Well, it just goes to show that a good cast and promising premise do not necessarily a great show make. Lie to Me, one of Fox's midseason replacements, premiered last Wednesday, and while the critics I've come across have been fairly generous, I will be far less forgiving. I watch a lot of TV and my standards are strictly observed.
Following in the unending line of procedurals, Lie to Me focuses on a team of agenty type people who have been trained in the elusive art of lie detection. It's not the strongest premise in the world, but with Tim Roth and Kelli Williams at the helm, and in spite of the oh-so-formulaic elements (e.g. a new agent joins the team and acts as the audience's way in to a new world), I had some hopes for this show. I was willing to go with the fairly cheesy premise if the stories were solid, but the stories were, well, less than solid... It was all really more in the realm of Ooblick...
Anyway, it wasn't that the story of the week was insanely terrible or that the group dynamic was fatally flawed, but the show's failings really revolved around an inherent problem with the show's concept. For the audience to see these agents as badasses who can fight crime thanks to their specialized training (as is the overarching premise of so many shows out there, particularly procedurals), the abilities they possess need to be truly unique. These agents are able to detect micro-expressions or minute changes in voice and behavior that allow them to tell when someone is lying. Unfortunately, because the people on this show are actors and are all lying basically anyways, there can't be any genuing micro-expressions or tells that they're lying, so the actors have to consciously make those expressions, which invariably makes them neither micro nor hardly perceptible.
The show essentially operates on the specious belief that the audience can't tell when people are lying and that they can't tell that the actors are acting. In order to set thes
e agents apart from the regular people out there, they need a set of skills that most people don't have (e.g., I can't diffuse a bomb like Sydney Bristow, I can't diagnose people like Dr. House, I can't remove my sunglasses with earnest self-importance like David Caruso (who can?) etc.). Well, I hate to break it to you, show, but most of your audience has a least a decent ability to sense bullshit. Indeed, it's the truly rare individual who believes everything he or she hears. And given that the actors on the show have to exaggerate all their micro-expressions to the point of not being micro at all, it's pretty damn easy to tell who's lying and who's not. Because it's so patently apparent, it becomes unbelievably annoying that these characters seem to think they have some fantastic ability that makes them super cool or something. It makes it even more annoying when you, the audience member, can easily tell that a character is lying, but a lie-detectin' dream team member can't.
At one point during the show, Kelli Williams' character's husband shows up and says he's late because he got stuck at the office or something. I know he's lying, everyone else on the show knows he's lying, but Kelli doesn't. She's supposed to be some specially trained whatever but can't tell he's lying/probably cheating on her? Ummm.... okay? I'm hopeful that she actually does know that he's lying and is toying with him, but I'm not holding out hope. The most annoying part of that scene was that one of the onlookers mentioned the fact that the husband was lying as though it was some startling revelation. Yeah, no. Everyone watching knew that was the case as well.
What's more, the show also operates on the ridiculous assumption that people only ever lie with the belief that people will believe the lie. At one point, Tim Roth is waiting for a parking space when a lurker sneaks into it before he has the chance. Tim accosts the man who says he didn't notice Tim waiting for the space. Well, Tim brilliantly uses his super skills to point out that the man was lying. As though the guy thought (or cared) for even one second that this guy believe his lie! Well no duh he saw you, Tim. He just didn't care. And if he actually thought for even a second that you'd believe him, he's probably dumb enough to have actually not noticed you there, so you can't really blame him one way or the other.
I don't know. Maybe I just watch too much TV and that's why I could see the plot twists a mile away and knew that the characters were lying (and much more damningly, why they were lying--yeah, my mother and I had the whole storyline figured out in the first 20 minutes). Or maybe this genre is overdone. Or perhaps this show really is just kinda, sorta mediocre and has adopted a concept that seems promising on paper, but falters in execution. It's probably a bit of all three, but that's exactly why a show that uses this kind of formula has to have something special to offer--some sort of twist or perspective that keeps it fresh. Lie to Me has no such specialness. And it's kind of a shame... I have to admit, on paper, I thought this concept would work a lot better than it does. The actual skill of reading micro-expressions is extremely interesting, but on the show, it just comes across as lame and condescending.
I'll be giving Lie to Me a couple of more weeks to hopefully find its footing, but I'm not sure it's salvageable. The acting is good and the stories weren't terrible, but when the basic premise is flawed, it makes it hard to really find a foothold. It's a pity, but I have to say that Lie to Me isn't worth your time. I've seen more than a few shaky pilots that turned into really good serieseses, but that's when I saw a lot of promise in the premise. I don't think Lie to Me has enough promise...
I gave Lie to Me a C-/D+. It wasn't a total train wreck, but it goes as far off the rails as possible without garnering such a distinction.
