Can a network become the victim of its own success? Long known for its “women-in-peril” movies, the Lifetime network has seen the formula escape the laboratory and spread throughout the broadcast and streaming world, sparking endless docuseries about wives and mothers stalked by creeps next door, random strangers and even the furtive monsters they married.
Networks like ID have turned over their entire schedule to such tales. The rise of the podcast has only added to the glut of professionally produced paranoia. It’s interesting to think of American women spending a fortune to buy gargantuan SUVs for their safety value, only to spend their time in their tanks listening to tales of serial killers on the prowl.
Having seen the competition, Lifetime has now upped the ante and emerged as the place to see women-in-peril movies executive-produced by a woman who was once the face of every woman’s nightmare.
In case you have forgotten, in 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home and held captive for nine months. After her discovery, the couple who had held her prisoner were identified on an episode of “America’s Most Wanted.” Smart’s story has inspired any number of books and scripted and nonfiction television interpretations. She has gone on to become a child safety activist and frequent commenter on ABC News.
Smart is now the executive producer for “The Girl Locked Upstairs: The Tanya Kach Story” (8 p.m., Saturday, Lifetime, TV-14).
Like Smart, Tanya Kach (Jordyn Ashley Olson) was 14 at the time of her abduction. A confused girl from a dysfunctional household, Kach had also been bullied at school before being “befriended” by the school’s security guard, Tom Hose (Robert Baker), who convinced Kach to come home with him, where she was held captive for more than a decade. Hose was so convinced that he had brainwashed his captive and had her under his spell that he allowed her to leave the house and take a part-time job, where her exposure to relatively normal people allowed her to develop the courage to escape.
— As a member of the Talking Heads, David Byrne sang a song, “Heaven,” that described the afterlife as “a place where nothing ever happens.” As TCM’s Saturday night double feature curator and programmer this week, he has chosen two very different heaven-related films.
In the 1946 British drama “A Matter of Life and Death” (8 p.m., TV-PG), an airman (David Niven) is spared death due to a celestial accounting error. In dreamlike moments, he has to petition heavenly authorities to continue his mortal life with his new love interest (Kim Hunter).
In this remarkable film, Earth is depicted in color and heaven in black and white. An angel of death exults in his time among the mortals, declaring, “We are starved for Technicolor up there!” Heaven’s assembled throngs gather in a vast auditorium, like a parliament or a meeting of the United Nations, a not-so-subtle reference to the alliances that had just triumphed in World War II.
Byrne’s second selection, the brooding 1987 German fantasy “Wings of Desire” (10 p.m., TV-MA), directed and co-written by Wim Wenders, follows unseen angels over the skies of Berlin, where they eavesdrop on the often lonely lives of the living. One celestial being (Bruno Ganz) trades his wings and heavenly status for brief experiences of mortal sensuality with a fetching trapeze artist (Solveig Dommartin).
Both films are visually stunning in very different ways, and movies that many film-goers have been thinking about and discussing in the decades since their arrival.
— “Ren Faire” (9 p.m. and 10 p.m. Sunday, HBO, TV-14) airs its last two episodes, following the power struggles at a giant Texas medieval theme park after the decision of its founder, George Coulam, to retire. While the series makes the most of its quirky setting, it remains haunted by its central tragedy: the fact that Coulam could build an empire yet approach his ninth decade without any friends, family or loved ones.
Just out of curiosity, I checked out the schedule of Coulam’s ren faire, and it takes place over eight weekends in October and November. Thank goodness! Having experienced Houston in July, I wondered how anybody would want to joust or wear a wimple in a place once described by columnist Molly Ivins as “having the climate of Calcutta.”
SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— MLB baseball (7:30 p.m., Fox).
— The Florida Panthers host the Edmonton Oilers in the 2024 Stanley Cup final (8 p.m., ABC).
— A disillusioned woman plunges into a cheese-centered trip abroad in the 2024 romance “Savoring Paris” (8 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
SUNDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
Scheduled on two episodes of “60 Minutes (CBS): Iran’s assassins, Wyoming’s climate crusader, a profile of Pink (7 p.m.); an American journalist in China, Georgia’s efforts to join the European Union (8 p.m.).
— The St. Louis Battlehawks host the San Antonio Brahmas in the United Football League Conference Championships (7 p.m., Fox). For those keeping score, the United Football League is the product of a merger of XFL and the United States Football League. It offers minor league players a showcase and fans something to root for, think about and, perhaps, bet on, between NFL seasons.
— The Boston Celtics host the Dallas Mavericks in the 2024 NBA Finals (8 p.m., ABC).
— Domestic life leaves a woman dazed and confused in the 2024 shocker “Gaslit by My Husband: The Morgan Metzer Story” (8 p.m., Lifetime, TV-14).
— The ultraviolence never dies on “Interview With the Vampire” (9 p.m., AMC, TV-MA).
— Billy establishes a new headquarters on “Billy the Kid” (9 p.m., MGM+, TV-MA).
CULT CHOICE
Featuring an all-star cast (Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Beyonce Knowles and Danny Glover), the 2006 musical “Dreamgirls” (5 p.m. Sunday, BET, TV-PG) adapted a 1981 Broadway hit for the screen. Based on the backstage dramas between members of Motown superstars the Supremes, it was honored with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Jennifer Hudson, who had been a finalist on the 2004 season of “American Idol.”
SATURDAY SERIES
A poisoned agent needs McCall’s help on “The Equalizer” (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14) … “American Ninja Warrior” (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG) … “48 Hours” (9 p.m. and 10 p.m., r, CBS) … “Dateline” (10 p.m., NBC, r).
SUNDAY SERIES
“Password” (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG) … On two episodes of “Elsbeth”: (CBS, r, TV-14); an app too good to be true (9 p.m.), a bully’s end (10 p.m.) … “America’s Got Talent” (9 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG).
