‘Lie to Me’ Lies to Me
by Ben ShapiroI’ve criticized the show House in this space before. House is a main character who is beginning to cross the line from likable to crotchety, despite Hugh Laurie’s greatness. His sidekick, Wilson, is far more interesting dramatically. And the show itself is amazingly predictable: somebody has a seizure; opening credits; wrong diagnosis; commercial; wrong diagnosis; commercial; wrong diagnosis; commercial; correct diagnosis indicated by oblique reference in the B story; conclusion; end credits.
But at least House is well-written. It’s also a relatively balanced show, even though House himself is an open atheist. For example, Season Three of House featured two abortion episodes: “Fetal Position,” which was so pro-life that it included a mockup of the famous image of a baby’s hand holding an operating doctor’s; and “One Day, One Room,” an episode in which House convinces a raped patient to have an abortion. Despite the show’s overall liberal tilt (see Wilde, Olivia), there is at least an attempt to be evenhanded.
Not so with Lie to Me, the House knockoff starring Tim Roth as Cal Lightman. It’s just as formulaic, and the writing isn’t as good – but more than that, the writing has become incredibly biased. Aside from the repeated snide references to President Bush and constant barrages of mini-rants straight from the Joy Behar playbook, two of the last three episodes have been blatantly leftist to an obnoxious extent.
First there was “Secret Santa,” in which the show took on the war in Afghanistan. Essentially, one of the characters had been a recruit for a secret American agency. Captured in Afghanistan, he was converted to the Taliban. He is the sympathy player in the piece; at the end of the episode, he redeems himself by saving US soldiers. The villain of the piece is the Bush Administration, which supposedly abandoned this traitor to his fate in Afghanistan.
This simply belies the facts. The American citizens who go to fight with the Taliban aren’t captured Americans – they’re generally American volunteers like John Walker Lindh. They’re Muslims who think they’re fighting for the ummah when they join up with Sharia law thugs. They’re not rogue Americans pushed to the brink by President Bush.
But “Secret Santa” was just a prelude to the climax of the season: “Tractor Man.” In this episode, those of us who oppose federal overreach are raked over the coals. The villain in this one is a disappointed taxpayer who wants to bomb US government buildings as revenge for the government’s destruction of his farm.
This sort of leftist tripe isn’t uncommon on Lie to Me. The pilot episode featured a Democratic Congressman suspected of picking up prostitutes – it turns out that he’s innocent, and that the prostitute in question is his daughter. He offers to resign his position in order to protect her. Meanwhile, in the same episode, a religious boy is suspected of murder. Turns out he wasn’t a murderer – he was just masturbating over a dead body. Terrific.
The second episode of the series, “Moral Waiver,” had a staff sergeant threatening a female subordinate with dangerous assignments in order to get her to give him sex.
Even the first season finale, “Sacrifice,” which did have al Qaeda as the bad guys, had Lightman spouting Obama talking points about pressuring terrorists for information, including that old tripe about American interrogation methods providing a training tool for terrorists (as though they would be less likely to join up if we read them their Miranda rights). We also get the CAIR talking points, with an imam lecturing us about how horrible law enforcement is for the Muslim community, and the dastardly FBI secretly bugging the mosque.
In short, Lie to Me is leftist agitprop masquerading as entertainment. It doesn’t try to hide its agenda, and it doesn’t try to present both sides of an argument. It is unabashedly Garafalo-esque. That could be one reason it has slipped dramatically in the ratings. Its first three episodes averaged 12-13 million viewers. The pilot finished #8 for the week. The most recent series finale averaged half that, with 6.59 million viewers.
That’s a good thing. When entertainment is infused with liberalism, Americans will watch. When entertainment is discarded in favor of liberalism, Americans tune out. It’s about time the creators of Lie to Me learned that lesson.
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90 Comments
Easiest way to get this tripe off the air: DON'T WATCH IT!
There's more than one reason I don't watch 'Lie to Me' and I didn't even know it. The name alone was enough. Thanks, Ben.
