Secret Diary of a Call Girl • Mechanics and Technicalities [4.5]
In order to motivate herself to complete her work, Hannah/Belle (Billie Piper) is made to focus on the emotion of the situation rather than the technique, but she soon replaces reality with fantasy. Where Simon (Tom Price) was largely a disappointment in bed, she imagines that Duncan (James D'Arcy) would be a much worthier partner, and writes a tale based on what she would like to happen with him. Duncan congratulates her on a chapter well-written, stating that sex with her must be absolutely mind-blowing, but the truth of the matter is that almost nothing she had written in this chapter had really happened, despite the nature of her book being a work of non-fiction.
Simon, on the other hand, has spent a large portion of his life hiding who he really is, growing more and more anxious over the fact that his sexual appetite is not necessarily to everyone's taste. Though Belle encourages him to be himself and work to what pleases him, she is more than a little surprised at the results, forced to bleat like a sheep as they climax.
Belle's advice is not completely for naught, as it seems likely that Simon will lead a much happier life should he manage to find a woman who can sate his sexual desires, though she herself readily abandons the truth in order to take a more sensational approach to her writing. Certainly Simon's story could make for a very interesting chapter in her book, but her goal is to titillate her audience rather than make them laugh, and with that in mind she makes very much the right choice.
Daria • Monster [3.5]
In her quest to expose the truth, Daria (Tracy Grandstaff) chooses to film a day in the life of her sister Quinn (Wendy Hoopes) in order to show the rest of the school the shallowness with which she is made to deal on an everyday basis. What soon happens is that Quinn becomes all too aware of the camera, putting on a facade in order to come across as much more cultured and perfect than she really is, in effect negating the very nature of a documentary.
It's only when the very real pressures of attaining a perfect beauty finally get to Quinn that she slips up, revealing a side of herself to the camera that she would rather not have exposed, that Daria finally gets material she's able to use. Later, in conversation with her sister, Daria realizes that there actually is more to Quinn than she lets on, and the footage she has starts to feel much more damaging.
In the end Daria chooses to let her sister live her lie, not wanting to destroy her self-esteem in front of the entire school, and in effect she ends up propagating the false image that Quinn had tried to convey in the first place. Though Daria admits that this is not the final film she had envisioned, nor the one that she feels her sister deserves to star in, she states that she would rather present Quinn in a kinder manner knowing that there's potential for her to improve in the future than destroy her now and make an enemy for life.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer • Lie to Me [4]
The relationship that Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) has with the vampire Angel (David Boreanaz) is complicated by the fact that they're falling in love with one another, though both are well aware that they have no future together. Angel's checkered past means that he must keep certain things from Buffy, one of which is the nature of his relationship with Drusilla (Juliet Landau), leading the two to something of an argument based on trust. Buffy throws down an ultimatum, stating that she needs him to tell her the truth about everything, though he argues that she's better off not knowing certain things, and while the two of them want to be together, it's their necessary deceptions that keep them from realizing something more.
Ford (Jason Behr), an old friend of Buffy's, arrives in town under the pretense of transferring to Sunnydale High, though his actual intentions are far shadier. Determined to become a vampire, to "die young and stay pretty," Ford creates an elaborate plan that involves becoming the villain, trading Buffy to Spike (James Marsters) for eternal life and reveling in sin. Buffy confronts her former friend, questioning whether he was ever a good person, and learns that his situation is slightly different: Ford is dying of a terminal illness, and his only chance of survival is to become undead.
Though his actions are completely immoral, Buffy understands where Ford's coming from, and though it pains her to lose a friend in this manner she lets him become her enemy, not in order to stop him, but because it's exactly what he needs. There are certain lies that Buffy and Ford need to tell one another in order to move their relationship to where it needs to be and justify their battle, and while it's to let her friend die, she knows it's kinder to let him choose death than to die in hospital.
Life on Mars • Life on Mars [3.5]
It is the very nature of reality that lies to Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara) here as he wakes up thirty years in the past with no understanding of what's happening around him. While he's aware that he doesn't belong in 1973, the rest of the people around him continue to speak to him as though it's where he's always been, and it's up to him to discover what's gone wrong and return from whence he came.
The case he finds himself working on in 1973 mirrors exactly the case he had been working on in 2008, and he grows convinced that helping to solve this crime will set his future right and allow him to return to his proper place in time. Unfortunately, even in solving the crime, and discovering the connection between the two killers decades apart, Sam is left stranded in the past, with the world's continued insistence that he is exactly where he belongs.
Better Off Ted • Beating a Dead Workforce [4.5]
Veronica (Portia de Rossi) is a master of spinning a situation in favor of the company, and here she even manages to use the death of an employee as a motivation tool in order to meet a serious deadline. A massive success, Veronica has employee productivity on the rise in the name of finishing the project so dear to the late Jenkins' (Warren Sweeney), but soon the company chooses to make the fourteen-hour days they've been working the new norm, forcing Ted (Jay Harrington) to walk out on the job, in effect inspiring the rest of his co-workers to abandon their devotion to the company in protest.
It's the lies that the company tells that both motivate and demotivate the employees here, and what's interesting is that it's the same lie that has both effects. Initially the lie has a greater effect, but with prolonged usage it becomes less and less compelling, indicating that it can't be used for everything.
Lem (Malcolm Barrett) learns a lesson in lying when he becomes popular due to his friendship with the deceased Jenkins, despite the fact that the two had never interacted. Enjoying his time in the spotlight, Lem begins fabricating stories in an effort to seem cooler, creating a name for Jenkins and himself without ever having accomplished any of the tasks that he claims. It's only after Phil (Jonathan Slavin) starts feeling left out by his friend that Lem finally admits the truth, sacrificing the fake friendship he had had with a man he'll never know in favor of a real friendship that he has with his lab partner.
Firefly • Downtime [2]
The main lie in this issue comes from River in regards to her whereabouts, and while she does, in effect, tell the truth about where she's been, she chooses to withhold certain details that would upset the rest of the crew. In actuality she had left the ship during a snowstorm in order to kill a band of locals looking to steal or murder the crew, but as far as her shipmates are aware she simply wandered out into the snow to play and watch the birds.
River does make a point to confront Shepherd Book about the things he, too, has withheld, noting that it's as easy for him to kill people as it is for her to, though she doesn't elaborate strongly enough to clue him in to her meaning. Book remains a mystery to the crew, though River may know more about him than he'd like, and that may lead to trouble in the future.
Winner of the Week • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
It's the connection that Buffy has with Ford that makes their story so compelling, as he's not the typical villain that's simply out for domination or the thrill of the hunt. Ford just wants to live his life, and in knowing that he has less than a year in which to do so, during which time he will become a mere shell of who he was, he chooses to take control of his destiny and try to live forever.
Buffy doesn't want to kill Ford, and though Ford does offer up Buffy's life in exchange for his own, he doesn't want her dead either. The two of them really were friends at one point, and were he not dying they likely still could be, but the fact of the matter is that he's so afraid of his own impending mortality that he's willing to do anything to stay on this earth just a little while longer. Ford is, in the end, made to convince himself that he's the villain in order to convince Buffy of the same, hoping to make her hate him enough to let him die, to make it easier for him to sacrifice her should their relationship be dissolved.
In the end Buffy chooses to let him die to save the rest of his victims, sacrificing the memory she had had of him and letting him become the villain he had needed to be. As she and Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) wait for him to rise above his grave she asks that he lie to her, wondering if this line of work will ever get easier for her when her friends continue to die around her.
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