Lie to Me

I am a Wednesday night TV watcher. I have long been a "Top Chef" addict, those of you who have tried to call me between 9 and 10p.m. Central Time on Wednesdays will know that I don't answer my phone unless it's a commercial break.

I am a Wednesday night TV watcher, with a unique caveat. I don't watch "Lost." I have never watched a full episode, I have watched parts of many episodes. It makes me roll my eyes, and I really am quite incredulous that so many of my fellow friends and countrymen find it addicting and "great." For those of you (Jake) who are going to use this opportunity to try to get me to watch it, save your breath. I will never watch "Lost". I'm not into plane crash survivors mixed with fantasy. I will never be. It's okay. I'm still American, and I still possess a fully intact brain.

And with that fully intact brain, I often find myself frustrated on Wednesday nights with the TV offerings. Because I have a lot of time to kill between when I walk in the door at 6:30 and "Top Chef's" theme music. I have been more than pleased then, the past three weeks, to turn to Fox at 8:00 and watch "Lie to Me." Scott made me watch the first episode because Tim Roth is the leading character, Dr. Lightman, and Scott has a deep respect for Tim Roth's acting. But aside from the fact that I busted the plot of the first episode by the second commercial break, I love this show. LOVE. It's totally the psych major in me, the person fascinated by people's emotions and how they display them. I got into psych and social work because I am fascinated by people, and honestly, this show shows just how fascinating they can be. Dr. Lightman (and his team) are based loosely on an anthropologist who spent years in remote tribes all over the world studying the universality of facial expressions. He discovered that you can always tell by facial expression and physical gestures alone that someone is lying. Now, the show if fictional, so they take this premise and blow it into a giant lie-detecting squad of hot people. But, honestly, the fact that they take fictional storylines and compare the facial expressions and gestures of those characters with the facial expressions and gestures of real people (in the first episode, they compared a facial expression of one of the characters with that of OJ Simpson's during his trial; tonight, they compared a self-soothing gesture of one of the female characters with photos of the same gesture being employed by Princess Diana and Michelle Obama on election night) is so fascinating to me. I love that people can tell a story without saying a word. (Maybe because I talk so much?!)

I love the combination of psychology, crime, and pop culture in this show. I'm not saying it's not predictable, I'm not saying it's brilliant. But Scott was right, Tim Roth is fantastic, and the show is more entertaining than it ever has the right to be. I love it when that happens...especially on Wednesday nights!