Lie to Me!

Personally I didn't think it was all that great really. That's just my opinion though.

I love Tim Roth, but I can't stand Kelli Williams. Sort of evened out for me. The premise is pretty cool, but it seems like a gimmick that will wear itself out after a half-season.

The characters and plot for the pilot were all rather potboiler. I felt like I had seen it all before, that it was just a focus-on-lying twist tacked on a stale and overused concept with nothing else to make it stand out -- sort of a CSI: Special Liars Unit.

That said, I quite liked how they used science in the show, and Tim Roth is an excellent actor. I will keep watching for the next few shows, but unless something interesting starts to happen I doubt it will last long.

Actually I liked, but probably because it is all right. I have seen this first hand. I plan to continue watching.

I love Tim Roth, but I can't imagine them going at this for more than one season, two tops.

How long until he's running around with a gun and calling a terrorist's bluff?

"You're lying! It's all over your face! You don't really want to die! Put the bomb down!"

It might not last night, but it holds many good points that are actually used in 'real' life often, whether realized or not.

I just loved the 'real life' photo that they show when they tell you about a particular lying pattern on your face...so good!!

I saw the third episode of this last week (in the UK) and was immediately hooked. Luckily, they were repeating the first few episodes over that weekend and I could catch up. I love this series. I think my favourite thing about it is the feeling that I'm learning something. The characters are interesting and the acting is great. I am very aware of the writing at times, about how they're introducing us to the characters bit by bit, but it doesn't detract from the show. I look forward to it every week now, which I haven't done for a while with a TV program.

Yeah I got into this show. It is not flawless but I like it enough to keep watching if and when it comes back.

Pardon the zombie thread resurrection, but I'm usually way late to the party when it comes to TV shows. I've been watching this on Netflix, and while I liked it at first, I'm now maybe 8 or 10 episodes in and something is driving me crazy.

The writers use one extremely unrealistic device to resolve the plot in every single show (at least, in each that I've seen so far). As soon as one of the "lie detector" characters catches someone in a lie, that person immediately confesses all. It's ridiculous.

Suspect: "Nope, I didn't do it. I don't even know what you're talking about."

Lie Detector: "Ha. I saw your eye twitch just now. I KNOW YOU'RE LYING."

Suspect: "Oh, yes, that's right. I killed her and I set the house on fire and I have herpes and I embezzled all the money to cover my gambling addiction!"

Once the lie is detected, nobody ever seems to deny it, or clam up, or ask to speak to a lawyer, or anything. It's just one long confession to the whole enchilada, put me handcuffs and haul me away because I so totally admit that I did it.

Yeah, that was why I got a little tired of it. It would seem to me that if detectives were really operating that way, they would find the lie, and then work backwards to find proof of it. Just explaining why certain micro expressions mean "you're lying" should not be enough to solve the crime. It would be enough to know the truth, and know what they should be looking for.

There was an episode about a politician who had been visiting a call girl. They caught him in his lie, and he admitted what he had done, but explained that he wasn't actually doing anything but talking, and he was spending time with her because she was his daughter whom he never knew, and he hadn't told her yet. That guy was decent, and it made sense for him to tell the truth, because he wasn't really doing anything wrong. But the criminals? The cops saying "I know you're lying" is not enough to make them tell the truth, so how is Tim Roth saying it going to make it happen?

I would also find it more interesting if he were wrong once in a while. That's one thing I like about HOUSE MD. He's brilliant, but he's sometimes wrong.

I also thought there was zero chemistry between Roth and the female lead, and I was completely uninterested in that whole subplot, and it got boring.

Yeah, I don't see any chemistry between those two either. She seems rather naive yet smug and I find myself not really interested in what her slippery husband is sneaking off to do.

Many many years ago I was married to a pathological liar. If there is one thing that experience taught me, it's that a decent liar will stick to his story even if you've got him dead to rights and are cramming irrefutable evidence straight up his nostril. It would be really refreshing to see the accused on Lie to Me behave like that, and as you say, detectives having to chase down a shred or two of evidence exposed by the discovered lie.

The example you gave of the politician episode (which I saw) is a good one: telling the truth might get him into a different kind of trouble, but it was a much older "sin" and probably not as damaging as people's other assumptions. That was one of the few times it made sense.

I also agree that Tim Roth's character suffers from being always right. I also don't like the way he goes after people sometimes, being a bigger jerk than he probably needs to be to get reactions out of them.

Man, I can't wait until more episodes of House of Cards come out.