Parents' Guide to The Lizzie Borden Chronicles

No, Lizzie Borden didn't spend the latter part of her life bumping off her father's creditors, random family members, and anyone else who dared to cross her. But if you're the sort of viewer who cares less about historical faithfulness and more about a campy drama featuring Borden in tight gowns and blood-red lipstick doing terrible things to people who stand in her way, you'll be in ecstasy over Lizzie. With plot lines running from grave robbing to poisoning to skeletons of secret children moldering away in a basement, Lizzie Borden is pretty much off the rails in terms of content, which is fun for a very particular type of viewer (if inappropriate for kids).

When a crowd of kids follows her, chanting the old "forty whacks" nursery rhyme, she pulls a (conveniently located) ax from a store display and whirls on them. One little girl stands stock still: "I'm not afraid of you," she whimpers. "Then you haven't been paying attention!" Ricci grinds out, deadpan. The show also depicts Borden's real-life friendship with a Victorian actress, which people whispered wasn't exactly platonic. In Lizzie, not only is the relationship physical but her new friend ushers Lizzie into an underground carnival of vintage debauchery: ladies in top hats, dapper men sipping absinthe, a bearded man in an elaborate gown. It's not history, but it's great fun.