Lie To Me: Season 2 review (DVD) ★★★½

Dr Cal Lightman knows when you're lying. Yes you. Especially if you're one of those people who does murdering or theft or fraud or other bad crimes. And make no mistake, he WILL find you out. Whether it's in his hi-tech lab or in a bar, Lightman and his crack team of human lie detectors will find the truth and force confessions out of even the most hardened liars, in around about 42 minutes.

So yes, this is a formulaic, slightly predictable drama, a sort of hybrid between The Mentalist and CSI but that's no bad thing. It's engaging, glossy and full of attractive actors and most significantly it has Tim Roth in the lead role.

As a Londoner in LA, Lightman has something of an advantage, the confident outsider people don't quite know how to handle. You get the impression this isn't much of a stretch for Roth but he's so charismatic, believable and, crucially, likeable that he's a joy to watch.

While the plots aren't that involved, the scripts are decent and the performances universally solid. There is a certain amount of character development, most noticeably in Lightman's teenage daughter Emily, but generally speaking this is a series of largely standalone episodes with little overall change to the dynamics.

The combination of psychology and interpreting body language make for a different kind of investigation but the attempts to represent microexpressions visually as percentages (or is it degrees?) feels a bit tacked on and unnecessary. Still, it's a minor gripe for what is an entertaining and eminently watchable show.