot on January 4, 2011 drew a series of numbers in which the three lowest numbers (4-8-15) and the mega ball (42) matched four of the six numbers. The #42 is also the "Mega Number" in Hurley's "Mega Lotto" ticket. The players who played the combination won $150 each (or $118 in California).
Read more about this topic: Numbers (Lost)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)