Lifetime for Life

I spent most of February and part of March sick with strep throat. I couldn’t do much but lie in bed and try to recover. One thing that I did do was watch a bunch of Lifetime movies.

I love a Lifetime movie as long as it involves a crime that’s solved in the last few minutes. Even so, I have two problems with these movies.

First, there are lots of Lifetime daughter/mother movies, but the daughters and mothers look the same age. Botox/fillers/face lifts must play a part in this. I feel anyone who wants to improve their face, however they want, is free to do so. But I get easily confused when the ages don’t look right.

The second problem is casting so many actors who look alike in the same movie. I find it hard to follow the plot when I don’t know if the wife or the neighbor is the bad person because they look identical. Or it could be the husband and gardener who look alike. Or the child and his friend. You get the point.

Of course, I was so sick that following the plot didn’t really matter because I never made it through an entire movie without falling asleep. It isn’t that the movies aren’t interesting. They are. It was that my body was healing through slumber. Besides, somehow, the Lifetime movies can be both confusing and relaxing at the same time. Go figure.

Also, I have never seen so much eavesdropping in my life as what happens in a Lifetime movie. Usually, this serves to move the plot forward, but it is becoming quite a trope.

And when something happens that goes off the rails, I think of a family tradition. If my siblings and I watched a movie and somebody did something ridiculous, one of us would inevitably say, “Why would they do that?” Then, someone would always reply, “It’s in the script.” We had a trope of our own.

Overall, I respect Lifetime movies in the same way I respect any movie. That is knowing that someone had to write it in the first place. As a writer, I can appreciate the effort. What do you think of Lifetime movies? Let me know in the comments.