Lindsay Lohan doesn't actually appear in Living Lohan. But fear not: there are plenty more fresh victims rolling off the malfunctioning family production line.

Living Lohan takes us into the grim world of Lindsay's monstrous, overbearing mother Dina, a serial child-bearer whose face has been rendered immobile by plastic surgery.

Dina, figuring that if the lightning of fame struck the Lohan family once it's bound to strike them again, is currently trying to jump-start the singing and acting career of her youngest daughter, 14-year-old Ali, who has an unappealing, angular face that tightens into a sour little pout whenever she doesn't get her own way.

It's difficult to see where this career is going to come from. Ali has no visible talent, although what she lacks in this department she more than makes up for with a massive sense of entitlement.

"When I want something, I'm gonna get it, and I don't take no for an answer," she squinted. What she wanted this week was a dog.

There are already five dogs in the Lohan household, as well as younger sibling Cody, who shows worrying signs of being a perfectly normal 11-year-old boy. Perhaps that's why he mostly stays (or is left) out of the picture.

Ali had a rationale, though: "Yes, we have five dogs but none of the dogs are mine, so I really want my own."

It's hard to argue with logic like that, but Dina argued anyway: "You are seriously joking!" she bawled oxymoronically, sending Ali stomping upstairs in a huff, wiggling her shapely little arse all the way.

Ali went ahead and bought the dog behind Dina's back. "My mom's gonna melt," she beamed.

Meltdown was more like it. Dina erupted like a volcano and ordered Ali to return the pooch. Disappointingly, she boiled over, calmed down and caved in, giving Ali "24 hours to prove to me that she can take care of that dog".

Clearly, parenting in Hollywood, whether of dogs or children, is subject to rigorous standards.

Compared to Living Lohan, Denise Richards: It's Complicated, makes its subject seem, if not normal, then almost likeable.

The tyre-lipped Richards -- the single-mother actress and ex-wife of Charlie Sheen whose finest hour was playing a babe in one of the Brosnan Bonds -- stumbles endearingly from one crisis to another, all the while wearing the startled expression of a rabbit that's just witnessed its best buddy being mashed by a truck.

When things get stressful, which is most of the time, Denise does this weird scratching at her skin thing. "Things are really falling through the cracks," she said, scratching furiously. "Things aren't really getting done. I don't need the added stress."

So she went to see her "divorce mediator" (ie, her shrink).

"You have baggage . . . " he began.

"It's good baggage," Denise interjected.

" . . . and you have accessories". Designer ones, no doubt.

He told her she was giving too much time to her children and not enough to herself. "I left there feeling more f***ed-up," she told her nice, recently divorced dad. "He makes me feel like I'm f***ing crazy."

Dad: "You're not crazy."

Denise: "You sure?"

Dad (after a long pause): "I don't think you are."

At the end, worn down by life's cares, Denise declared: "Everyone's up my f***in' ass." I don't know if she was scratching when she said that.