The Staircase Murders' bisexual Treat

That's Treat with a capital T, as we're talking about the ever-dashing Treat Williams (Everwood, Hair), who plays real-life murder suspect Michael Peterson in the Lifetime Network's new film, The Staircase Murders.

The film is actually based on a novel, A Perfect Husband (by Aphrodite Jones), which itself was a fictionalization of the true case of Peterson, who became a murder suspect when his wife was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in their home. Murders follows the investigation and trial of Peterson and the effect that the events had on his family, which included children from prior marriages for both him and his late wife.

But what makes the story really interesting is the things that are uncovered about Peterson during the investigation, including his open bisexuality (and habit of picking up boys at the gym) and another "accidental" staircase death that he had been implicated in 20 years earlier.

It's all pretty pulpy and too-crazy-to-be-true (even though it isn't), so it's actually pretty impressive the way his bisexuality is handled. Peterson isn't ashamed of it, his brother acknowledges that he came out as a teenager to his whole family, and Peterson insists that his wife was well aware that he had sexual relations with men. The prosecution of course jumps on the salacious details (including calling a male escort -- with whom Peterson had corresponded but never actually met -- onto the witness stand during the trial) and sensationalizes them in order to turn the jury against him, but the rest of the characters seem to agree that it has nothing to do with the situation at hand.

If all of this sounds familiar, it's because a few years back a documentary on the same case (called The Staircase here in the US) aired as a miniseries on BBC America -- interestingly enough, the documentary crew plays a big part in this version of the events (although they for some reason changed the gender of the filmmaker from male to female -- but this is Lifetime, after all).

All in all, not a bad watch, and interesting for its progressive handling of the lead character's bisexuality. The Staircase Murders airs this Sunday at 8:00PM EDT, on Lifetime (Entertainment for Women ... and Gay Men).