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Mustaches, murder, & misogyny: lifetime movies hit a new low

I’m not going to act like I’m in the target audience for Lifetime Network. My persistent beard and the fact that I have never been a woman who has coupled with a sexy but subtly dangerous man, I have little use of the channel except for my habit of all day Saturday “Wife Swap” marathons. That being said, I’m a sucker for Rob Lowe.

Lifetime had to think they had a steal, recruiting defamed and recently back in the public eye Rob Lowe, thanks to “Parks and Recreation,” to star as almost definitely wife killer Drew Peterson for their long in development made for TV movie. Billing it as a potential camp classic with an aggressive marketing scheme, “Drew Peterson: Untouchable” felt like it could be must watch programming for those who have little else to do on a given Saturday evening.

Unfortunately, it couldn’t live up to any sort of even minimal expectations, failing to choose between high camp or reverence. Telling the story of Peterson’s fourth wife and her overlap with his third wife who died under what are certainly mysterious circumstances, Lowe is game to play the misogynist creep. He smirks, makes jokes about menstruation at a creepily regular rate, shouts the word “bitch” and acts like anyone with that bad of a moustache would. That being said, he doesn’t seem to be having much fun and the rest of the cast, including Kaley Cuoco of “The Big Bang Theory,” aren’t helping make the whole thing any more watchable.

The problem is that there’s so much to really get into with the bizarre case of Peterson. The media frenzy, his “Win-a- date with Drew” contest and his bizarre behavior immediately after his fourth wife’s disappearance could have made for a thoroughly watchable movie. Instead it’s a mess and proves to be little more than another example of where the truth was much stranger than fiction.

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