Wow, I had no idea Lie To Me was so political. I never got around to watching it when it premiered.
I take 'some' issue with your description of Secret Santa. As I recall the 'turncoat' was sent in as a double agent by our badguys… (CIA, Secret Army Black Ops, something like that) He had a tracking devise surgically implanted so that after 2 years our bad guys but trying to be good guys would retrieve him.
But the battery died, he was assumed dead and written off and like undercover drug agents, they some times get sucked into the wrong side.
The abandoned soldier was profoundly messed up… Stockholm Syndrome.
Our side couldn't let him come back because we had abandoned him and that had to be hidden.
In the end Cal goes to the kids family and the government bad guy also comes clean to the family.
I enjoy the show even when it careens into the left wing foolishness. I believe a coordinated mail campaign might be of some benefit.
How about it? Are we up to it?
i have never heard of it. LOL
Thank you for this article. I am a HUGE fan of House and so I always see the previews for "Lie to Me" and it always struck me as an interesting premise for a show. But for some reason I never got around to watching it. I was thinking of adding it to my DVR recordings this year. I'm glad to know I don't have to. It is also great to know that this show is tanking now, most likely due to the obnoxious leftist theme of the show.
I have watched the show since th beginning. I noticed the liberal tilt but figured if I didn't watch anything with a liberal tilt I wouldn't watch anything. It's really getting unbearable though and I'm so sick of Tim Roth's "acting". I guess walking around and flailing around your hands in every scene is a sign of "brilliant acting".
I really wanted to like this show, and on the face of it, it is a good premise. Tim Roth is an awesome actor (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction), but it has devolved into agiprop with an amazing speed. Too bad. I guess we can hope that it turns itself around in the coming season, but as its H'wood, best not to bank on it.
House and Lie to me both have their moments. But they both get tedious, and quite frankly I've grown bored.
I agree with the Jannyfayray above who said "if I didn't watch anything with a liberal tilt I wouldn't watch anything. These like most other shows start off interesting but then either delve in to the soapopera, formula or politics. Some times I'm ok with these, but only if the show remains interesting.
These two have not, and so I have stopped watching.
Not so with Lie to Me, the White House knockoff starring
Tim RothBaron Munchausen asCal LightmanBarry ObamaThere, I fixed it for you.
One solution: Gather the family around, fire up "Band Hero", and forget watching TV.
I watched one episode of this show and it failed to capture my imagination. I do remember being fascinated with Crossing Jordan as it descended into the liberal agitprop abyss. It was a total trainwreck and I couldn't stop watching the last season no matter how bad or offensive it could be. I always felt Claire was so angry because she never got to work for Ben Stone. But maybe she was just a very angry person.
Do the producers of these shows that have the main character, in a liberal altruistically way of course, drive The Pointless Prius not realize we see through their blatant propagandizing?
When I see a character drive The Pointless Prius I just want to go set tires on fire in my backyard.
[I mean they do realize that "electric" cars get their electricity from coal burning plants?]
two thoughts, first the guy who stars in it, if you want to call him star, was being interviewed on a chicago radio station, while the whole blago thing was exploding last year, and the dj asked him, if he thought blago was telling the truth? the dj didn't think he was just reading a script, it was a very funny moment.
but, i am surprised fox would air such leftist propaganda, but i guess if only leftist shows are the only thing available, leftist shows are all you get.
Shows I stopped watching due to liberal bias: CSI – all of them, Law and Order – all of them, lie to me, and just about 99.9% of shows on primetime network tv.
Tim Roth was the only reason I bothered to watch one episode of this show. He is a great actor but this is a bad medium for his talent. Haven't bothered to watch it again.
Add "The Good Wife" to the list of shows that started off good and then listed to port badly. The last episode was so blatant the evil liar's name was Reagan just in case viewers weren't getting it. Bush, Cheney, Scooter Libby, freedom of press rights denied, etc.
