Ellen Gray | Nasty 'Robber Bride' steals across border

THE ROBBER BRIDE. 8 p.m. Saturday, Oxygen.

IF YOU WANT to see some of the best of British television, you don't have to look far.

A&E may be more bullish on bounty hunters than Brits these days, but American TV still offers major options: PBS, especially its "Masterpiece Theatre" and "Mystery!" franchises, and, of course, BBC America.

Canadian television, by contrast, seems to creep across the border on little cat feet, turning up here and there, often on smaller cable channels like Sundance - currently running the third and final season of the splendid "Slings & Arrows" - and Oxygen, Saturday night presenting the U.S. premiere of "The Robber Bride," which it co-produced with Canada's CBC.

Based - a bit loosely - on Margaret Atwood's 1993 novel, which, like the movie, is set in Toronto, "The Robber Bride" stars Mary-Louise Parker as Zenia Arden, who might be Parker's nastiest piece of work yet.

That's saying something for the "Weeds" star, who's never shied away from the odd or unlikable qualities in her characters, embracing the survival instinct that's lately led the dope-dealing suburban mom Nancy Botwin of "Weeds" to make some truly chilling decisions as readily as she grasped the lack of such an instinct in Harper, the drug-addled abandoned wife of "Angels in America."

Zenia, though, makes Nancy look like mother of the year.

A shape-shifting seductress who moves in on other women's lives, eventually making off with whatever - or whomever - they value most, Zenia first turns up as an apparent murder victim.

A severed finger and three pints of blood tell enough of a story to warrant a funeral, at which three women who'd each once considered Zenia an extremely close friend gather to make sure she's really dead.

A subplot - and a character played by Shawn Doyle (of "Big Love") - that reportedly didn't appear in the book (which I confess I haven't yet finished) means that the movie gives shorter shrift than did Atwood to the three women (Wendy Crewson, Susan Lynch and Amanda Root) and their individual grievances.

It does, however, give Parker, whose "Weeds" performance last season seemed to be limited to one or two expressions, an opportunity to display ruthlessness on a grand scale.

And for an actress whose credits suggest she'd rather play anything but nice, that's an opportunity worth crossing borders for.

So I'm watching "American Idol" the other night and thinking how much shorter it could be if Ryan and Simon were simply forbidden to talk to each other.

Or if Randy would abandon his efforts to be taken seriously and go back to dawg-ing it, assuring every contestant that he or she had made it their own, done their thing or otherwise acquitted themselves in a manner that didn't invite censure.

There's nothing to be done with Paula, of course, at least till the men with the butterfly nets show up, but in fairness, she's barely making a dent in the time the show's currently taking out of fans' lives - four hours this week alone - and so shouldn't be blamed for our not getting to see "House" this week.

It's Randy, leading off with almost-withering criticism (much use of the word "pitchy"), who's stealing Simon's act, reducing him to ever-lamer similes.

I mean, who would invite their children to perform at a dinner party attended by Simon Cowell? Or, for that matter, invite him to dinner in the first place?

Just saying. *

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