The most controversial program on television this week didn't involve real housewives or guidos from the shore and it appeared, of all places, on Lifetime.

Long known for its melodramatic original movies about honor students becoming prostitutes or nannies becoming stalkers, the Lifetime network has stepped into more contentious territory with the biopic Amanda Knox, Murder on Trial in Italy.

The on-going Amanda Knox trial drew public attention and sympathy in November 2007 when the American college student, along with Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede, was arrested in the brutal murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy.

Playing the infamous "Foxy Knoxy" is Hayden Panitierre, who does her best portraying a person whose motives and intents still remain a mystery to most of the world. 

The movie is the third in a series produced by Lifetime that explores current events. The previous two were The Craiglist Killer and Taken from Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story. All of the movies have been followed by documentaries exploring the real-life event.

But, despite branching out into more newsworthy territory, don't expect much of a change from the typical Lifetime fare.

Amanda Knox still contains the canned dialogue and mawkish acting that have become hallmarks of the channel. The movie even comes complete with the embattled mother desperately fighting for her daughter's freedom, this time played by Marcia Gay Harden.

 Regardless of the channel's reputation, the film was stirring up controversy long before its premiere. The families of both Knox and Kercher attempted to stop the film from airing.

The Knox family was worried the film would influence public opinion while Knox's appeal case is still underway and the Kercher's were offended by the graphic portrayal of their daughter's murder.

But, unwilling to portray her as either innocent or guilty, Panitierre's performance of Knox gives us just as much insight into the case as the news stories. There is nothing in this movie that could not have been found in the tabloids or the retaliatory public relations campaign her family engineered. 

The movie flashes between scenes of Knox as a happy-go-lucky student to scenes of her as a cold, detached killer. Knox remains just as enigmatic in this movie as she does in the press coverage.

I learned more about the inefficiency of the Italian justice system than I did about Amanda Knox.

And, because the trial has not yet been completed, we are not even left with a satisfying conclusion. Lifetime should have avoided the controversy and saved the movie for after the verdict.