House was good when he was unabashedly himself and Wilson was conflicted because although he may not have liked his methods, House usually saved the day. Wilson was a very good counterpoint to original House persona. When House started to get sensitive, I stopped watching.
There wasn't any left wing propaganda (imo abortion is a personal issue, not a left wing one) up to the point I stopped watching it.
I hear ya. I'm burned out of procedural crime shows, hospital dramas, and ghost seeing crime fighters.
I could care less about Lie to Me. Regardless of its political biases, I disliked the premise from the beginning and never bothered to watch it. I suspect someday soon, we may wake up to promos for a crime drama about a janitor who solves murders by pieceing together clues from the day's refuse.
A word about House. I've heard some conservatives get negative about the current season, in which House became a slightly warmer personality and lost some of his aloofness. Although most of the season has been a disappointment, I found the premiere fascinating. As much as we might admire House's brilliance, do we really want to be like him, wanting everyone around him to be as miserable as he is? Ultimately, House is a lot like Nietzsche. Both men rejected conventional ideas of good and evil, trying to impose their own morals on the world. Both men also wound up in asylums, but unlike Nietzsche, House got out, chastised by a sober look at the consequences of such an approach. I say that if we're really fans of House as a character, we should welcome this change, if it makes him even a little bit more at peace with himself and others.
This biggest problem with Lie To Me is that it's stupid. It's based upon the deception research of Paul Ekman, which isn't bad, but anyone who believes is demonstrates unequivocal non-verbal cues of deception has been deceived. The whole show is pure kookery. I watched one episode and immediately thought of gullible hollywood writers who read Telling Lies and were intrigued, but since they never took a statistics class they never understood how weak the correlations were that the research is based upon. The same goes for that "body language expert" that O'Reilly occasionally has on his show. It's insulting.
YEP I don't watch it anymore. Tired of the Lib affront on my intelligence. What crap they spew and call it entertainment.
In an interview that I read a few months back, Tim Roth said that he does projects like "Lie to Me" to make money to fund the projects (i.e., dreary left-wing, agit-prop movies that draw small audiences – my description, not his) that he regards as "important". While I found the premise of "Lie to Me" interesting at first, the leftist/liberal digs written into the program plots got old quickly. I stopped watching. So, the quicker that the viewer audience declines, the sooner that this show goes off the air, depriving Mr. Roth of a source of funding for his "really important projects".
Super lame show.
My husband and I call it "Point at Me" as that seems to be the main direction to the lead actor.
It could totally be a drinking game, like "hi Bob".
You must be getting paid by the word, because you rambled for 2 paragraphs before you even got to your point.
At least LieToMe isn't 2and1/2Men or FamilyGuy which appear to be written by drunks throwing darts at a list to come up with show story line. 2 and 1/2 Men is incredibly predictable and I could easily come up with the show story line in about a minute, and it doesn't deserve to be on any tv.
I liked some of the first season. I won't bother to watch this one. May these writers eat some unemployment very soon!!
House and Wilson are Holmes and Watson with modern baggage.
Lie to Me illustrates that the best liers are sociopaths. For everyday lies you must exercise your scepticism and be aware of any telegraphing. Naivety will get you hurt.
Speaking of that body language expert on O'Reilly, which I find entertaining sometimes, I noticed the gal who does the analysis of other's facial expressions when she was talking about Sarah Palin–and I laughed at the subtle narrowing of her eyes…she does NOT like Sarah Palin!
I, too, am tired of being sucker-punched by television shows that take cheap shots at the right. The latest episode of The Good Wife, a decent lawyer show, had a storyline involving what? An obnoxious right-wing, lying, over the top talk show host. (Fill in the blank, Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Levin etc. etc. For liberals they are all interchangeable) This character has become such a tedious cliche repeated in numerous left leaning shows. When was the last time you saw an openly liberal talkshow host portrayed as an obnoxious jerk? They just can't help themselves.
"Lie to Me, the House knockoff …"
Haven't seen it.
Conservative/Republican/Bush bashing aside, "religious boy… masturbating over a dead body. " tells me all I need to know about the show.
