Lie to Me 2.13: The Whole Truth and Rep Joe Wilson

And here I am back with a review of Lie to Me 2.13, which was just on Fox.  A fine show-

But first, I just gotta say, where else can you see a real shot of President Obama, worked into the story line?   Only on Lie to Me, which always cuts to a few shots of real people - it's one of the show's signatures.   So tonight we get Obama's cool response to the Republican boor who screamed out "you lie" (that would Rep. Joe Wilson) as the President addressed Congress and the nation about health care this past September.   And Gillian explaining the meaning of Obama's response to the son of a presumed murder victim...

Which brings us to the story.   A gorgeous woman - Clara, played by Melissa George, who had a similar role in the first season on In Treatment - is accused of murdering her husband, twice her age (her character wasn't accused of murder in In Treatment, but she did her best to seduce the psychologist).  Cal's ex-wife Zoe (Jennifer Beals from The L Word) is defending Clara.   Before the episode is over, there'll be some good attractions between Cal and Zoe (as always), Cal and Clara (of course), and there's always a little something between Cal and Gillian.

Bruce Weitz - who's looking far more distinguished now than he ever did on Hill Street Blues - also plays a role as the deceased's best friend, and Diane Baker is the judge (Raising the Bar should've worked her in).   And Cal's at his best in seeing the truth, going with the side of truth, and ending up in bed with ...

Well, see the show.   I'm going to watch a little news, and see if I can spot any shots of famous people that may show up on Lie to Me someday...



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 and Lie to Me 2.7: The Redeeming of Loker and Lie to Me 2.8 in Afghanistan and Viva Lightman and Las Vegas in Lie to Me 2.9 ... Lie to Me 2.11: Double Feature ... Lie to Me 2.12:  The One Prevarication

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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

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!

The L Word Concludes This Season with Powerful Lessons

I really enjoyed this season of Showtime's The L Word, which concluded last night.

My favorite thread comes from the next to last show this season: Kit (always great to see Pam Grier in action) has murder on her mind - she can't abide vicious SheBar owner Dawn buying her Planet out from under her. Kit shows up with a loaded a gun. But before she can fire from behind the curtain, she gets a call from Bette (Jennifer Beals) - who is overwhelmed with crises at work, needs someone to pick up little Angelica, and Tina (Laurel Holloman), also deluged by crises at work, can't do it. The call snaps Kit out of her killing fugue. But she's not out of the woods just yet. She gets Angelica, brings her home, steps out the room and comes back in to see Angelica playing with Kit's loaded gun ...

This was one of those moments in which I really wasn't sure what would happen - what kind of lesson the producers wanted to give us.

I was relieved that it was a powerful lesson - with a happy ending. Kit gets the gun safely away from Angelica, and puts it just where it belongs - buried in the outside trash can. Everyone can breathe now. And, maybe because it all happened so suddenly, these scenes struck me as one among the best I've ever seen about the insanity of having guns around - especially with children nearby.

Shane (Kate Moennig) continues to be my favorite character. Her being with Nikki on the balcony in the finale - interrupted by Jenny (Mia Kirshner), who, as Shane well knows, is deeply in love with Nikki - makes perfect sense for Shane's character. Sex is usually irresistible to Shane, Nikki is irresistibly beautiful, and Shane's long relationship with Jenny is complicated. Shane has also just broken up with Molly, which makes Shane more volatile than usual. But ... one thing I don't quite see is why Shane let Molly's mother talk Shane out of the relationship. Given how long Shane had been yearning for Molly, and happy the two seemed to be together, not to mention Shane's rebellious nature ... (On the other hand, what do I know ... I'm just your average male viewer when it comes to The L Word.)

But I do know that this continues to be a superbly acted and rendered series. Beals, Holloman, Moening, and Kirshner and in fact just about everyone gave outstanding performances this year, and I look forward to more next year.

See also Looking In On The L Word

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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!

Looking In on The L Word...

Long before women were being wittily, hilariously, so coolly bedded almost round the clock by Hank Moody in Californication, they were being wittily, hilariously, coolly bedded around the clock by ... women, in The L Word, on Showtime.

Californication and Weeds are often cited (by me and others) as the spear carriers of Showtime's sweep into first place as the most innovative story telling network on cable, but this leap forward really started with The L Word, which debuted its 5th Season last Sunday.

The series has been and still is in a class by itself. It is more daring than HBO's Big Love - lesbian sex is more radical than polygamy. It explores more nuances in sexual relationships than HBO's Tell Me You Love Me. And The L Word of course has more women in positions of power and not in power than Weeds.

But The L Word feels most like Californication. Both shows take place in California, and both are intimately intertwined with writing, movie-making, and their travails, as well as sex.

My favorite characters in The L Word, however, are not in the movie or publishing business. Bette is a museum director who becomes dean of a school of design. Maybe my being a professor makes me naturally relate to her, but Jennifer Beals' performance is a perfect mix of primness and passion. She has been a pleasure to see on screen since Flashdance, and is only getting better.

Katherine Moennig is also superb as Shane in The L Word. She's usually up for sleeping with just about any woman, but brings a refreshing understanding of - or at least, an attempt to understand - the subtleties of every relationship she's in or wants into. Shane is a hairdresser, not an academic or a writer. But she thinks more than any other character on the series.

I've seen the first four episodes of the new season, and it's lots of fun, with serious themes including life in prison and the military woven in, and lots of other top-notch acting talent including Cybill Shepherd and Pam Grier, a plus in any scene they may appear.

Highly entertaining, thought provoking, and recommended, and I'll be back here with more reviews as this bright new season of The L Word progresses.

See also The L Word Concludes This Season with Powerful Lessons

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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!