'Liz And Dick' Review: 5 Ways It Could Have Been So Much Better [VIDEO]

"Liz and Dick" aired last night on Lifetime, and as most anyone could have predicted, the role of Elizabeth Taylor fit Lindsay Lohan like a violet contact lens.

Though Lohan's earnestness and effort is immediately apparent from the first pitch, the former child star delivers (barely) a performance bearing an unkind, uncanny resemblance to a twelve-year old invited to sit at the grownups' table on Thanksgiving. It's a much bigger, much older role than she has ever played, and Lohan lacks both the talent and the resemblance to justify the casting as anything more than a cheap marketing ploy. In respect to the film's publicity, Lohan's inclusion was an indisputable success. But even the most insipid claptraps have stinkier cheese.

How could something so boring come from a star so interesting? After all, this was the actor who once captured the hearts of a generation with her dazzlingly zeitgeist turn in Tina Fey's "Mean Girls," only to reframe her career with her appearance in the awesomely bad "I Know Who Killed Me." Even Robert Altman once banked on Lohan's talent in "A Prairie Home Companion," which, though correctly overlooked, was conceived as a prestige project from top-to-bottom. In the promotions for that film, Lohan's billing appears next to Hollywood heavyweights like Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Lily Tomlin, and Tommy Lee Jones. If that doesn't spell a big gamble on her potential, whether it be as an actor or a star, we don't know what does.

With all this told, how did Lindsay Lohan and "Liz and Dick" director Lloyd Kramer miss such a golden opportunity to add to the important tradition of over-the-top biopics? Could Lindsay Lohan have been the next Faye Dunaway, and with Dunaway's career as a case study, could she have rode a meme-wave to super stardom with just one truly awful, truly memorable moment or line?

In the ghostly wake of what might have been, here are five ways that "Liz and Dick" could have been so much better.

5. A More Ridiculous Co-Star

Who is Grant Bowler, and more importantly, what was Haley Joel Osment doing that he couldn't play the Dick to Lohan's Liz? As long as we're casting people for literally no reason but the marketing, why not include another former child star? Wouldn't a story about Osment's getting his career and body into shape for the role also charge the picture with a little extra something-something?

If Lifetime was going to give us the cinematic equivalent of a defibrillator, they could have at least checked to make sure it was plugged in first. And what Bowler lacks in wattage, Osment (or someone like him) makes up for in voltage. Also, Brandon Routh could have played Richard Burton.

4. A Crowd-Sourced Script

Instead of blaming Christopher Monger, the film's writer, the public could have blamed the mass of people who tweeted dialogue and scenes in 140 characters or less. Far more interesting and compelling than the film were the tweets about the film, which all-but-cemented Louis Virtel as the funniest person, gay or otherwise, on Twitter. His tweets, and the flurry of consistent tweets from likeminded audience members, bespoke an investment in "Liz and Dick's" success that no one involved with the production seemed to mirror, save Lindsay Lohan herself.

3. Silent "Liz and Dick"

What if this were a silent movie, and Lindsay Lohan had a terrier? It worked for "The Artist," and if you mute "Liz and Dick" and watch it through an Instagram filter, the similarities are striking.

2. The "Downton Abbey" Theme Song

More than half of why Downton Abbey is regarded as so much more than a silly soap opera where the disappearance of a dog we've never seen before represents a major plot point is because of that awesome theme song. If they had played that song during the opening credits over a montage of Elizabeth Taylor asking her assistants for help, and then again after every commercial, "Liz and Dick" could have been the most beautiful, most respected made-for-tv movie ever.

1. More Turbans

Did Elizabeth Taylor wear a turban in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Does anyone who isn't Edward Albee remember anything that movie, and would we remember it differently if Lindsay Lohan had been given more space in which to tackle it? As a high-concept project posing the question "What if Elizabeth Taylor always wore a turban?" "Liz and Dick" could have been a very important meditation on hatful and hatlessness. Plus, something about costumes really helps Lohan come out of her shell. Remember the "Jingle Bell Rock" scene from "Mean Girls?"

We do, too-- which is more than we can say for "Liz and Dick."