I'll let you know if it miraculously gets better in the next few episodes. It's happened before, but not often...
Following in the unending line of procedurals, Lie to Me focuses on a team of agenty type people who have been trained in the elusive art of lie detection. It's not the strongest premise in the world, but with Tim Roth and Kelli Williams at the helm, and in spite of the oh-so-formulaic elements (e.g. a new agent joins the team and acts as the audience's way in to a new world), I had some hopes for this show. I was willing to go with the fairly cheesy premise if the stories were solid, but the stories were, well, less than solid... It was all really more in the realm of Ooblick...
Anyway, it wasn't that the story of the week was insanely terrible or that the group dynamic was fatally flawed, but the show's failings really revolved around an inherent problem with the show's concept. For the audience to see these agents as badasses who can fight crime thanks to their specialized training (as is the overarching premise of so many shows out there, particularly procedurals), the abilities they possess need to be truly unique. These agents are able to detect micro-expressions or minute changes in voice and behavior that allow them to tell when someone is lying. Unfortunately, because the people on this show are actors and are all lying basically anyways, there can't be any genuing micro-expressions or tells that they're lying, so the actors have to consciously make those expressions, which invariably makes them neither micro nor hardly perceptible.
The show essentially operates on the specious belief that the audience can't tell when people are lying and that they can't tell that the actors are acting. In order to set thes
e agents apart from the regular people out there, they need a set of skills that most people don't have (e.g., I can't diffuse a bomb like Sydney Bristow, I can't diagnose people like Dr. House, I can't remove my sunglasses with earnest self-importance like David Caruso (who can?) etc.). Well, I hate to break it to you, show, but most of your audience has a least a decent ability to sense bullshit. Indeed, it's the truly rare individual who believes everything he or she hears. And given that the actors on the show have to exaggerate all their micro-expressions to the point of not being micro at all, it's pretty damn easy to tell who's lying and who's not. Because it's so patently apparent, it becomes unbelievably annoying that these characters seem to think they have some fantastic ability that makes them super cool or something. It makes it even more annoying when you, the audience member, can easily tell that a character is lying, but a lie-detectin' dream team member can't.At one point during the show, Kelli Williams' character's husband shows up and says he's late because he got stuck at the office or something. I know he's lying, everyone else on the show knows he's lying, but Kelli doesn't. She's supposed to be some specially trained whatever but can't tell he's lying/probably cheating on her? Ummm.... okay? I'm hopeful that she actually does know that he's lying and is toying with him, but I'm not holding out hope. The most annoying part of that scene was that one of the onlookers mentioned the fact that the husband was lying as though it was some startling revelation. Yeah, no. Everyone watching knew that was the case as well.
What's more, the show also operates on the ridiculous assumption that people only ever lie with the belief that people will believe the lie. At one point, Tim Roth is waiting for a parking space when a lurker sneaks into it before he has the chance. Tim accosts the man who says he didn't notice Tim waiting for the space. Well, Tim brilliantly uses his super skills to point out that the man was lying. As though the guy thought (or cared) for even one second that this guy believe his lie! Well no duh he saw you, Tim. He just didn't care. And if he actually thought for even a second that you'd believe him, he's probably dumb enough to have actually not noticed you there, so you can't really blame him one way or the other.
I don't know. Maybe I just watch too much TV and that's why I could see the plot twists a mile away and knew that the characters were lying (and much more damningly, why they were lying--yeah, my mother and I had the whole storyline figured out in the first 20 minutes). Or maybe this genre is overdone. Or perhaps this show really is just kinda, sorta mediocre and has adopted a concept that seems promising on paper, but falters in execution. It's probably a bit of all three, but that's exactly why a show that uses this kind of formula has to have something special to offer--some sort of twist or perspective that keeps it fresh. Lie to Me has no such specialness. And it's kind of a shame... I have to admit, on paper, I thought this concept would work a lot better than it does. The actual skill of reading micro-expressions is extremely interesting, but on the show, it just comes across as lame and condescending.
I'll be giving Lie to Me a couple of more weeks to hopefully find its footing, but I'm not sure it's salvageable. The acting is good and the stories weren't terrible, but when the basic premise is flawed, it makes it hard to really find a foothold. It's a pity, but I have to say that Lie to Me isn't worth your time. I've seen more than a few shaky pilots that turned into really good serieseses, but that's when I saw a lot of promise in the premise. I don't think Lie to Me has enough promise...
I gave Lie to Me a C-/D+. It wasn't a total train wreck, but it goes as far off the rails as possible without garnering such a distinction.
I'll let you know if it miraculously gets better in the next few episodes. It's happened before, but not often...
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