Fox is adding another drama to its midseason arsenal, formally handing out a 13-episode series order to the drama “Lie to Me,” starring Tim Roth.
The Imagine/20th Century Fox TV project, which has been in the works as a pilot for several months, has Mr. Roth playing Dr. Cal Lightman, a human lie detector who can tell who’s being honest and who’s not, based on physical clues. He heads a team of behavorial evaluators, including partner and psychologist Dr. Gillian Foster (Kelli Williams).
During the May upfront, Fox said it was developing “Lie to Me” as a high-priority project. In July, Daily Variety reported that Mr. Roth had been cast and that an episodic order was likely.
With “Lie to Me” now formally on the Fox series slate, the show is expected to debut in the first or second quarter of 2009. It joins a beefy list of Fox projects that might be ready for midseason, including “Dollhouse,” “Courtroom K,” “The Cleveland Show,” “Outnumbered” and the not-yet-ordered-to-series “Glee.”
Samuel Baum, Brian Grazer, David Nevins and Steve Maeda are executive producers on “Lie to Me.” Imagine produces Fox’s “24” and DirecTV/NBC’s “Friday Night Lights.”