No thanks.
I watched the first couple of episodes…BORing!! Maybe we as audiences have been trained by so many procedural shows like CSI, or good action/police dramas, but the whole premise of this put me to sleep. He can TELL when you're lying…GET It??!! What, does he moonlight as Santa?
The term is "couldn't care less". If you could care less, then you are in a state of caring some.
Family Guy – written by manatees. http://www.lemonzoo.com/funny_videos/15684/South_...
" Despite the show’s overall liberal tilt (see Wilde, Olivia), "
Someone's gonna have to explain this one to me. I mean, I'm pretty sure I get where he's going, but I'd hate to sling around baseless, psuedo-conspiratorial accusations (even if I'm in the right place for it…
)
In general, I agree with you. But if you haven't watched "Castle" yet, give it a try. Same basic idea, but with interesting characters and good execution.
Wow, apparently you're taking this personally for some reason. Briefly, your statement that House "doesn't want other people to like him or be like him" is untrue. While I do doubt that he wants people to like him, he is very much about people taking his own moral stance. Every time a preferred treatment or method of his runs up against conventional morals, he demands that either the other doctors or the patients or their families abandon their little hang-ups, do what he says needs to be done, and screw any other considerations. This approach, while it has its uses, is complemented by what could almost be called a pathological need to show people that they're no better than he is and there's no point in pretending otherwise. So yes, he does want to bring people to his own level. He doesn't care what others think only when they disagree with his view of the world.
Happy New Year Ben.
According the script, House only cares about the matter at hand, i.e., diagnosing an illness and taking appropriate measures. He is single minded and doesn't even notice how his actions affect others. That's what I found intriguing about his character at the beginning of the show and if I ever had a baffling ailment, I'd like to be taken to someone like him who will stop at nothing to find out what's wrong with me rather than a really nice guy who cares about everyone's feeling while I'm fast reaching room temperature.
As for making this personal and pretending??? That's ridiculous. We're talking about a TV show here.
Aptly named series.
"Lie to me" "Jumped the shark" with the tractor guy episode. It was simply so implausible that only a true Star Trek style "Fanboy" of the show could try to untwist the logic and explain how it could have at least a semblance of plausibility despite plot holes that you could have driven a tractor through.
Unfortunately for the network, "Lie to me" is no "Star Trek" when it comes to being worth the effort of my fandom any more, let alone my becoming a fanboy.
With the Tractor Guy episode, "Lie to me" is now off my download list, even though I'm still a great fan of Tim Roth. I think Tim Roth is wasting his talent on this production and that the show will be something of an embarrassment to his career in the future.
As for Kelli Williams, well … she fits right in the show (because writers who can barely write deserve actors who can barely act).
I watched half if it once and was so put off by the leftist tone that I turned it off and never was even tempted to watch again. I really like Tim Roth. But even his presence is not enough to make me watch that propagandist tripe.
Well, you are the one who accused me of not being able to wrap my head around something. Regardless, I wasn't so much talking about House's ability as a doctor, which is inarguably outstanding and the kind of talent I would want if I had some bizarre illness also. My point had more to do with his personality and his open disregard for common morality even when he has no need to flaunt it. While these traits may help get the job done at times, there is a certain cost to the man himself over time. After all, his disregard for others, together with a certain hubris, did lead to his committal at the end of last season. As to how much influence he attempts to wield over the morality of others, that apparently is a point where we'll just have to agree to disagree, although I still maintain that his words and actions throughout the series leave little room for doubt that he wishes for others to emulate his own behavior.
I can't speak to the last two seasons as I didn't watch them. In the episodes I watched, he didn't flaunt anything. He didn't disregard common morality, he ignored it.
It would be self-defeating for House to want others to emulate his own behavior. If he did that, who take care of the mundane things that keep the wheels of his world turning?
Aside from the fact that the premise of "Lie to Me" did not sound at all interesting to me, I decided to not watch the show because Roth, while a decent actor, is just another leftist loon.
