Somewhere I had seen an ad for the tv show Lie to Me, and the concept intrigued me enough to check it out on Netflix.  Tim Roth, deception; sounded good to me.

Slogging through the first few episodes, I felt like I duped into another Numb3rs: some crap story telling sprinkled over a few scientific principles.  OK, so I am being harsh re: Numb3rs, though if someone really wants to say that it’s a decent show then go ahead.  I was a math major and just never felt it was well done, either in the writing or in the mathematics.

Lie to Me starts out a bit awkwardly in the same sense: there’s hardly any character development for the first few episodes, and the science part of it rains down like a ton of bricks.  The dialogue mostly runs, “You’re lying!” “No, you’re lying!” “No, she’s lying!” without much thought to the characters or motivations.  It’s rather interesting science, however, so I kept with it.

Half way into the first season, however, the claws of the show start to come out.  Tim Roth’s character gains depth, history, and back-story.  There’s some drama, not just in the run of the episode but from one to the next: characters intersect and the plot thickens.  I don’t want to give anything away, but by the end of it I’ve run into one of my more favorite shows on TV, and I’m really looking forward to biting into season 2 when it comes onto Netflix. Check it out, but be sure to stick with it: you won’t be disappointed.