Canada would be perfect if we only had...

Is the Lifetime Channel. Now, this is not to be confused with what was formerly called "Life Channel", which is now "Slice" (as in, of life? I don't know). I mean the Lifetime Movie Network, with its 24 hour movie-of-the-week deliciousness.

I mean, how is it that the networks don't do movies of the week? After the sudden influx of unauthorized movies about tv shows (Three's Company and Different Strokes, I'm looking at you), the only time the networks show a made-for-tv movie, is if it's an "Event", meaning it's going to be about an earthquake, or weather-related-mishaps, or something that will require its stars to jump away from explosions, fireballs or magma.

Last night, I caught the amazing "The Party Never Stops", a cautionary tale about binge drinking at college. While I always loved disease/disability movies (Who can forget Nancy McKeon as an architect who develops schizophrenia? Justine Bateman as a young blind woman learning to live independently?), I think I liked the judgmental boogeyman quality of "issue" movies. For example in The Party Never Stops, the heroine just about throws her future away because of her binge drinking. Fortunately, she manages to stop in time, but her best friend, who never had any real consequences before, DIES.


Isn't there usually a cautionary death in these movies? I remember fondly Kate's Secret (starring Meredith Baxter-Birney, the mom from Family Ties), which was about a housewife trying to hide her bulimia. She manages to survive, but her friend and anorexic roommate (whose name, inexplicably, was Patch)DIES.

And of course, one of my favorites, the classic The Karen Carpenter Story starring Cynthia Gibb, who I idolized because she played Holly on Fame. Who, come to think of it, also had an eating disorder for an episode. Maybe it was that research that helped Cynthia nail the role of Karen Carpenter.

In any case,do you know how maddening it is that there's an entire channel that shows movies with titles like: Deadly Honeymoon, Dying To Belong,and They Shoot Divas, Don't They? (which stars Jennifer Beals and Traci Lords, and sounds so amazingly terrible that I can barely get my head around it.

I know we got HBO Canada, finally. Which is fabulous, if you like well-written, well-acted television. But what about the cheap thrills, the tawdry titillations? What about those of us who indulge in schadenfreude and the cautionary death?

Please, tv. Bring back the movie of the week.
Please?