Mekhi Phifer was a big hit on ER as Dr. Gregory Pratt, so when Lie to Me snapped him up, fans thought he would find success on another series.
Nope. The Fox show brought Phifer on as FBI Special Agent Ben Reynolds, but the actor was never given a storyline that showed off his acting chops. So when the third season of Lie to Me returns to Fox in November, Phifer won’t be there, which means the actor is out of a job.
“We’re going rogue a little bit,” Lie to Me executive producer David Graziano explained to EW.com. “Lightman [Tim Roth] is going to act slightly in the more old-school PI model of a TV protagonist, [so] we’re doing away with the FBI contract [and] Mekhi is unfortunately no longer going to be on the show.
“The FBI franchise limited our storytelling a little bit because it had to adhere to the FBI structures of ‘would the FBI take this case or not?’” Graziano continued. “The character that’s going to be our badge this season is a bent cop, Wolowsky [Monique Gabriela Curnen, The Unusuals], who goes about business in a similar way to Lightman. There’s a mutual respect from the get-go. We’re working hard to make the Lightman Group a dysfunctional family.”
The timing couldn’t be worse, because Phifer’s character was finally starting to come around to the ways of the Lightman Group.
“He’s not as abrasive as he was at the beginning, because now he’s starting to see that Lightman’s techniques churn out good results,” Phifer told the Los Angeles Times in August.
Season 2’s finale airs Sept. 13 and the third season returns Nov. 10.
Thoughts? denette@tvguide.ca or comment below.
Follow Denette on Twitter.
Follow TV Guide Canada on Facebook