Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye

Premise

Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye is loosely based on the real life experience of Sue Thomas, a deaf woman whose ability to read lips landed her a job with an elite surveillance team at the FBI.

Production

The series was created by Dave Alan Johnson and Gary R. Johnson for Pebblehut Productions. They also created Doc starring Billy Ray Cyrus for PAX. Yuri Yakubiw was the cinematographer and Bill Layton was the art director. Though set in Washington D.C., except for some exterior scenery shots, all the episodes were shot in and around Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and more than half of the cast and production crew were Canadian.

The series was once known as Lip Service. The show's theme song is "Who I Am", which is sung by Jessica Andrews and was written by Brett James and Troy Verges.

Cancellation

The abrupt ending to the show was due to PAX's decision to no longer produce original programming, rather than poor ratings. The last episode of the series ended with a title slate saying, "The End... for now."

Sue Thomas

Sue Thomas (played by Deanne Bray) is a young deaf woman who is able to communicate in both English and American Sign Language. She applies, and is accepted, for a position with the FBI in Washington, D.C. She leaves her home in Ohio and drives to Washington, picking up her first hearing dog, Levi, en route.

Thomas' parents are concerned that she will not be able to cope with life so far from everything she has known, despite the fact that they have strongly encouraged her in living in both a hearing and deaf environment. Her mother fought for her daughter to have every opportunity to live life to the fullest, which has made Sue a very independent young woman. She speaks, signs, reads lips, plays the piano and ice skates (Although she has not done this since her teens after her best friend died on a bus taking her to an ice skating championship; Sue was the better skater but couldn't match the music to the performance she was meant to be giving). Sue has a college degree from Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Thomas arrives at her job only to find she has been assigned to "Special Projects", with the mundane task of analyzing fingerprints. However, she has no intention of wasting her life examining fingerprints and marches into the supposed personnel office to tell them exactly what she thinks. Having done this, she discovers the office has been relocated (but not on the directory board!) and the man she was telling off is not personnel, but a Special Agent, Jack Hudson! Impressed by her ambition, Hudson meets her at lunch, where he tests her skills by having her lip-read Myles who is seated some distance away outside. After which, Thomas is taken on as part of Hudson's "team", and she becomes a Special Investigative Analyst. She has some teething troubles early in her career, but quickly adapts to learn from her mistakes, using her lip-reading skills during various surveillance missions while her approachable manner helps her appeal to various sources.

Jack Hudson

Jack Hudson (played by Yannick Bisson) is the unit leader, and as such generally takes the lead in the team's cases. A lawyer from Wisconsin, he approaches his job as a Federal Agent with a burning drive. His experience as a sniper is revealed in the episode, "The Sniper". He is strongly attracted to Sue (who reciprocates) but unable to act due to their working relationship: he is her Training Agent and line manager. Everyone in the office can sense the extreme chemistry between the two, but Jack and Sue refuse to go against the Bureau's policy. In the last episode, during which Sue decides to leave, it becomes possible for them to get together. The two do have a firm, if complicated, friendship. His closest friends are Special Agents Manning and Gans.

Bobby Manning

Bobby Manning (played by Rick Peters) is a charming Australian. He provides a much-needed sense of humor and is best mates with Jack. They are similar ages and share a love of sports and the single life. Bobby is also a recovering gambling addict, and still attends Gamblers' Anonymous. However, only Jack knows about this, as it could effectively mean the end of Bobby's career with the FBI. In season three, Bobby split from his girlfriend of two seasons, journalist Darcy D'Angelo (Polly Shannon), when the latter accepted an offer of a high-profile job in Los Angeles. Shortly after this, he and Tara discover a mutual attraction.They eventually kiss in the episode "Troy Story". Bobby is highly protective of the women he works with. When he was a child, his father left his mother, but she has since remarried. Bobby is close to both his mother and stepfather, who still live someplace in Australia. He is the only one in the office other than Myles who knows very few signs.

Dimitrius Gans

Dimitrius (played by Marc Gomes) is the father figure in the office, and the senior agent in terms of age and experience. He had a more sympathetic approach to Sue's mistakes early in her career; when she accidentally jeopardized a case when she broke into a suspect's garage to acquire evidence that he was involved in planning a bombing without a legal warrant, Dimitrius helped Sue redeem her mistake by confirming that she saw the suspect mention a key contact outside his garage, at a location where Sue could clearly see him from outside the building with no warrant required for her observation. He is the only married member of the team, and has two children: Tanya and Davy. In season two his wife, Donna, suffered a miscarriage of what would have been their third child. "D" often assumes the role of acting supervisor when the unit's normal supervisor is called out of the office.

