Miénteme

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 very interesting series, with a lot of humor and a very interesting premise in my opinion. In addition the 4 Cast members all play their role very good and add to the show's freshness.

Tim Roth (great as always!) plays Dr. Cal Lightman, a human lie-detector, who's able to detect any lie from people's body language. That ability comes in handy when catching criminals, but it also provides him with the misfortune of always knowing when someone is not honest with him, sometimes leading to unfortunate situations. Lightman is a cynic and unpleasant character, who's willing to do anything to find out if someone is telling the truth or not.

The series also features a strong supporting cast, including Kelli Williams as Dr. Gillian Foster, whose husband is cheating on her, a fact everyone of her colleagues is aware of, except herself. Brendan Hines' character is always telling the truth no matter how embarrassing and Monica Raymund starrs as Ria Torres, who has the natural ability of seeing if someone is lying. That often leads to conflict with Lightman, who refuses to believe her ability is as accurate as his, since he needed years of training, while she was just born with her talent.

Yes, there are parallels with other series, especially "The Mentalist", but those are pretty much limited to the ability of the main character being able to detect the truth from people's movements and voices. Besides "Lie to Me" is focused on the science of detecting lies, something completely ignored in "The Mentalist". For example, it will take a person who's telling the truth longer to respond than one who's lying, because the one telling the truth needs to think about the answer.

The only real flaw after 5 episodes is in my opinion that not enough character history is provided. We literally don't know anything about the characters, except a few details. I have no doubt we'll eventually find out more, but it's about time they start. All in all, the series is great fun and entertainment, and maybe you'll be able to pick up one or the other lie in the future, thanks to Lightman's group.

This show remains episodic in its narrative structure while keeping you fully intrigued by the characters and wanting to discover more about their back story. Tim Roth is intense, engaging and brilliant... kind of a milder version of House - he's willing to stop at nothing to get to the truth, and doesn't feel the need to over-rationalize his choices.

The other characters compliment each other well, and use their personal characteristics to colour their judgments/choices, which is true to life.

Very intelligent show so far.

Hope it stays on the air.

I know. Pie in the sky request. But for whatever it is worth, felt the premise of the program to be most excellent. Scintillating. Tim Roth's performance was spot on. Just enough quirky, just enough over the top, just enough. Supporting cast also excellent.

But in hopes that someone hears this... please bring this back. Given the recent election cycle, there is more than enough mendacity to supply a plethora of scripts and story lines. We need Dr. Lightman now more than ever today. And no problem to bring along Lightman's sub plot of his daughter who would be in her 20s.

It would be the berries to bring this back.

So far I've only seen the pilot episode. I admit it. I've got a mad man-crush for this show.

The show's about Dr. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth) as a sort of a superhero. He's a human lie detector. He looks for dozens of subtle tells in the face and on the body. He's studied human communication so intensely that he always knows if someone is concealing something.

His company, so far, is involved with police and political matters. There's some significant room to bring in lots of personal interplay as well (we've seen a glimpse of that already).

This is from Imagine Entertainment, the company that does 24. I hope that, as the show evolves, that the fate of the planet doesn't rest on everything that Dr. Lightman does and says. One Jack Bauer is plenty, thanks.

I also hope that the show doesn't become driven by an overarching nemesis. Shows with a strong internal mythology and skin-tight story arcs can be fun, but we've seen so much of them lately that I wouldn't mind seeing the episodic adventures of a flawed hero trying to do something right.