As for House, I admit the show is pretty even-handed, but it seems to me that the writing isn't what it used to be. My wife and I are so tired of the whole House-Cuddy we basically just ignore it when we're watching the show.
I watched the first three episodes (I think) on hulu and just lost interest.
The one where the soldier felt pressured into sex because her "boyfriend" would keep her on a safer schedule was annoying in that when *I* was in the service the sexual harassment briefings and what to do about it were constant and everyone knew that you didn't have to go through your chain of command for that and here all the women *know* what was happening and no one felt they could report the truth (or even complain loudly that someone *else* was getting off the dangerous assignments). I doubt the Army today is much different. But the episode was also very *good* in that the situation was taken completely seriously by the Army and the officer in charge had a completely realistic reaction, not just to the coercion involved (which the "rapist" was most likely unaware of… thought he was being nice) but to the notion and consequences of fraternization itself, which civilians seem to find stupid when viewed from outside. There is more than one reason that General Order #1 in Iraq and Afghanistan is "no sex with anyone, willing or not."
But… I didn't keep watching because, well, frankly, it wasn't very fun. Seemed to be taking itself too seriously or something.
So if the political got more heavy handed, I missed it.
They just don't get it. The writers of "LIe to Me" are not writing to the general viewer and therefore will not be watched by them. Everyone involved with this show are as willing to blow themselves up as a Jordanian Dr. just as long as they can expose their few remaining viewers to their anti-American liberal rants.
However, I'm sure, being as insane as they are, they will get behind some new show with the same biases expecting different results.
My wife and I quit watching "Lie to Me" several episodes ago solely due to it's obvious bias.
Synova, do you believe that women should be in combat?
I watched the first couple of episodes. I liked the premise and the actors had promise, but there was just too much propaganda to allow me to enjoy the show.
I wrote the production company, and moved on.
My wife likes it, (she loves Bill Clinton to), but heck, I can't take much more reality shows she watches, been thinking about slitting my wrist to get my point across to her…. Tim Roth isnt a bad actor, but he's doing want Vincent is doing in Law and Order CI, bringing is left views in to the shows, and then saying them I interviews, and just trying to live that character. Gets annoying quick.
Bugs said the networks must have trouble coming up with new ideas. They do have new ideas; but, they don't hype them and they let them die–for instance: Invasion, Life on Mars, Witches of Eastwick (like a supernatural Desperate Housewives.
I loved that show…Linsay Price is hot!!
They brought up Scooter Libby? This is actually disgusting. Libby didn´t hurt anybody.
The current administration and congress are stuffed with people who
1. lied about far more important things,
2. knowingly, not accidentally,
3. and recently, not some three years ago.
I believe that the decision should be made on the basis of utility and not ideology. I believe that an essential element of honor and duty is the right to bleed and that saying that someone doesn't have that right is to make them less of a person and not anything of a warrior. But the right to *die* is not at all a right to put the individual above the mission. What it is, is only a clarification of the purpose of restricting certain assignments, which should be *utility*. There is a warrior ethos and a warrior culture that applies to anyone in uniform and the vast majority of those in uniform are support troops and very very few of them are combat troops. http://asecondhandconjecture.com/index.php/2009/1... This has gotten a strong positive reaction from people with experience. What the uniform gives you is a corporate identity as a warrior and if you wear that uniform you're entitled to everything involved in duty and honor.
There are two issues of utility, and I'm not sure which of those you want me to answer. Should women be in *combat* and should women be *in theater*.
In the matter of the first, most combat type positions are physically prohibitive for most women and putting women, even those who can meet the physical requirements, in those positions just to be fair is moronic and actually violates the principle of a corporate warrior identity. It doesn't matter *what* you do for the mission, you get that, fobbit or not. There are, particularly in this ongoing conflict, certain areas in something very near direct combat, where women provide a specific utility because of their gender. It would be moronic not to put them there, and criminal to put them there without sufficient training.