Myles Leland III

Myles (played by Ted Atherton) is a Harvard-educated Bostonian with all the charm of a backbencher. He has a high opinion of both himself and his skills, and considers himself a cut above the rest of the team. He suffers a serious lack of a sense of humour, and is often the butt of the office jokes and other practical jokes. From the start he mistrusts Sue's place on the team and actively tries to have her removed when a new supervisor is appointed. This backfires, with the supervisor instead contemplating replacing Myles because he was seen as a disruptive influence on the team, and Sue ends up saving Myles' place on the team by arguing that he helps to keep them together even if they unite against him. Over time Myles' relationship with Sue improved significantly, and the character becomes more relaxed in the office after his near-death experience. He once dated Lucy, but when she found out he was cheating on her, she dumped him. Their working relationship is polite, but frosty. Myles has a difficult relationship with his parents and only recently started forging a proper relationship with his sister, Anne.

Lucy Dotson

Lucy (played by Enuka Okuma) is Sue's roommate and best friend. She is the team rotor, the unit's office manager and "base coordinator." Lucy is a student of ASL. She is close to her mother, although her father died some years ago. She is also close to her paternal grandmother. Lucy also dated Myles briefly, which ended badly when Sue discovered that Myles was cheating on Lucy.

Tara Williams

Tara (played by Tara Samuel) is the unit's computer expert, adept at tracking perpetrators via bank records, computer hard drives, GPS tracking and other cyber-sources. Tara is a fully trained and armed Special Agent. However she can give the impression of being shy, dizzy, and a ditz when immersed in her world of computers. She is best friends with Lucy and Sue and they often go out together. She has dated Stanley Abbott, a steganographer who works for the National Security Agency. In a two-episode series, "The Actor" and "Planes, Trains, And Automobiles", Tara is interested in a movie star named Adam Kinsey. However, when Stanley shows up to help break a code and work with Tara, her relationship with Adam ends. In season three, she and Bobby Manning discover a mutual attraction.

Levi

Levi is Sue's hearing dog, a golden retriever who was rescued after an abusive background that leaves him particularly jumpy around sudden loud noises, to the extent that the centre owners were doubtful he would ever be trainable. He is protective of Sue and loving to everyone, even going along with some of their jokes, such as when the team set up a small desk for Levi on Sue's first official day with the team. Several episodes find Levi in difficult and dramatic situations, such as getting lost in the city of D.C. or getting shot while trying to protect Sue (Jack actually used his credentials to get Levi treated in an actual hospital rather than a standard vet's). He is very clever and playful, jumping onto her when drawing her attention to something, and is so dedicated to his job he tried to attract Sue's attention when he was in the hospital and had just awoken from a coma. The entire team adores him, which often leads to him being used to assist in minor pranks around the office. He is also a source of comfort during distressed or somber scenes in many episodes, usually placing his head on the suffering party's knee and whining empathetically.

Recurring

Cameos

Broadcast history

The television series premiered in the United States in 2002 on PAX and Canada in 2003 on CTV. The show ended in May 2005 due to PAX's decision to no longer produce original programming. It was one of the two highest rated shows on PAX.

In September 2009, Gospel Music Channel began running the show, airing Monday through Thursday at 8 p.m. EST. In October 2009, American Life Network began running the show, airing it Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. EST. But due to ALN's rebranding to Youtoo TV, the show was dropped. In 2010, it began airing on Alibi in the United Kingdom. Reruns also air regularly on CTV and VisionTV in Canada.

On September 9, 2012, INSP began airing the series. On October 1, 2012, BYUtv added the series to their broadcast schedule and aired it through May 1, 2015.

DVD releases

Integrity Direct has begun releasing Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. Volume 1, featuring the first 11 episode from season one was released on November 10, 2009. Volumes 2–5, which feature the remaining season one episodes as well as all episodes from seasons two and three were released on May 18, 2010. In addition, a complete series box set featuring all 56 episodes of the series was also released on May 18, 2010.

NOTE: Official DVDs of Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye featuring all the episodes are available at www.suethomasdvd.com.