Not in my lifetime will I watch Lifetime

Each morning, I read select articles from back issues of The New Yorker that one of my neighbors left behind in the hallway.

Today I read a piece by Nancy Franklin about the drivel that is Lifetime “Television for Women.” Now just because you might enjoy the occasional delve into made-for-TV movies doesn’t mean you aren’t a good person. I know I’ve walked in on my dad watching such gems as She Cried No and Catching My Uncle’s Killer With Mr. Right.

This is exactly why Lifetime makes me cringe (and laugh):

On Lifetime, the channel that branded itself “television for women,” danger and looming death seem to be the unifying concept of the programming. In any given few days, you’ll see shows such as those which were described in my on-screen TV guide last week: “After his daughter kills his wife, a California con man weds his wife’s sister”; “A deranged gunman kidnaps two teenage girls”; “Orphaned siblings fall victim to a mentally unstable woman and her husband”; “An assistant district attorney hounds an Oregon woman he suspects has shot her three children”; and “An attorney faces charges of murdering his ex-lover.” What you learn from watching Lifetime is: Don’t go in the house; don’t leave the house; don’t let your daughter leave the house; and whatever you do, don’t let that man in the house. There is often more to the shows and movies on Lifetime than you might guess from the descriptions, but for many people the channel is still a puzzlement at best; its slogan might as well be “Television for women who aren’t like any women you’ve met in your life.”

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