There are also roles very much in the line of fire but not in combat where women can be valuable. Are we supposed to do without female nurses? That would be rather new. We've accepted nurses to deal with the worst horrors of war forever, so it's a bit hard to decide that women should not be in theater on account of male-female relationship problems in other capacities as well.
In the Lie to Me episode the unit drives supply caravans.
What was your question?
This is why network tv is failing.
Thank you for this article. I am a HUGE fan of House and so I always see the previews for "Lie to Me" and it always struck me as an interesting premise for a show. But for some reason I never got around to watching it. I was thinking of adding it to my DVR recordings this year. I'm glad to know I don't have to. It is also great to know that this show is tanking now, most likely due to the obnoxious leftist theme of the show.
Don't watch it unless the wife happens to tun in. Between 'Lie to Me,' 'The Mentalist," and "Criminal Minds," I'm sort of overloaded on criminal profilers, human lie detectors, and other TV practitioners of pseudo-science. The networks must be hard up for new ideas lately.
Thank you for this reply: … most combat type positions are physically prohibitive for most women and putting women, even those who can meet the physical requirements, in those positions just to be fair is moronic and actually violates the principle of a corporate warrior identity.
As a woman, I feel that women and men are equal in most things, but each has strengths the other lacks. Women can and often have taken up arms and acquitted themselves with honor, but I agree that to pretend, as some would like to do, that physical differences don't exist, is moronic and puts our soldiers in even greater jeopardy.
Just when I despair for our future, someone like you reminds me of what we are made of.
Thank you for your service to our country.
What do you expect? Sinners sin…it's not natural for them to do anything else. Lie to Me liberal? Hello? so is Hollywood for the most part. We need to do two things 1-Be a good example and 2- Remember that Christ alone makes new a filthy heart…legislating morality and pointing fingers won't get the job done preaching Christ alone will.
Tim Roth, what are you doing wasting your time on this sinker? Give Quentin a call and see if he can give you some real work. Work people would enjoy watching.
Lie To Me: got tired of it awhile back and stopped watching.
House: I totally agree with you about the plot, it really is basically the same each week. We always know the first diagnosis isn't the corrrect one. What I do appreciate about it; or more accurately, the writing; is that the writers didn't stay stuck with it but instead inserted new characters to make it interesting (the whole season where House has to find a new team). There wasn't much the writers could do with the plot seeing how it is a medical show so they shook it up alittle with new drama with the doctors. That way the same plot line isn't so noticable each week. Oh…and Wilson rocks!!
These guys should have learned from the current big sellers in movies.
You can keep your leftist agenda, but only as long as you use really expensive effects!
Not so with Lie to Me, the White House knockoff starring
Tim RothBaron Munchausen asCal LightmanBarry ObamaThere, I fixed it for you.
I have been a fan of House and started to like Lie to Me. The reason I like House is that his is pure logic – doesn't care who he defends – in fact; he goes out of his way to be ugly and mean – and the outcome isn't so predictable.
Lie to me has a predictability to it – our hero, Cal, will say "well, you were casting your eyes 15 degress off to the left indicating that you are partially telling the truth but there is something you are really hiding", or some tripe like that.
But the little leftist messages have been noted. Maybe to me it will finally reach a threshhold like Law ands Order ; used to be a huge fan and enough of the leftist BS finally got to me. It was best with Jerry Orbach.
I don't often mind foruma shows… when they are still enjoyable. Monk has been great, at least for a number of seasons… that's almost always forumaic.
Good point. It's kind of a truism that the "best" shows tend to get cancelled before their time.
Well thank you, because I usually expect that to be a loaded question. The "you have to put women in combat to be equal" people make me nuts and the "OMGawd a girl might get hurt but I'm going to pretend my concern is 'readiness'" people make me want to pull my hair out by the roots.
It's like the ultimate no-win situation.
Either that or a target rich environment, come to think of it.
