a "Lie to Me" question

The American version of a British TV show about a profiler-- the US version was titled "Cracker," like the British original-- fell flat in the ratings, so what makes us think that a show like "Lie to Me," which also purports to show us the power of psychology as a predictive and interpretive method, will do any better?

My suspicion is that "Lie to Me" is motivated by the school of thought that contends that interrogation techniques need only be minimally coercive, i.e., a person with needed information simply has to be detained and questioned, not tortured. A skillful interrogator, such as the character played by Tim Roth, needs nothing more than his own eyes to determine whether a subject is telling the truth. From there, the interrogator can shape the interview to reveal whatever his interlocutor is hiding. "Lie to Me" exists, then, as a response to the torture-happy "24."

In a scene deleted from the final cut of "Pulp Fiction," Uma Thurman's character, Mia Wallace, asks John Travolta's character, Vincent Vega, whether he's an "Elvis man" or a "Beatles man," asserting that you can learn a lot about a person's character from that answer. I suspect the same could be said when examining people's political leanings: "Are you a '24' man or a 'Lie to Me' man?"

Interesting note: Wikipedia says this about the British version of "Cracker":

Cracker's conception was also in some ways a reaction against the police procedural approach of fellow Granada crime serial Prime Suspect, placing more emphasis on emotional and psychological truth than on correct police procedure. In an interview with the NME, McGovern dismissed Prime Suspect, noting that "Good TV writing has narrative simplicity and emotional complexity," and characterising the series as "A narratively complex story going up its own arse." Gub Neal, who produced the first season of Cracker, is quoted as saying, "That we had adopted the right approach was confirmed for me when Jacky Malton, the senior woman police officer who advised on Prime Suspect, said that although the way things happened in Cracker was sometimes highly improbable, the relationships between the police were in many ways much more credible than they had been in Prime Suspect."

So I might not be reaching to think that "Lie to Me" is in some ways a response to "24." Both shows are, by the way, on Fox.


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