Started watching this today.

Nice to see someone put a plausible spin on the investigative procedural. Straight detective shows have been done to death, likewise the CSI angle, and a lot of the angles I hear about seem more than a bit implausible (how they hell do they figure out a math angle every week in Numb3rs?), but reading facial expressions has been in the water for a while but hadn't been strip-mined by other shows.

Over-all, it's the sort of show like House or the original CSI in which largely forgettable stories are elevated by an interesting performance by the lead actor.

It's a pretty good show - except when they do anything related to the military. It boggles my mind that they don't even seem to run the script by someone that has a clue.

The usual sort of military ignorance or do they go above and beyond.

I love it when shows (or comics, for that matter) have enlisted men wear officers' uniforms, or vice versa.

IIRC, French Stewart's character in Stargate was referred to as both Sergeant & Captain, and his uniform had a single bar.

Klinger on M*A*S*H had a Regular Army serial number... kind of odd for a draftee who wanted a Section 8.

Well, put it this way... I'm usually pretty good at ignoring when shows screw up stuff about the military, but there were 2 episodes of LTM that were bad enough my daughter was telling me to leave the room.

I gave it a try. Seemed like they tried for a cross between House and CSI. And fucking failed.

Well, I love the show - though I must admit military incongruities are not obvious to me. Still, I think details like that should be considered - how hard could it be to snag someone with a bit of military knowledge to check those things before production? For the military stuff that was wrong (and I didn't know) it wouldn't make any difference (and that's probably for the majority of the audience), but for those who know, such things can be so annoying and distracting, they can't enjoy the whole show.

I had forgotten that they had used some of the same things in L&O: Criminal Intent.

Most of the way through the first season of Lie To Me, I'm noticing the same "badger/trick the suspect until he confesses" formula. People are way too quick to confess their crimes on this show.

I don't know - if a living lie detector was in one's face and time and again he correctly called them on each lie or evasion, it'd be unnerving enough for a guilty person to more quickly break down and confess, I think.

Lie To Me

OK, those jeans don't make your ass look fat.

That's why I didn't notice it at first. The way they did in on L&O:CI was so poorly done, since they usually had some really clever guy who gets out-clevered by Vincent D'Onofrio until he eventually breaks down and confesses the intricate details of his crime.

With Lie To Me, the plot often hinges on someone trying to protect someone else and that person breaking down once the lie gets uncovered. Most of these center around people who don't really make a habit of lying. I think the one where it really hit me was the building collapse story, where he provoked a politician into making damaging statements in public in front of the press on two separate occasions.

Wouldn't be the first time a politician was a hot head and spoke before he thought.

First time she did it, it was a bit odd. But she was admitting minor blame in order to get more jobs for her constituents. Second time, she was admitted major wrong-doing with absolutely no evidence being offered except that she look relieved when they accused someone else. It was just a really funny moment for a politician to instantly break down and admit criminal wrong-doing. It had the feel of, we have about two minutes to wrap this up, let's do it.

It's the formula, it's not always going to smoothly work. Sometimes you can't quite get there from here.

Can you dredge up the episode name? I wish to read a synopsis so I can more clearly recall that bit, for right now I'm having a hard time placing it. Poor memory on my part, that's all. If you fine it and have the URL for the episode synopsis, go ahead and paste it here. Thanks.

It's about the ninth or tenth episode of the first season. I'm on my phone or I'd hit Wikipedia to nail down the episode title. Building construction site collapses trapping three men underground. At first they think one of the trapped workers had set explosives to sabotage the operation.

Ah, season 1. Life if Priceless. Alas, it's been 16 months since that aired, so I can't recall the details. I thought you were talking about this season, which helps explain why I couldn't place it, perhaps. No Big.

Just got caught up with the second season. Nice to see them letting Tim Roth acting more like Tim Roth (he seemed just a bit too reserved that first season)... and it's cool to see him reunited with his Four Rooms co-star, Jennifer Beals. Without making any really drastic changes, they've managed to tweak the set-up just enough to make the show work a lot better.