Why Lifetime RULES

Miss Instant Star herself Alexz Johnson, Magda Apanowicz (Kyle XY's cancer-stricken Andy) and Degrassi's Emma and Alex (Miriam McDonald and Deanna Casaluce) will star in the Lifetime original movie Devil's Diary. Mark your calendars: September 22.

School's Out and life sucks

This weekend I had the opportunity to watch a VHS copy of School's Out, the TV movie that concluded the original Degrassi High series. In stark contrast to shows like The OC and Dawson's Creek, which both went out on impossibly happily ever after notes ("Summer and Seth got married!" "Jen's dead!"), School's Out really stayed true to its roots and went out on a huge downer.

Are you a fan of The Next Generation's Manny/Craig/Ashley storyline? Relive it with Tessa/Joey/Caitlin. Betrayal! Abortion! Joey's bare ass! I, for one, no longer care that Caitlin cheated on Joey with Kevin Smith and dumped his bald ass. His high school self owes her a huge karmic debt and that turn events doesn't even begin to cover it.

And only Degrassi would take their blue collar bad boy and in the finale, put him at fault in a case of vehicular manslaughter. The OC ended with Ryan as a benevolent architect. Degrassi ended with Wheels behind bars after driving drunk and killing a toddler. Not even The Next Generation had the stones to kill the dude Sean hit while completely sober.

I bow to the original Degrassi. I'm not worthy of your go-thereness.

Is Anne Heche gonna have to choke a bitch?

I would like to recommend to you a fabulous Lifetime Movie called Gracie’s Choice. Kristen Bell (Miss Veronica Mars, herself) plays Gracie, a high school student whose mother is a horrible drug addicted bitch played by an on-edge Anne Heche.

After Anne gets sent to jail and religious zealot Grandma (Diane Ladd) proves to be an unfit guardian, Gracie petitions the court for custody of her three half brothers. What raises this film above the standard Lifetime fare is the quality of the acting, which is nothing short of fierce. Take, for example, the pictured scene in which Anne finds out Gracie’s intentions and nearly strangles her.

The Horror!

And I'm not just talking about Lara Flynn Boyle's lips (zing!). I spent a good deal of Sunday just sitting on the futon with the Chef watching Lifetime movies. It's one of her favorite pastimes and we caught parts of two (one involved a former Baywatch chick, that skeezy dude from Sex and the City and Adam Baldwin; the other... I can't really recall) and all of The House Next Door.

Starring LFB's top lip and Mark-Paul Gosselaar's tousled hair, this little gem of a film seemed to last at least seven years. The Chef claims this is the sign of a good Lifetime movie, but I'm not convinced. In between the commercials for the Lifetime original series Monarch Cove (is it bad that I kind of want to tune in?) I mostly just wondered where Mark-Paul's maybe evil, but definitely dreamy architect had gone. I also wondered why his fairly bland modern design was being hailed as revolutionary. Then I found out that the book that is the basis for the film, which will surely win a People's Choice Award for best use of a Saved By the Bell Star Not Named Mario Lopez, was written in the '70s. So with that mystery solved, I'm only left to wonder how LFB and her stoic hubby got custody of the precocious little girl who played a possessed demon in that other Lifetime movie with the chick from 24 and her evil twin from The Nine.

Noah Wyle back on the small screen

Some how I missed the first Librarian film, but you can bet I won't make the same mistake twice. It may be giving away too much about myself to say that Noah Wyle and that aquiline nose are two of my favorite things to see on TV. It's been too long, Dr. Carter.