I was watching an episode of Magnum PI on DVD the other night. Magnum's old highschool tutor was an animal rights wack-o. She was consistantly shown as a detached, yet well meaning, weirdo while Magnum was shown to be grounded in common sense and reality. They don't make them like Magnum anymore.
I do watch Castle and I like it! Well, it's got Nathan Fillion whom I've enjoyed since Firefly, and Stana Katic who is extremely hot (see The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice, oh boy!), and Debi Mazar who is pretty high on my list of Ultimate New York Chicks. OK, so the whole concept of a mystery writer solving mysteries is a bit hoary and the idea of such a writer on "permanent ride-along" with NYC cops is pretty implausible. But at least Castle doesn't actually claim to have special powers or quote profiler cliches as if they're laws of physics. He just makes a living plotting murders and writing about them. He's got insight. And I like the relationship he has with his daughter. One of the most likable things about the character is that he really, really wants to be a good father – not a father full of theories about how to raise a child, but one who is genuinely protective and morally responsible. And his daughter's not a teenage asshole. In all, it's good watching. And it doesn't insult my intelligence or my politics. Not too much, anyway…
I think the last "cop show-cop show" I really enjoyed – i.e., one that was about cops, no gimmicks, no profiling, no forensics – was probably Homicide: Life on the Street. I'm not sure H-wood could make a gritty, down-to-earth show like that today. It's weird, too, in this age of Reality TV, that so many cop shows are not realistic at all. Just gimmicky.
Everything has devolved into agitprop. I almost think it's Obama and the Democrat congressional majority that did it. It's as if liberals are on a roll, and they think it's ok to put overt liberal messages in their shows and movies. It's the fashion. All the rage. I don't know…
S.D. – I can tell you I don't watch it and I consider that to be a shame really since I have always enjoyed Tim Roth as an actor. I tried the show early on and although it was too early get a sense of ultra leftist agenda, I just found the episodes to be not engaging even though the format was intriguing. If a show doesn't peek one's interest in the first few episodes, it doesn't hold much hope. If it has joined the legions of agenda shows, we can only hope for a hasty and inglorious, unlamented demise.
You're missing the whole point about House. He doesn't want other people to like him or be like him. He really doesn't care what others think (or at least he didn't when the show was good).
That's the whole premise of the character.
The Wilson character, like you, can't wrap his mind around that.
This show is still on?
And I have to take issue over House. I loved House for the first few seasons, and formula doesn't bother me: shows are formulaic by nature, except when 'not being formulaic' is their formula. I wasn't even bothered enough by the SUBTLE political bias (like the hopeychange sticker in the bathroom) to stop watching it.
What truly ruined the show for me is Olivia Wilde. First, there's the fact that she's incredibly ugly and not only does everyone say she's gorgeous, you can tell she believes it. Her eyes are too far apart and she has a man-jaw. She looks like some kind of half-shark/half-woman. Thing is, I wouldn't pick on her for being creepy-looking if her character wasn't so horrible. The whole "ooh, I'm bisexual!" thing was a pathetic grasp at ratings, and every time it was mentioned I cringed. Then there was the pairing of her with Foreman, something I don't oppose on racial grounds but because they're both boring and have zero chemistry together, although to be fair to Foreman his character was never developed, and who could have chemistry with a half-shark freak.
Then there's House himself. The original character was very good, flawed but respectable, even his childish "pay attention to me because I'm an atheist!" rants that I grew out of when I left college. But they cleaned him up and he's boring. They did the same thing with Sipowicz on NYPD Blue – took the best character on the show and cleaned him up and there was nothing to watch.
In fact, that's how I think the show is best described now. It's not offensive. It's just boring. When it was about the cases and their interaction and figuring out a problem, it was exciting. Now it's just ER 2 – a tired soap opera where we know every minuscule detail about their soap-opera lives.
Never interested me because it seemed like such a weak premise that it would run out of steam quickly. Looks like it did.
All we every watch anymore is Food Network and HGTV. Other than the occasional over-the-top gay couple, there isn't much there to eyeroll about on those chanels.
