Last night, Mr. Max cut his evening nap short and I booked around the kitchen whipping up dinner at lightning speed.

Why? So we could catch the premier of Committed, of course!  No, seriously.

Here’s a rundown of the action: Andrea Roth – who, in the grand tradition of Lifetime heroines, bears a striking resemblance to Heather Locklear – stars as Celeste DuPont, a Sassy Psychiatrist looking to make a big lifestyle change. Celeste has just accepted a live-in staff position at the Milburn Institute, a psychiatric facility that looks more like a Sturbridge village B&B than a holding facility for the criminally insane.

It looks pretty much exactly like this, but with a big electric fence.

The facility is run by Dr. Quilley, a clinician whose unconventional method of therapy involves allowing the patients (or “guests,” as he quaintly calls them) to stew in their own delusions as long as they stay safely out of society. This contrasts with Dr. Desmond Moore, the #2 clinician on staff, who believes that the criminally insane can be cured – and that he’s just the man to do it.

He’s supposed to be the love interest, I guess.

But, as it turns out, Celeste isn’t just the newest clinician on staff — she’s also a patient! Drs Quilley and Desmond inform her that due to the trauma of her husband’s death, she cannot remember committing herself.

When Celeste’s clothing turns up mysteriously slashed, the other clinicians ignore her protestations and engage in a roundtable debate over the meaning of it all.

“Punishment,” says one psychiatrist. “Destruction of the old self!” pipes another. “It’s like a return to the womb, because to be not born is not to be…”

In short, it’s basically the worst punishment a psychiatrist could be faced with: Psychiatry.

Well played, Lifetime. Well played.

From then on it’s a series of misdirected plot twists and turns: Celeste is cray cray! Celeste is not cray cray! Dr. Desmond can save her! Dr. Desmond is evil! An hour or so later we finally get to the film’s (unsurprising) surprise reveal: the current “staff” are, in fact, patients who have killed the real psychiatrists. Celeste escapes (thanks to the help of one of the “good” criminally insane patients) and watches as the cops wheel crazy Dr. Desmond away.

Overall Verdict: Kind of rips off Shutter Island, which is not exactly Grade A material to begin with.  To be fair, Andrea Roth does manage to pull off a scene where she carjacks a chubby delivery truck driver in an escape attempt. You have to give props for that.

Boredom rating: I’d say 2 hotels.  Probably good to watch while folding laundry, but definitely not worth rushing to get dinner done or foregoing an afternoon nap.