http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/arts/television/the-red-tent-imagines-the-life-of-dinah.html 2014-12-06 00:34:20 ‘The Red Tent’ Imagines the Life of Dinah “The Red Tent,” a two-part adaptation of Anita Diamant’s novel about a biblical story, is being broadcast on Sunday and Monday on Lifetime. === Sunday and Monday would be good nights for the men of the world to go out somewhere. Anyplace that doesn’t have television. That way they won’t accidentally channel-surf their way into As a general rule, men are not the target audience for Lifetime’s fare, but this program seems especially out of their comfort zone. Presumably no further explanation is needed than this: The story imagines the life of Dinah, a minor figure in the Bible, who spends a lot of time in the tent of the title, a place where women go to gab and bond while menstruating. The novel, published in 1997, became That’s quite a collective résumé, but rather than dignify the tale it somehow only adds to the soap-opera quality of it. Dinah, daughter of Leah (Ms. Driver) and Jacob (Iain Glen of “Game of Thrones” — geesh), is the catalyst for a particularly gruesome story in Chapter 34 of Genesis, but before this mini-series even gets there it dishes up an episode of “Sister Wives,” the TLC show about a polygamist family. Or so it seems, as the story details how Jacob accumulated his four wives (Ms. Baccarin is Rachel, his favorite) and how they all came to love the arrangement, so long as they could retire to the red tent now and then to talk and celebrate their life-giving abilities. It’s Ms. Driver who gets to utter this florid line: “In the red tent, we surround ourselves with healing hands and loving voices, and we give thanks for the knowledge that life comes from between our legs, and that the cost of life is blood.” Well, Dinah eventually grows up, goes through some terrible things and proves herself a survivor. Fans of the novel will no doubt watch and revel in this relatively big-budget treatment. Others might find its pseudo-biblical, pseudo-feminist mix hard to take. Yes, women tend to get short shrift in the Bible once Eve disappears, but this is a decidedly Lifetime version of their unknown story: episodes of love at first sight followed by sexual ecstasy; lots of child-birthing; a tent where the sisterhood keeps the flame while stupid, callous men rage outside.