THE PLOT THUS FAR

Tim Roth stars as Dr. Cal Lightman, a forensics expert with a special talent for reading the giveaway body language, facial expressions and other tell-tale signs criminals exhibit when trying to get away with a lie. Together with his crack team of specialists, Lightman helps the FBI, local police, lawyers and ordinary citizens who need help uncovering the truth in sticky situations. Brendan Hines and Monica Raymund co-star.

WHAT WE THOUGHT

The series is based on a real life scientist, Dr. Paul Ekman who apparently pioneered the lie detection technique and worked on criminal cases assisting the authorities. In the show Lightman has founded a kind of lie detection agency and along with his staff they take on cases for various government agencies, private firms and individuals. This is a neat way of making each episode a separate case, or more usually two overlapping cases.

The basic premise is a strong one and Tim Roth is an excellent actor but the rest of the cast pale by comparison and the writing has been of questionable quality. The formula of a grumpy autocratic boss character with a mysterious past who bosses around his rookie staff and believes everyone tells lies is strangely familiar. That’s right! Lightman bears more than a passing resemblance to House M.D. In fact Roth is another English actor playing a grumpy American and although the subject matter is quite different the basic formula is very similar indeed.

The first few episodes have challenged Lightman to solve various cases by watching out for unconscious micro-expressions, the quick tell tale facial expressions which give away our true feelings. This was interesting at first but is starting to become slightly wearing and will no doubt be entirely boring by the end of the 13 episode run. The writing is far too predictable and you’ll find yourself guessing the answer in the first few minutes of each episode and then having to wait for the cast to figure it out.