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tv: Lie To Me, after finishing season 1
Jun. 7th, 2010 12:02 amThe first 4-5 episodes had interwoven storylines and spent time showing why what they did worked. There were some crime-oriented cases, but not everything was about violence. By the time we get to the 12th (of 13) episode, when the FBI puts The Lightman Group on retainer, the show had squarely centered on the most violent and egregious of crimes while actively choosing to be more graphic. That is quite unfortunate.
(It's a similar pattern to what NUMB3RS did, where they allowed the FBI angle to take priority over the mathematics despite the theory that the math was the important part--- in that case it was clearly because neither the actors nor the writers could do enough math to calculate a standard tip when the tax rate is half the usual tip percentage.)
My favorite character from the first show was Eli Loker. I love his radical honesty policy. The instances where he lies were not well played up and that radical honesty was treated like a joke when it was referred to at all in later episodes. It's really unfortunate that there isn't more of it and that the show doesn't focus on why that works for him. That would have been a hell of a lot more interesting than the yet-another-gore-fest it turned into.
However, what makes me less than whelmed is the lousy writing. In the last 4 episodes I was able to spot the villain as if it was an episode of the original Scooby Doo. It's pretty bad when you have a room full of experts on facial expressions and lying who are more clueless than me sitting on my couch. I watched this show after the first episode because it was a show about smart people doing good work that other people cannot do. Work that seems like magic to mundane people who lack those skills. I like shows about superheroes and the way Lightman can get the truth out of people who aren't saying anything is really like that. It is the superpower I would most like to have! So it seemed like my kind of show. Only in fewer than a handful of episodes, it's been dumbed down, turned into a clone of every other crime drama, and the writing relies on cliches and caricature instead of intricacy.
The final episode irritated me because of Foster's costuming:
I'm bothered by women in dresses, especially sleeveless dresses, when the men are wearing suits, that the women expect to be treated and respected equally.
There's been a sort of counter-feminism "take back the dress" movement lately, from the women of the generation after mine who have not lived through the social expectations that girls wear skirts or dresses and it's wrong for them to wear trousers in public. These younger women are angry that women tend not to wear dresses unless they're what I call god-ridden; they want to wear dresses and feel pretty. They feel that feminism has stripped away choices from women. To me it's not a choice if it only applies to women. Men cannot, in a socially acceptable way, wear dresses in public. So for women to choose to wear a dress is choosing to be treated differently. Separate but equal is a myth. If you want to be treated differently, then you're not looking for equality, you're looking for either special treatment or you're expecting to tolerate oppression.
(It's a similar pattern to what NUMB3RS did, where they allowed the FBI angle to take priority over the mathematics despite the theory that the math was the important part--- in that case it was clearly because neither the actors nor the writers could do enough math to calculate a standard tip when the tax rate is half the usual tip percentage.)
My favorite character from the first show was Eli Loker. I love his radical honesty policy. The instances where he lies were not well played up and that radical honesty was treated like a joke when it was referred to at all in later episodes. It's really unfortunate that there isn't more of it and that the show doesn't focus on why that works for him. That would have been a hell of a lot more interesting than the yet-another-gore-fest it turned into.
However, what makes me less than whelmed is the lousy writing. In the last 4 episodes I was able to spot the villain as if it was an episode of the original Scooby Doo. It's pretty bad when you have a room full of experts on facial expressions and lying who are more clueless than me sitting on my couch. I watched this show after the first episode because it was a show about smart people doing good work that other people cannot do. Work that seems like magic to mundane people who lack those skills. I like shows about superheroes and the way Lightman can get the truth out of people who aren't saying anything is really like that. It is the superpower I would most like to have! So it seemed like my kind of show. Only in fewer than a handful of episodes, it's been dumbed down, turned into a clone of every other crime drama, and the writing relies on cliches and caricature instead of intricacy.
The final episode irritated me because of Foster's costuming:
I'm bothered by women in dresses, especially sleeveless dresses, when the men are wearing suits, that the women expect to be treated and respected equally.
There's been a sort of counter-feminism "take back the dress" movement lately, from the women of the generation after mine who have not lived through the social expectations that girls wear skirts or dresses and it's wrong for them to wear trousers in public. These younger women are angry that women tend not to wear dresses unless they're what I call god-ridden; they want to wear dresses and feel pretty. They feel that feminism has stripped away choices from women. To me it's not a choice if it only applies to women. Men cannot, in a socially acceptable way, wear dresses in public. So for women to choose to wear a dress is choosing to be treated differently. Separate but equal is a myth. If you want to be treated differently, then you're not looking for equality, you're looking for either special treatment or you're expecting to tolerate oppression.
