Review: Lie to Me Season 1

Lie to Me is a procedural crime drama that is quite different from the types that you may be used to.   It stars Tim Roth as Dr. Cal Lightman who owns a company called The Lightman Group.  Cal and his group accept jobs from people and law enforcement in which he must help them by finding out if someone is lying and then discover what the truth is.  He’s sort of like a very direct private investigator that gets people the information they need from confronting their target rather than following them around.  Cal has studied body language and facial expressions for around 20 years and is the world’s foremost expert on the subject, which is how he is able to decipher the truth from people.

           

The show starts with Cal hiring a new apprentice of sorts to assist him in his investigations.  Her name is Ria Torres (Monica Raymund) and she is referred to as a natural.  A natural is someone who can recognize the sort of tells that The Lightman Group looks for without any formal training or knowledge of exactly what it is they are seeing, just what it might mean.  Since Torres is new Cal along with Dr. Gillian Foster (Kelli Williams) and Eli Loker (Brendan Hines), who are his partner and employee respectively, must teach her all of the nuances of the job. This is how the viewer comes to understand what they do and how they do it.  It’s quite fascinating to see all of the ways in which your body instinctively reacts giving away your true feelings about what you hear or say.  All of the stuff that they teach you in the show is real science that was studied and proven by Dr. Paul Ekman.  It’s also cool to see Cal’s deception detecting be used to handle all sorts of different situations from finding out whether a person is innocent or guilty of murder to preventing an assassination attempt.  Another thing that I really enjoy about the show is that they spend the time on their characters needed to make them all stand out and be interesting.  Cal is probably one of the most intriguing characters on television and that has a lot to do with not only the acting but the way the writers put little mysteries about him in the episodes that get unraveled piece by piece throughout the season.  Of course they were careful to leave plenty of things left to be unravelled in latter seasons.  They also give subplots throughout the season for each of the other characters so that they can grow and you can get invested in the entire cast rather than just the lead.

            The show’s cast is really talented but the clear standout is Tim Roth because he is just incredible in this role.  All of the little quirks and mannerisms that make Cal feel unique and intriguing are brilliant on his part.  Kelli Williams gives a solid performance as Foster but only towards the end does she get some more dramatic roles that show off the range of her talent.  Brendan Hines as Loker gives a subtle performance for most of the season because he isn’t a big focus except for a few episodes close to the end where he gets himself in a couple of interesting predicaments.  However his character does have an interesting way of providing comic-relief when he’s around because Loker is always totally honest even if it is inappropriate, insulting or embarrassing for himself he will say whatever comes to mind.  Monica Raymund is great as Torres because she brings a lot of passion to the role and does a good job of being a strong character who can challenge Cal but still so new to this world that her stubbornness can prevent her from learning things that she needs to in order to do her job and get along with her colleagues.

            Since this is the first season of the show we are obviously introduced to all of the characters and find out what sets them apart and makes them different from other people.  There are a few storylines that go throughout the season.  The foremost one is Torres’s intro to The Lightman Group and her attempt to understand Cal because he is a very strange and private man despite his very direct approach to other people.  Another interesting story is with Loker and it is about his struggle with total honesty and whether it is ok to lie sometimes if it is for the right reasons.  Which is one of the main themes of the show: is it ok to lie and if so are you willing to deal with the consequences that come with each lie you tell.    

            The first season of Lie to Me is quite good, it is a fascinating new take on crime drama and one that I look forward to seeing expand and grow.  The cast is really good especially Tim Roth who is amazing and thanks to the writers and directors they all shine.  If you’re interested in psychology and science being blended together in a great way or just want an interesting crime drama Lie to Me is worth checking out.

Score: 3/5

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Weekly Wrap Up

Sucker Punch purchased by Sony

            Sucker Punch is the company that made PlayStation franchises like Sly Cooper and Infamous and now Sony has decided to purchase them so that they will continue to make exclusives for their system.  It doesn’t really seem necessary since they already act like a first-party developer but I suppose Sony is a little concerned about the possibility of Sucker Punch going multiplatform like Insomniac is currently doing with Overstrike.  Naughty Dog, Insomniac and Sucker Punch always seemed like PlayStations main go-to developers so I see the need for concern if Sucker Punch was intending to go multiplatform.  But if they were going to do that it would make since to have a new IP but I haven’t heard anything about a new series from the company.  

The Gears of War

            Ice-T’s band Body Count has made a new song specifically for Gears 3 and it is entitled “The Gears of War”.   It even has a music video which is essentially the new Horde 2.0 trailer.  The song is decent, kind of funny actually how it’s pretty much a guy singing about big guns that he kills things with like the fact that he is a “Hammerburst pro” and such.  The video is pretty interesting however since it shows off a lot of the cool features that have been added to Horde mode like laser fences and turrets which you can purchase with the points you get from your kills in order to help fortify your defences.  Also they showed some boss battles against the Berserker and the Brumack the latter of which I am so looking forward to since you only get to fight a Brumack on foot in the first Gears of War on the PC which I never played.  Lastly they showed off a new map that looked really bright, colourful, and clean which is weird in a Gears game.  I wonder if it comes from the single player or is just some random place they made.

Vita delayed until 2012

            Sony’s PSV or PlayStation Vita if you prefer was originally intended to come out this holiday season but has been pushed back to early next year which could cost Sony a lot of sales.  Although it could work in their favour, if this buys them enough time to build a strong launch line-up to get people excited about and comes out when there are fewer games since the holidays are always packed they could grab a lot of people’s attention.

Rage Uprising Trailer

            Rage the latest game from ID Software has a new trailer and it really helps give you the feeling that there will be a big overarching story throughout the game to keep you focused and give you the narrative push that is lacking in some open-world games.  Take Borderlands for instance since whenever I see this game I think of it as a realistic looking version of it do to the similarities in setting, gameplay and even some enemy types.  Borderlands was lacking any since of urgency to keep me focused or even care about what I was trying to accomplish, it was just mindless fun running around shooting and levelling up.  I like that the Rage trailer focused on the story, about what you mean to the world as a sort of hero that can stand up to The Authority and save people which has renewed much of my excitement for this game that I had back when I first saw it at E3 2010.  

Bungie Documentary and new game hints

            Bungie has posted a video on their site that is sort of a documentary chronicling their history as a company, manly as the makers of Halo in order to celebrate their 20^th anniversary.  The video is about 55 minutes long and at about six and a half minutes in they have finished with all of their old games and start to focus on Halo.  Which I loved because the Halo games are the only games from Bungie that I’ve played and to be honest it is the entire reason everyone knows who they are, but the video is also about the community that has been built around Halo so they take their time to show footage from the launches, fans of the games and even a little bit about RED vs. Blue.  It is a really interesting video because you get to see how much they are care about their work and how hard it can be to produce games, especially of such high quality.  The video doesn’t end on Halo however instead it ends on their new game which has now been codenamed Tiger.  There is a symbol or logo for the game which is shown below and some footage of Windmills spinning on a snowy range with mountains behind them.  One of the designers on the project said “see you star side” and the final message was Per Audacia Ad Astra which apparently means something like “through boldness to the stars” which leads me to believe that Tiger is based in space with the story having a lot to do with space exploration which might be how you get to all the different areas like in the upcoming game The Old Republic.  Personally I’m much more excited for Tiger than TOR and I can’t wait to hear more.

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