Absolutely, I agree. i lasted about 3 episodes and had enough. If I want indoctrination I will watch the news.
I love this show for the body language insight. I'm a conservative and usually pick up on lefty tilts but i've missed it in this show. However, I haven't seen all of the episodes. I'm still a fan after this review!
Quentin makes, what? One movie every 5 years? Don't blame Tim for wanting to work a little more often than that!
I'll 2nd that thought…Castle is well written and executed
I'm glad to hear that you did. I also write and let people know when they are offensive. If more people did so perhaps they'd get the picture.
Eugh. Amen, brotha. I'm sick of cop shows in general.
Whatever happened to shows like "Robin Hood"? HELOOOO, there are other genres besides cops, doctors, and lawyers. Thank God for Masterpiece Theater and the BBC.
I enjoyed the show in the beginning. I did stop watching it late last season due to the liberal BS and am glad to hear the ratings are tanking.
I actually like Lie To Me. Yes, it's political, yes, that gets annoying. Still, I think it's interesting and has potential if they give it some extra umph. I won't go and cry myself to sleep if it gets cancelled in the end, but I'll keep watching it for the time being.
"Meanwhile, in the same episode, a religious boy is suspected of murder. Turns out he wasn’t a murderer – he was just masturbating over a dead body."
how in the world does any TV show script featuring this subplot get on network TV? seriously?? what sort of degenerates are running Hollywood now? what advertiser in their right mind would want to be associated with a TV show about this?
the world has turned upside down.
i find House is unpleasant to watch and unrealistic. Dr. House would get punched in the nose almost daily in the real world because his a relentless jerk to everyone around him.
No, they don't
Are you serious? You american's are worse than the people over here in Northern Ireland! Get a life! Just because a TV swings one way or another isn't a valid reason to yap about campaigning to get it off air. What about all the people who DO enjoy watching it that aren't from your country? EG: Ireland, Australia etc?
Get a life.
you've got to be kidding me. i'm a strong conservative and have loved Lie to Me from the start. Lightman is one of the best characters on TV and the writing is brilliant since Shawn Ryan took over as showrunner this season. The episodes you named are some of the series best. If anything, I would say Lie to Me leans more to the right than the left.
I feel it makes a point to make fun of both sides– did you miss the episodes that bashed Obama and Biden with their microexpressions? There was an entire episode that looked at racism and showed how Obama gave the middle finger under his chin at a debate.
"Turns out he wasn’t a murderer – he was just masturbating over a dead body. Terrific. "
That had nothing to do with the fact that he was a religious kid. He was a freakin psychopath. Did you even watch any of the episodes you claim promote liberalism?
I'd never found this site before… This sort of ranting always makes me laugh. House, CSI, Lie to Me, etc, etc… are just tv shows. If you don't like them, don't watch them. Why are so many so steeped in a persecution complex? I doubt the people who produce these shows are anywhere near as nefarious as you seem to believe. I'm guessing they are much more concerned with what sells than they are with any political point of view.
Walker Texas Ranger ran for 9 years. This latest effort at cool cops will soon be forgotten. Cool don't play in Odessa, Salina, Fresno, Redding, Stillwater, Dothan, Ocala,,,,,
There's Legend of the Seeker. Sam Raimi's behind it, so if you were into Xena and Hercules, or if you think the Underworld would look nice in green, you might like it (so far, it's a lot less silly than X or H). It's on Hulu.
I find Lie to Me's obvious liberal bias annoying, but only because I otherwise like the show so much. (Well, this season, at least. Last season didn't hold my interest much, but they've toned down the gimmicky 'science' stuff, and amped up the intensity and complexity character-wise with the change in creative team this season.) They do include token digs at the left – the kind of shallow pretense at even-handedness that is just enough to make the writers feel good about themselves. But, they often handle the right-bashing with a little more nuance and complexity than most of the straw-man agitprop out there.
So as it stands, I'm enjoying the show in spite of its bias, just as I can enjoy my friends in spite of their biased facebook posts.
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