As FOX’s Lie to Me prepares to finish off its second season and begin filming its third, British writer Alexander Cary has signed on as showrunner after last month’s annoucement that Shawn Ryan would vacate the post.

Zap2It caught up with star Tim Roth to get his take on the shift: “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.”

Cary has served as both a writer and story editor on Lie to Me throughout Season 2, notably penning two of the season’s most ambitious episodes, “Grievous Bodily Harm,” Roth’s personal favorite episode yet, and “Secret Santa,” which sent Roth’s character Cal Lightman to Afghanistan.

Roth went on to tell Zap2It that he has full confidence in Cary and the rest of the writing team that Shawn Ryan organized before he departed to work on two other FOX projects: FOX’s mid-season cop show Ride-Along and the FX comedy/drama series Terriers.

“I feel good about it. What he did was he brought on a group of writers,” says Roth. “For him to come on and do someone else’s show — it’s not something that he’s created — that’s a very different thing for him to do. But it’s good though, he did it. And what he did is he brought on a group of writers that were very interesting to me. You know, could write in different ways, and we were still trying to find our feet in the second season.”

Lie to Me returns to FOX on Monday, June 7 to tie off the rest of season 2, and begins filming season 3 in July.

On Thursday, I’ll participate in a media conference call with Roth to talk about the rest of Lie to Me‘s second season and its exciting spring premiere episode, in which Lightman will play a “dangerous cat-and-mouse game with a brilliant, charming and psychotic graduate student.

Have a question for Mr. Roth about Lie to Me? There’s limited space and time, but if I receive a couple of gems in the comments, I’d be thrilled to ask them on your behalf.

Meghan Carlson

Senior Writer, BuddyTV

Meghan hails from Walla Walla, WA, the proud home of the world’s best sweet onions and Adam West, the original Batman. An avid grammarian and over-analyzer, you can usually find her thinking too hard about plot devices in favorites like The OfficeIt’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and How I Met Your Mother. In her spare time, Meghan enjoys drawing, shopping, trying to be funny (and often failing), and not understanding the whole Twilight thing. She’s got a BA in English and Studio Art from Whitman College, which makes her a professional arguer, daydreamer, and doodler.