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 lip-reading expertise 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 another series, Doc, 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, Canada. More than half of the cast and production crew were Canadian.

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

Cancellation

The abrupt ending to the show was due to PAX's decision to discontinue producing original programming; not because of poor ratings. The last episode of the series ended with a title slate saying, "The End... for now."

Characters

Main

Sue Thomas (played by Deanne Bray) is a young deaf woman who, like the real Sue Thomas, is able to communicate in both English and American Sign Language. Instead of attending a school for the deaf, Thomas was immersed in the hearing world. She took speech lessons, and she is able to vocalize her words to talk to people who are not deaf. She lip-reads to understand the other side of the conversation. The fictional representation of Sue Thomas has a college degree from Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts.

In the pilot episode, Thomas lands a position at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. She drives there from her home in Ohio. On the way, she picks up her first hearing dog, a Golden Retriever, Levi. The fictional Levi was abused by his former owners. Thomas says she knows what it is like to be rejected, so selects him from the hearing dog training program and trusts him to do his job. She talks to Levi frequently. Levi was played by two dogs in the show and was named after one of the hearing dogs of the real Sue Thomas. The two golden retrievers that played Levi in the series were trained by Sherri Davis, who also trained the German Shepherd dogs that played Rex in the Canadian series Hudson & Rex that began airing in 2019.

The real Sue Thomas appeared in two episodes of the series, playing an actress, Deanne Bray (the name of the actress who portrays her).

Thomas' parents were concerned that their deaf daughter would not be able to cope with life away from home, despite the fact that they taught her to live in both hearing and deaf settings. Her mother fought for her daughter to have every opportunity to live life to the fullest, which has made Sue an independent young woman.

She signs, speaks, reads lips, ice skates, plays piano and dances. She stopped skating when her best friend died in a bus crash on the way to a competition that Sue would have skated in had she won first place. Thomas feels survivor's guilt strongly because her deafness may be the reason she was not on the same bus. At her competition, she could not correct her mistake because she could not hear when she lost her place in her routine, and did not finish. In the show's opening credits, she is seen happily roller skating on the sidewalks of Washington with the encouragement of her co-workers after she tells her story to her FBI supervisor, Jack Hudson. The real Sue Thomas was an expert roller skater.

Recurring

Ted Garrett (Eugene Clark) – The team's supervisor, beginning with the season one episode "The Signing" through the midpoint of season three (16 episodes)

Charlie Adams (Jack Jessop) – The owner of a garage and filling station, he was Sue's first friend in Washington when she went to his station after her car began acting up on the way into the city. He began to lose his hearing in the second season, which he had trouble accepting, but Sue encouraged him to get hearing aids. He once introduced the team to the daughter of an old friend of his who was a cop, thus directing the team to conclude a serial killer case where Charlie's friend had unwittingly arrested the wrong man. (9 episodes)

Howie Fines (Jonathan Wilson) – Sue's first informant, a talkative sanguine, whose eager attitude often annoys the agents (8 episodes)

Randy Pitts (Ed Sahely) – The bespectacled, nasal, and cynical finance manager who often clashes with Myles and occasionally the entire office, making Myles in particular jump through several hoops before conceding to their requests. In "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", Randy approached Sue for help in learning a few signs after a woman he'd been communicating with online turned out to be deaf. In "Mind Games" he indirectly "helped" the team deal with their incompetent temporary supervisor, Wayne Morris, the team tricking Wayne into exposing his true incompetence on record unless he resigned and accepted a relocation to Randy's department. (6 episodes)

Troy Myers (Troy Kotsur) – Reformed criminal and former car thief who works for Charlie while studying at art school. He retains some of his old underworld contacts; one episode saw him putting the team in contact with a drug dealer who could prove that a DEA agent was corrupt after the agent tried to blame Sue for a botched sting operation. Another episode saw him reunited with his brother, the two having drifted apart in high school, when his brother revealed that his son and Troy's nephew was also deaf. He is played by Deanne Bray's husband (5 episodes)

Stan Eldridge (Charles W. Gray) – The team's first supervisor; he was transferred to DoD in "The Signing"

Cameos

The real Sue Thomas appears in the episode "Billy The Kid". Thomas, who acted as a consultant for the show, plays a deaf actress named Deanne (a parody of lead actress Deanne Bray, who is also deaf). She meets the character Sue Thomas (played by Bray) in the hospital and has a quick chat with her. She plays the same role in the final episode.

Chantal Craig, who is married to Bisson (who plays Jack Hudson), appears in the episodes "The Signing", "Missing", and "The Hunter" as Lt./Det. Diana Grove, offering them information about a current case.

Broadcast history

The television series premiered in the United States in 2002 on PAX TV 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, along with Doc.

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. In September 2020, Sony Channel began airing the series. 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.

On October 15, 2019, Start TV began airing the series.

As of 2023, Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye is available for streaming on The Roku Channel.

TeleXitos started airing the show for the first time ever in Spanish on December 28, 2023.

As of 2024, it was airing on Prime Video and IonPlus (via Xumo Play and streaming).

DVD releases

Integrity Direct, a religious video/music company, 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.