[REVIEW] SBS TV series "Lie To Me"

SBS TV series "Lie To Me": 1st & 2nd Episode, Mon-Tue 9:55 P.M.

Scene from TV series "Lie to Me" [SBS]

A woman barges into a hotel to catch her fiancee cheating on her on the spot. But the first thing that comes to her mind as she reaches the door knob is concern that her wedding will get cancelled when all has already been prepared for it. And Ki-joon’s (played by Kang Ji-hwan) narration which sums up that most women, rather than marrying a man, marry the marriage system, raised hope of the show beginning with a minimum level of awareness toward marriage as a decisive factor to women's lives.

However, the way “Lie To Me” deals with its central plot is as mindless and reckless as the way Ah-jung handles her own lie, which only grows further out of control. The way the drama describes the value of Ah-jung’s presence as being dependent on how eligible of a man she marries, even when she herself is introduced as a capable and well-rounded young woman, let alone her friends including So-ran (Hong Soo-hyun) who believes the whole universe centers around marrying Mr. Right, only regresses further from the typical Cinderella story which is at least frank in expressing its desires.

With such an unconvincing plot, it is only natural that drama gets filled with forced incidents. Scenes such as Ah-jung falling with a chair after failing to hold back on her urge to go to the bathroom while meeting up with Ki-joon to pay back her hospital fee, and Ki-joon sweeping her up to take her outside which would make Ah-jung’s friends link the incident to marriage, are all forced and aimed simply at fitting all into the setup of the story.

This continues on in the second episode as well. Ah-jung who takes Ki-joon out on a ride on a duck boat on the Han River in order to stay away from other people’s eyes and somehow falls off the boat from which she ends up getting wet and goes to Ki-joon’s house, is again nothing but an artificial set-up that hardly causes any changes to the character's emotions. So far, the drama has gone through just two episodes but unless the writer does some serious reviewing on its central plot, it seems evident that not too many will fall for the obvious lies.

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Reporter : Kim Sun-young (TV Critic)
Editor : Heidi Kim heidikim@