In Beijing and London, U.S. Olympian Cullen Jones was fierce in the water, bringing home gold and silver and setting a world record along the way. In the pool at P.S.You’ve got to give Lifetime credit for taking a genre that’s saturating TV, particularly cable, and giving it a cheeky patina by its title alone.
“My Life is a Lifetime Movie” (10 p.m. Wednesday) is the same true-crime show, complete with re-enactments of actual events, dressed up in a pretty pop-culture package by way of its title.
Most viewers know the notion of a Lifetime movie: It conjures a woman-in-jeopardy plot that’s generally a heightened reality from the way most people live their lives. This show’s title plays off that conventional wisdom even as the program itself is just more of the same.
In an episode made available for review, two true-life stories are featured with the bulk of the hour devoted to the story of a female high-school teacher accused of having sex with a male student, a story he made up from whole cloth.
“My Life is a Lifetime Movie” switches back and forth between some of the real-life figures in the case, who recount their experiences, to re-enactments featuring actors who play the real people.
It’s a format popularized in the past few years by cable’s Investigation Discovery, which uses this style of storytelling on many of its programs.
Fans of these true-crime shows may be intrigued by “My Life is a Lifetime Movie,” but viewers hoping for a series as irreverent as this title suggests may be disappointed.
