8:15 AM PDT 9/22/2014 by Lesley Goldberg
Meet Walter O’Brien, the man behind CBS’ new drama ‘Scorpion’
Elyses Gabel & Katharine McPhee of Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS; AP Images
It’s a blistering hot Tuesday morning in Burbank and one of the world’s smartest men is driving his bulletproof White House-supplied vehicle into work. Only on this day, “work” is an otherwise ordinary bank building that serves as the hub for CBS’ new genius drama Scorpion.
Meet Walter O’Brien, code name “Scorpion,” whose 197 IQ is the fourth-highest ever recorded — and whose life is the backdrop of CBS’ Elyes Gabelstarrer Scorpion.
The drama, from showrunner Nick Santora (Prison Break) and Nicholas Wootton, centers on an eccentric genius named Walter (Gabel) and his international network of super-geniuses who form the last line of defense against the complex threats of the modern age.
On the surface, Scorpion draws immediate parallels to CBS’ genius comedy The Big Bang Theory — a comparison Santora is more than happy to receive. And the similarities don’t stop there. Beyond the struggles of a genius trying to emotionally connect with the outside world (see Jim Parsons‘ Big Bang Theory alter ego Sheldon Cooper), Scorpion puts its real-life genius to work. While Big Bang Theory creates scripts with room for its regular science speak, courtesy of the show’s longtime science adviser David Saltzberg, O’Brien has regular powwows with Santora and his team of writer