by Daniel Erenberg

I’ll give FOX the credit they deserve. Tim Roth is an inspired choice to headline a procedural dramedy, and the fact that the network was able to steer him away from the new Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds in order to appear in what is essentially House if they let Hugh Laurie be British is nothing short of remarkable. And Tim Roth does not let his network down. He earns what is sure to be his very large paycheck with an easy-going, no-frills star performance as the eccentric (aren’t they all?) Dr. Cal Lightman, a guy who specializes in telling whether or not people are lying. You might be wondering what the difference is between this and the similar-sounding CBS hit The Mentalist. Well, Tim Roth is a much better actor than Simon Baker, but that’s about it.

Unfortunately, Roth is the whole show here. Lie To Me is very defiantly rooted in the classic procedural case-of-the-week structure, and every time the show inches towards breaking out of it, it’s quickly pulled back in. There’s a good scene in the pilot where Roth recruits an airport cop to join his crack crime-solving squad. But that just allows this new character to make an important discovery later on about the case of the week (involving a teenage Jehovah’s Witness who may or may not have murdered his hot teacher). In another scene, Dr. Lightman answers his door to find his daughter’s boyfriend and asks him point blank, “Are you going to try to have sex with my daughter tonight?” This is, of course, so Lightman can use his skill of squinting at body language to decide whether the poor kid is telling the truth. It’s a cute scene, but it’s the only scene in the entire pilot that doesn’t take place in the workplace and it’s only about three minutes long.

Roth could also use better support from his cast. Kelli Williams plays his partner. You know the archetype. We’re supposed to be rooting for them to fuck. But we don’t really care, because Dr. Gillian Foster is such a boring, empty character. The new recruit, Ria Torres (Monica Raymund) adds some ethnic flavor to a cast that really needs it, but we haven’t really been given a reason to care about her yet either. The best actor of the supporting cast is probably Brendan Hines, who plays the compulsive truth-teller Eli, but even that’s not really saying much, as his performance pretty much amounts to a decent-enough Paul Rudd impersonation, and his dialogue is almost fully comprised of exposition.

With Tim Roth sitting pretty, Lie To Me could grow into something more than what it is. But with its seemingly unwavering desire to be the same thing every week, and to bring nothing new to its already tired genre, it’s hard to imagine how.

B-

Tags: TV review Tim Roth Lie To Me
January 24, 2009 at 1:51am ∞