marbleglove | Plot-bunny: Lie to Me / The Sentinel

I’ve been watching Lie to Me, which is oodles of fun. I remain dubious of the actual prevalence of the various tells, but it’s still oodles of fun. And it’s certainly based on science, at least as much as CSI or Numb3rs, so I’m cool with it.

Despite the fact that I have only ever watched a couple of episodes of The Sentinel, I have enjoyed the fandom immensely. One bit that crops up periodically is the scene in which Sandburg descibes Ellison as a human lie detector.

Given the apparently fame of the Lightman Group and the research ability of Sanburg, surely Sandburg would have found Dr. Lightman’s various articles and books about micro-expressions and force fed the information to Ellison.

Of course, now the two groups need to meet up.

Lightman: “They’re amazing. The two of them are simply amazing.”

Torres: “What happened?”

Foster: “Cal is just annoyed that Detective Ellison called him on every one of his lies.”

Lightman didn’t deign that with a response. “It’s amazing that a man who is so talented at spotting lies is so incredibly bad about telling them. Especially when he tells so very many.”

Foster: “Okay, yes, that was odd. Did you see how he lied about how he found half of his evidence?”

Lightman: “It was blatantly obvious.”

Torres: “Who’s “they”?”

Lightman: “What?”

Torres: “ “The two of them are amazing.” It’s what you said. Who’s the other amazing person?”

Lightman: “Ah yes, the verbose Mr. Sandburg. Some sort of police consultant, been rooming with Detective Ellison, and isn’t bothered at all by having a friend and partner who can read his every thought on his face.”

Lightman looks surprised and rather jealous as well. A hint of attraction, which in turn surprises Torres. She wondered if he was attracted to the man or simply to the idea of someone who didn’t mind being constantly monitored. Upon consideration, that thought made him sound rather stalker-ish. All of them were sort of stalker-ish that way, really. She shook that thought off. Foster was saying something.

Foster: “Just the opposite, I’d say. I think Ellison was more frustrated by his partner’s sharing than Sandburg was embarrassed at being so closely observed.”

Lightman: “Yes. Aside from Loker, I don’t know anyone who sticks to the exact truth. And, well, Loker would not make a good police consultant.”

Torres: “So Sandburg told the exact truth? That should make the assignment easy. Why were you called in at all? To confirm what he said?”

Lightman: “Saying he told the truth might be over stating the situation. But, he never lied.”

Foster: “No, he talked, and talked and never said anything he didn’t believe. He never even refused to answer a question, at large part because he never stopped talking long enough for one of us to ask him a direct question.”

Lightman: “Rather clever, that.”

Foster (ignoring the interjection): “I know a great deal more about New Guinea than I ever wanted to, and a great deal less about the murder.”

Lightman: “His theories about the tribes of New Guinea were actually quite fascinating.”

Foster: “And Dr. Lightman was not helpful.”