There are over 6.6 billion people on this planet with each doing something differently than the other or speaking in a different manner to the other. However, no matter what language a person speaks in or whichever accent they use, every one of the 6.6 billion humans LIE. Lying has been a constant companion to our society ever since we started to exist and has smothered relationships, generated a massive loss of money and has lead to one too many deaths over the course of human history. However, we as people have not ceased this poisonous habit because although aware of its damaging effects we know that it keeps the world turning, it saves people from finding out inconvenient truths about themselves, it keeps unfaithful soul mates from dissolving into fights, allows us to rise through the ranks of popularity and as a whole is used to cover our tracks every time we screw up something.
However, no matter how much a person lies to everyone around them left, right and centre he/she would never want to be lied to or follow a deceit that they are unaware of. Anyone and everyone would simply jump at the opportunity to somehow magically, miraculously find a method or device that would allow them to catch out the liars and deduce the truth. This is exactly what FOX has cleverly marketed upon and has brought its audience its crime drama series “Lie To Me”.
When people first found out of a new crime show starting on FOX in 2007 no one was particularly excited since NCIS, Bones and the CSI franchise had dominated that particular niche. More disappointing omens came to be when FOX didn’t go all out crazy with the show’s advertising campaign unlike it’s already prized shows such as Bones, American Idol, Glee and Dollhouse. The network seemed to be taking a huge risk by banking viewers on the sole concept of the show and not really try to appeal to a particular audience.
However, the show premiered to satisfactory ratings and in fact kept improving in viewership over the course of the thirteen episodes comprised first season. FOX, seeing the shows potential of being a big hit finally started rolling in the money to spread information on the show virally. FOX managed to get the show sponsored by extremely popular Youtube personalities such as “WHAT THE BUCK show”, “Nigahiga” and “Shane Dawson” who themselves have viewers in the millions. A complex and intricate chain of the fictional characters Twitter and Myspace accounts led to enough attention being garnered for it to be renewed for a second and third season. As of 2010, the show returned from its mid-season break to enjoy a note worthy six million average viewers per episode.
It isn’t really surprising to determine why the show turned out to be so popular when you look at the plot of a middle aged man extremely well trained in the art of lie detection and his four man team of equally adequate human lie detectors solving criminal cases that the FBI and CIA could not crack. A secondary plot throughout the series is the audience learning what happened to the characters in the past that led them to pursue a career based on unmasking lies by observing facial expressions, micro expressions and voice change. The first episode starts off simple enough with Dr Cal Lightman asking a black church bomber questions and even though the bomber doesn’t reply, Cal is able to determine to truth just by the small body movements made whenever the bomber lies. However, as the episodes progress we learn that Cal has had a bad past with his ex-wife because he could always tell whenever she was lying and he never let her keep secrets since he always deduced them just by looking at her, he also has an unstable relationship with his teenage daughter who wants to go out and party and date guys that Cal doesn’t approve of but doesn’t say anything to her when she lies to him about it even though he knows she’s lying. He also knows that his close friend and detective partner Gillian Foster’s husband is cheating on her but he doesn’t tell her because he thinks that it’s not his place to do so. We later find out that the reason Dr Cal Lightman got into the lying game was because when he was little, his mother was suffering through depression so she was put into rehab. However, she lied on a video interview with the doctor and said that she’s fine so they would let her go. His mother then proceeds to commit suicide and Cal holds himself responsible for not being able to detect the lies from his mother to stop her.
The show premires on FOX on a slightly unstable timeslot and will return as a summer replacement for FOX in the 2010 summer months.