As pointed out by James Hibberd of The Live Feed, though down this week, Lie to Me continues to be the highest rated scripted show of the summer.

Visit The Futon Critic to read the interview in its entirety, including Shawn Ryan’s comments on Jennifer Beals’ involvement with Lie to Me come season three. He also discusses how “so much of Tim’s performance in any given episode seems to be on the edge of insanity”. Be sure to check it out.

“It’s just a fun alternate universe with all these people you’re accustomed to seeing in a certain environment,” Shield creator and Lie to Me executive producer Shawn Ryan tells TVGuide.com of the stunt episode (Monday at 9/8c on Fox). “It was different, but I think everyone was just really happy to see one another again. I think it meant more on a personal level even than a professional level. We had a very tight-knit group on that show, so to be able to reunite … was very nice.”

Ryan says he immediately began looking for ways to bring Shield actors to his new show when Season 2 began, but then got greedy. “I started thinking, ‘Why am I looking to just get one or two of them if I could maybe get more?’” he says.

A member of his writing staff then crafted a story that could support the extra faces. At the center of the episode are Benito Martinez and Catherine Dent as Charlie and Faye Sheridan, a married couple whose son was murdered 17 years earlier. When the couple joins Lightman (Tim Roth) and Zoe (Jennifer Beals) to witness the execution of murderer (David Marciano), Lightman suddenly suspects they’re watching the wrong man die.

When the Sheridans are targeted again, Lightman turns to the executed man’s younger brother (David Rees Snell) and ex-girlfriend (Cathy Cahlin Ryan) for answers. All roads lead to a mysterious photographer (Kenny Johnson), who becomes the key suspect. (All three are also Shield alums.)

“It was fun to find a new chemistry,” Martinez says of the experience. “We found a whole, new completely different vocabulary and relationship that was organic to these characters. What was instant was our trust for each other. With Catherine, we knew each other in and out, and that trust was there.”

Martinez, who also guest-starred on Ryan’s CBS drama The Unit says he welcomes any opportunity to collaborate with his former boss. “He’s one of the good guys,” he says. “If Shawn asked me to pull cable on a show, I’d probably do it. He’s that kind of guy. … He has talent, and he cares about aking the journey together, as crazy as it might be. His talent takes you places that are outside the norm, and as an actor, it’s fantastic, it’s risky.”

Ryan promises that Lie to Me fans won’t see the regular characters get short shrift to make room for the guest stars. “We also find out the past of how Zoey and Lightman fell in love and how their daughter Emily came into the world,” he says. “There’s a lot of juicy stuff.”

Ryan, who has stepped down as showrunner for Lie to Me’s third season to focus on his new Fox series, Ride-Along, says the episode eschews in-jokes or any winks at his previous creation. He does, however, hope that Shield fans who tune into Lie to Me for the first time stick around.

“We take the show pretty seriously, and we wanted the show to stand on its own for those people who aren’t Shield fans,” says Ryan, adding that he hopes Lie to Me will continue and thrive. “I have emeritus status — I’m not completely out of the picture, although I am certainly not responsible for the good work that they’ll do this year.”

Special thanks, as always, to TV Guide for allowing us to reprint the article in its entirety.

In an interview with USA Today, Mekhi Phifer recently teased what’s coming up in the finale by saying it will have “some bloodshed and some shooting”. Got your wheels turning?

Be sure to check out the rest of the interview where Mekhi talks about playing his character, how he got started acting, and more.

Shawn Ryan said that originally he had “mixed feelings” about the hiatus and the new time slot, “because traditionally [summer] has been a burn-off spot” for shows. “But”, he continues, “When I was told that they were pairing us with ‘The Good Guys’ (starring Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks), which I knew was an important element in their schedule… I chose to look at the glass half full. Now we have a chance to attract some audience attention and get some eyeballs that maybe were tuning into other things during the fall. I’m definitely looking at it as an opportunity more than a punishment.”

Shawn says that the second season, of which 12 episodes are yet to air, will conclude with a “really strong” stretch “that will launch the show into the third season”.

Be sure to check out the rest of Matt’s write-up for more info, including scoop on upcoming guest stars.

Overall, Roth said, “We’ll be looking at Foster and Lightman’s relationship; we look at how they met. There is my relationship with my ex-wife and also with my daughter. The daughter starts to feature more and more heavily I think. She’s such a good character and the actress is so very good that we are writing to that. The cases are strange and [there's] a little bit more adrenaline floating around this season.”

Be sure to read the rest of the article at BlogCritics, where Tim talks about Jennifer Beals and her character, Shawn Ryan’s departure, the new showrunners, and more.

How does star Tim Roth feel about the addition? “This writer, Alexander Cary, he is a really very, very good writer…. So that’s what Shawn did for us in a way is make sure that we were set, and then he moved on.” As noted above, Cary wrote “Grievous Bodily Harm”, the episode with guest star Lennie James, who played an old friend of Lightman’s. That episode is actually Tim’s favorite to date.

So, how do you feel about the change? Excited? Nervous? Sound off below.

Read more about Alexander Cary on IMDB.

UPDATE: David Graziano has also been brought on as a showrunner.