I am – Hercules!!


“Lie to Me,” a crime drama from Sam Baum (creator of Fox’s perfectly horrible 2006 Rob Estes crime drama “The Evidence”), is about a scientist named Cal Lightman who – just like the title characters in CBS’ “The Mentalist” and USA’s “Psych” – can always tell when you’re fibbing.

The “Lie” pilot is not as good as the pilots for “The Mentalist” or “House,” to which it bears similarities, but it’s considerably better than, say, Fox’s pilots for “Prison Break” and “The Evidence.”

Tim Roth, typically strong here, surrendered his role as Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorius Basterds” to star in this series. Not his worst call; seeing as it gets top TV hit “American Idol” as its lead-in, “Lie” could mean years of steady paychecks.

Kelli Williams, looking plenty hot a dozen years after starting on “The Practice,” plays a fellow scientist and Lightman associate. Lightman has a second associate who always tells the truth about everything. A third associate, recruited in the pilot from an airport security detail, has a rare natural ability to detect lies.

I like the direction by Robert Schwentke (“Flightplan”), who keeps the visuals popping. I like that the first time we see Roth’s character, he’s sussing out a church-bombing racist who looks eerily like famed Obama critic Joe The Plumber.

There are two stand-alone mysteries in the first episode, and both strike me as riddled with improbabilities without being particularly compelling.

Candidly, there are already a too many TV mysteries being solved each and every week, and “Lie To Me” just isn’t special enough to stand out. I’m telling my TiVo not to bother.

Entertainment Weekly says:

… derivative yet well crafted, predictable yet ever-so-slightly novel (all those new fun facts!), so it's no wonder that Fox thinks it's got itself a potential hit worthy of post–American Idol time-period status. And yet, I wonder: Roth is a familiar '90s film face (Pulp Fiction, Rob Roy) whose career was ripe for a TV series. But is America ready to take this broody Brit — not cuddly like Monk or lovably cranky like House — to its bosom? Personally, I'm glad Roth resists the cuddly/cranky. But if this review were a face, Dr. Lightman would say it had a forced smile: hopeful, but dubious, about Lie's chances. …

USA Today says:

… There's a fine cast, led by Tim Roth (The Incredible Hulk) and, in a nice, bright change of pace, The Practice's Kelli Williams. But you can't help feeling you've seen the show's central gimmick before — like, say, last night on The Mentalist. … the show does have its amusing moments. What it doesn't have is any sense of surprise, and once the novelty factor wears off, you just wonder whether there's enough here to sustain a series. …

The New York Times says:

… Throughout the history of modern popular culture we’ve gone in and out of defining female intelligence in terms of intuitive displays. I’m not sure what it means that television’s reigning intuitionists are now male (Lightman joins the strike force of Adrian Monk and “The Mentalist’s” Patrick Jane). And I’m not sure whether the regendering is a democratizing net positive for feminism or whether we should take offense that women’s intuition translates somewhere along the spectrum of cute while its male counterpart is meant to suggest the power of a mind brilliantly deducing. Against my better judgment, I suspect I’ll keep watching “Lie to Me” until I figure it out.

The Los Angeles Times says:

… The most remarkable thing about “Lie to Me,” the new Fox series starring Tim Roth as a "human lie detector" -- the only remarkable thing about it, really -- is that Roth has been allowed to keep his accent. … To say that there is nothing else remarkable about the series is only to say that it is one more mystery series among many, although perhaps one more free-floating than most. While it's not free of the clichés of its kind, it is not bad at all.

The Chicago Tribune says:

… briskly efficient … That’s really the question about “Lie to Me” — whether it will just be an efficient weekly procedural, despite the occasional clunkers in the script and its predictable supporting characters (there’s the even-more-cynical male protégé who practices radical truthtelling, and the female second fiddle who thinks Lightman is too pessimistic; both come off like stock characters borrowed from the "House" set). But there’s another option for this crisply shot, well-paced drama: It could venture into the darker and knottier realms of morality, as “House” did in its first few seasons. …

The Washington Post says:

… The strength of the premise combined with first-class production make this easily one of the season's best new shows, and I say that without a twitch, a blink, a suspicious scowl or a telltale tic. …

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

… comes out of the box strong, and it's especially encouraging that the cases at hand and the science used in the first hour is compelling enough that Roth's character (based on Paul Ekman, a real-life expert on lying and microexpressions, among other things) can evolve more slowly. …

The Salt Lake Tribune says:

I loved Fox's new crime drama, "Lie to Me." It is the greatest new show in the history of television. I can't miss another episode. I adored everything about it. Now, if the show's lead character, deception expert Dr. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth), saw me while I said that, he would notice that one of my fingers raised, I made a slight shrug, I gently massaged my lip, and I started to breathe faster. In other words, he would know that I was lying through my teeth. …

The Orlando Sentinel says:

… predictable, standard fare … makes a better lecture than a drama.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

… Roth's Lightman is not nearly the curmudgeon Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) is, nor is he as entertaining, but "Lie to Me" has the makings of a fine procedural for viewers who can't seem to get enough of this type of series. …

The Boston Herald says:

… As far as TV crime procedurals go, you could do a lot worse, but I’d be lying if I said I recommend this show. …

The Boston Globe says:

… If you're not a crime-TV lover, you have no business here. "Lie to Me" is a murder-of-the-week series to its core, and Roth is surrounded by the expected ensemble of co-workers who help him help the police nail bad guys. … But if you're fascinated by the poker-game elements of crime-solving and a man obsessed with "tells," you may connect with this show. …

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… fortunate to have a guy with the talents of Tim Roth as a trump card. But even apart from him, the writing and the concept are sufficiently developed from the get-go to prove an instantly intriguing entry …

Variety says:

… to say this is anything to get excited about would be a big, fat, transparent you-know-what. …

9 p.m. Wednesday. Fox.

"I love love love DR. HORRIBLE’S SING-ALONG BLOG as much or more than just about anything I’ve seen this year." -- Harry Knowles

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