Lie to Me

Last night I watched the premiere of Lie to Me on Fox. I'd seen the previews for months, and when I saw that Tim Roth was coming to television, him being one of my favorite actors, I was both excited and dubious at the same time. Another of my favorite actors, Christian Slater, had made an awesome TV debut on My Own Worst Enemy. But the show had been canceled, and I honestly didn't want to see the same thing happen to as great an actor as Tim Roth.

But last night's pilot delivered many great performances, not only from Roth, but the supporting guest cast as well. The episode itself had a pleasant mixture of drama, comedy, and sharp dialog.

Despite what some may think, it is possible to tell from a show's pilot whether or not the show will succeed. From what I saw last night, I can see this show going a long, long way. The formula that the show's staff have come up with is, yes, still in its conceptual stages. But they're definitely on to something, and I hope to see a rising popularity in America for Dr. Lightman and his team.

Imagine someone as abrasive and inappropriate as House, and you've got Tim Roth as Dr. Cal Lightman.

Dr. Lightman's company specializes in discerning whether or not people are telling the truth. They work with all areas of law enforcement, including the FBI, corporations, and different government departments. Their work is based on the research of Dr. Paul Ekman, who served as an adviser on the series.

The work of the Lightman Group revolves around reading people's facial expressions, voices, eye pupils, and gestures to tell if someone is being truthful.

Cal's business partner Gillian is played by the beautiful Kelli Williams, and her cool, calm demeanor is wonderful juxtaposition to Lightman's often flamboyant behavior. Tim Roth, sporting his Cockney accent, is quirky Lightman to a T- he stands in people's personal space, looks them straight in the eye, and tells them they're lying. The rest of the cast - Brendan Hines, Monica Raymond, Hayley McFarland, and Mekhi Phifer provide excellent support.

Original and offbeat, "Lie to Me" is an excellent series that unfortunately only ran three years. It's well worth seeing.

Lie to me is a true rarity and gem among T.V. show's, it hasn't been done a million times over. Lie to me stars Tim Roth as Dr.Cal Lightman a doctor who specializes in body language and vocal patterns; together with his team of specially trained associates he helps the police and U.S. Government solve there toughest crimes. Lie to Me is a great show because it capitalizes on a whole new field of television, all you see on modern T.V. today is cop show's more cop show's and medical drama's. But this is refreshing it's much different then any show out there, yes it involves the police but in a small role there only around to keep things under control or to make arrest's. This show has a style and mind of it's own. It doesn't follow the extremely(and I mean that lightly) worn path of other show's that maybe similar or try to be like it. Take Castle for instance, it's a show about a murder mystery writer who helps' the police solve there case's; Now how many times has that been done? Lie to me is a completely original and highly entertaining show that I know that people will just love if they give it a chance.

An absolute masterpiece that was canceled way before its time.

It started off as a brilliant premise. The first episode gripped me with its ingenuity - it's a fantastic idea to analyse the body language and verbal nuances of not only criminals but regular people. Maybe a little far-fetched at times but incredibly interesting. Cal was eccentric, a British 'House' maybe, but I enjoyed his acting and although I usually don't like mixing British and American actors in one cast I thought that in Lie to Me, it worked swimmingly. It's somewhat reminiscent of the show 'Psych', but with better actors, fewer jokes and a different target audience.

Now I'm watching season 3 and I'm considering not watching the rest. It's almost as if the writers assumed that their viewers all watched from the very first episode. No more clever observations with body language, no more quick zooms to show the audience what emotion the accused is showing, no more focus on the original premise. Not only do I find that there's less and less observation going on and more focus on guesswork and 'gut feelings', but it seems the range of emotions being detected has literally been reduced to the recurring 'guilt', 'fear' and 'shame'. Where is the broad range? Where is what we saw in season 1? It feels like the writers assume that their viewers already know the whole shtick of being shown exactly how a character displays a certain emotion, skips that part and goes straight to the diagnoses. Not only that but it seems that the characters are manipulated less and less and it's become more about tricking the characters into coming to the Lightman Group and being interrogated in the box.

I've also noticed that the 3 supporting characters are constantly being berated by Cal Lightman. He seems to give less and less weight to their opinions and it always silently criticising them. This wouldn't bother me had it been that way from the start - but as the character of Cal becomes less likable due to his now highly exaggerated eccentricity, his two subordinates are reduced to bumbling, guessing idiots in his presence. They rarely make intelligent observations - in fact...where did the science even go in this program?!

Another thing I don't enjoy generally in programs, something that has been used here, is the emphasis on Cal's shallow subplot. Just as the science is mentioned less, so the back story of Cal Lightman is emphasised. Granted, he and the actor who plays his daughter have incredible on-screen chemistry and she is rather likable with her ability to call her father out on his faults, all while flashing her big doey eyes. But in my opinion, her character is overly mature for a 16- year-old girl and it's becoming irritating that she constantly barges into her father's office demanding to know what he's up to. The others respond to her as if she were their boss, not as if she were a 16-year- old girl with no business being around the office. And...can someone tell her to change her facial expression? Pretty please?

Overall I enjoy the show but I really wish the writers would stay true to the original intent of the show - to play around with the fascinating science of human behaviour and come up with mysteries that can be cleverly unwoven by behavioural observation, rather than simply interrogating every single witness and showing a gros plan of their apparently scared faces. I'm giving this a 5 because the first season was brilliant, and as its quality decreased, so did the score.