Lie To Me - season 1 (1 Viewer)

[Mikah Cerucco]

I really liked her on The Practice. I didn't know she was on MI, so I thought she'd pretty much dropped out of sight until now. Which for me, she had. Anyway, it's good that she's back in my living room.

 

[Ashley Seymour]

Let me give this show the kiss of death. I like it. I also liked MY OWN WORST ENEMY, and I did in that show after its thirteen episode run.

Tim Roth nails the part of Cal. He needs to be a good actor because his appearance makes Dustin Hoffman look like Troy Donahue.

I have to listen carefully because his Cockney accent makes it hard to keep up. The film editors could help because when he and the other characters turn away from the camera and speak it is hard to understand. A quick playback helps, but it shouldn't be necessary.

The characters are defined and maybe a bit like comic book heroes. Cal is Mensa smart and has trained himself to read body language intuitively. He demonstrates that there is more to being a detective than to just read a series of expressions. He often attempts to elicit a response to test a hypothesis. Cal has divorced himself from being moralistic about the issue of "truth" and "lies". All of his readings are little pieces to a puzzle that he has to construct to complete the job he has been hired to do. In his persodnal dealings with employees and family he often will not reveal all that he knows. It is suggested that in future shows, there will be issues that are hurtful to his friends that he has seen all along, but decided not to espose out of respect.

Gillian, his top hand, is almost as quick as Cal and compliments his interrorgations - often playing the good cop bad cop routine. She is protected and guarded by Cal, especially when he gives her grief when she dines on her favorite junk food. Yet she has a blind spot when it comes to her husband who is lying to her. Cal judiciously abstains from pointing out an observation that should be obvious to her. This is a plot point that will be developed as the show evolves. One observation on Gillian's interplay with her "show" husband is when he leaves her office. She pinches his upper arm and scratches his back as he leaves. The web site has a very interesting discussion on this issue regarding President Obama and his touching of VP Biden and others. It is a show of dominance and gesture meaning to knock it off. Gillians's hasband has made some lame excuse about being late, working, etc. and Gillian gives him this touch, as if to say "I know a bs line and there will come a day of recogning".

Eli has been on hand before the next character Ria was added. He is the stereotype gopher who can do many things, but again is not yet Cal of Gillian. He can be obnoxious, but is disarming because he is an irritatingly frank. Asked why he is late to work he honestly answers that he got drunk and was distracted by a hot news anchor on CNN. Another time he admits to Ria that he has never been with a Latin girl. Ria rolls her eyes, but Eli doesn't do anything more -at this time- to act on his libido.

Ria is a natural "reader" that we learn makes Cal jealous. He is wise enough to know that she will be a valuable employee and should not let his ego stand in the way of the job she can do. Whereas Cal can maintain a deadpan expression when dealing with friends and his subjects, Ria can't understand how he can ignore lies and deceipt that are screaming out to her. She has a chip on her shoulder and it will be interesting to watch her character grow and lean to feel appreciated even when Cal and Eli do things to exasperate her.

The show and concept has plenty of fodder to keep me entertained. Hopefully the audience will not be as daft as the bureaucrats who Cal and his crew embarrass in each episode.

 

[todd s]

I enjoy the show. But, it's kinda of annoying with Gillian and her cheating husband. I can't read faces and I know he is cheating. Ashley, I read your info from the website about this. And I would agree that she knows. But.....Then the scene from the last episode kinda of makes me think she doesn't know. It was the scene at the end where she was going to make him a dinner to apologize for not getting out of the building. I really think she is blinded by her love for him. Which, would be interesting since her job is to see liars.

 

[Ashley Seymour]

The writers can go in several directions with Gillian. They may play it that she is in denial and is using an ego defense mechanism to not confront the fact. It could develop that her subconscious is aware of the lies and that is the reason for the grips on the arm and back. It would be interesting for Cal to expound on how/if we erect these defenses to "lie" to ourselves about unpleasant realities.

 

[todd s]

That would be fine. As long as they don't drag it out for too long.

 

[Ashley Seymour]

Last night I watched the interview that Paul Ekman - Cal Lightman's alter ego - gave five years ago. It was very enlightening about the path he took to his study of facial expressions. It is no surprise that he has advanced degrees in psychology. One thing surprised me when late in the interview he stated that he would like to spend time in the study of handwriting analysis. He said he always felt there was something there. I was surprised, not that he believed that, but that after his long career he had not already studied the dicipline. One of my first thoughts into the first show was that a staff handwriting graphoanalyst would me an annitional benefit. As Ekman and Lightman state, they know what an expression means, but they do not know what elicits it. The discovery and explanation comes for their detective work into the background of the subject. A handwriting analyst could give them a few more pieces to the puzzle and help focus the direction of investigation.

Of course on a TV show it may be one more piece that gives the illusion that everything can be tied up in 46 minutes.