Lie to Me 2.7: The Redeeming of Loker

Eli Loker (Brendan Hines), one of the best characters on Lie to Me, in which all of the central characters are outstanding, has been in Lightman's dog house since the middle of the first (last year's) season, when Loker alerted the Security Exchange Commission about the results of a case he was working on. Lightman nearly fired Loker, settled for demoting him to a lowly unpaid intern, with an injunction that Loker needed to show he could really "contribute" to the organization.

In last night's 2.7, Loker did just that - in a way that lost the Lightman group almost two million of much needed dollars, but maintained the moral high ground that is so crucial to Lightman, and what makes him and the show so appealing. Loker finds that a big electronics discount store, signed up by Loker as a client, was partially responsible - "contributory negligence" is the legal term - for a stampede that took place in front of the store. When Loker makes it clear to the client that he does not intend to sit on this information, the client takes back the lucrative fee. Lightman feigns fury about this to Loker, but he's in fact delighted by Loker's integrity, and it will be fun to see Loker in an ascending rather than descending role.

The other story in 2.7 was about a teenager, kidnapped as a baby 16 years ago, in search of his real parents. It was a strong, in the end heart warming story, but it had no connection to the electronic discount store, and I find the two separate story approach (lots of television does it) usually does not make for the most riveting episode.

Hey, I'm reviewing Lie to Me, so I'm not going to lie to you.

And I'll be back here next week with my review of this highly original, compelling series.

5-min podcast review of Lie to Me


See also my reviews of Lie to Me and Bill O'Reilly, Saddam Hussein, and Ben Reynolds in Lie to Me 2.6

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

Lie to Me

I thought it was long since time that I checked in with a review of Lie to Me, which last night aired episode 5 of its second season on Fox.

It's one of my and my wife's favorite shows, and along with 24, Bones, House, and (formerly) The Shield, makes Fox easily the network with the greatest number of cutting edge, entertaining series on television.

Lie to Me serves up a riveting variety of stories - including politics, police work, and all manner of business and personal relationships - all tied together by Dr. Cal Lightman's genius is reading facial expressions and body language for truth and falsity of communication. The science is sound - Paul Ekman, whose work I examined in my own PhD studies, is the source of the science and an adviser to the show. Tim Roth's acting is brilliant and volatile as Lightman, and the supporting case is stellar, too.

My favorites are Kelli Williams as Lightman's partner Dr. Gillian Foster - I've enjoyed her work since she was Lindsay on The Practice - and Monica Raymund as Ria Torres, one of the hottest women on television. Unlike Lightman and Foster, who studied their way to facial expression mastery, Ria is a natural, which gives her an intriguing packet of advantages and flaws in comparison to her bosses.

Lightman is divorced from Zoe Landau, played by Jennifer Beals, whom I'm glad to see continuing on television after a fine run in The L Word. Foster is divorced, too, and is certainly in some kind of love with Lightman, who feels the same way about her. But their attraction so far is less erotic than Bones and Booth, if equally under the surface.

And even the more minor characters are unusual, including Brendan Hines as Loker, who veers between going by the book and taking matters into his own hands, and Mekhi Phifer as FBI Agent Ben Reynolds, not quite willing to do whatever Lightman asks, but coming through in the end in one way or another.

The series engagingly grapples with the ethics of colleagues who can easily know more about each other than any of them would want, and the pros and cons of reading the lies of their clients. Mix into that some great photos of real politicians and other public people with lying eyes and faces, and you have a series that is at once more realistic and out of left field than just about anything else on television.

I'll be reviewing episodes more regularly from now on. You can't see my face, but I can assure you that's true...






7-min podcast review of Lie to Me

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!