Average Jane goes to prison

A TMZ crotch shot of the newest Miss Thing, or a scripted feud between reality stars -- we love it when girls go wild. And nothing on TV does it better than “Snapped,” a show that makes a drugged celebutante driving the wrong way down the 134 look like a trip to American Girl Place.

“Snapped,” now in reruns on the Oxygen network, details the true-life stories of garden-variety American women who wake up one morning and -- you know -- snap. In 76 episodes since 2004, the Snappers (usually suburban wives and moms) shoot, stab, run over, lethally inject, incinerate and/or dismember their husbands, parents, and/or significant others.

“Snapped” is a guilty pleasure in which the protagonists are (almost) always guilty.

Elizabeth Reynolds, a divorcee with obvious body issues, gets a tummy tuck, braces and a dye job to please her new boyfriend, but when she finds out her man’s still seeing other women, she hires a guy to ring the doorbell and shoot him in the face.

Jeena Han, a Korean woman with a bad Pai Gow habit, breaks out of a minimum-security prison and persuades two idiot teens to help kill her twin sister so she can take the twin’s identity (and, presumably, her credit rating).

And bratty-rich teen Sarah Marie Johnson shotgun blasts her parents after they ground her, then tries to pin the killing on her illegal-immigrant boyfriend.

“Snapped” is shot on the cheap. This is basic cable docudrama, and the soothing but provocative female narration rivets us to the bang-for-your-buck (read: free) family photos of the killer and the victim. Interviews-against-backdrops with the best friends who agree to appear on camera, the arresting officers, the prosecuting attorneys and the journalists who covered the case give back story and emotional depth to the crimes. Dramatic reenactments are also used, but the “verite” of this “cinema” usually consists of a male body with a stocking cap over his face, wielding a bat at the camera.

Yes, it all feels like an old-school pitch for a “woman in jeopardy” movie at Lifetime, and the facts that unfold when the cases go to trial are so horribly insane, no one would believe them if they weren’t part of the public record. But the truth is, the real-life crimes depicted on each half hour of “Snapped” are more dramatic than any episode of any iteration of the scripted fan-favorite “Law & Order.”

Laura Rogers put up with years of physical abuse from her husband. Only after watching a videotape of him raping their 16-year-old daughter did she pick up the shotgun. Taking the witness stand at her trial, Kimberly Kondejewski told the jury of her husband’s ultimatum -- if she didn’t kill herself, he was going to kill their children.

Some groups have accused “Snapped” of glorifying the female killers and ignoring the deep psychological problems many of these women face. But for all of you thinking this is soft-core snuff masquerading as reality television, just pull “Madame Bovary” off the shelf. On “Snapped,” I learned that Lynn Turner used antifreeze to poison her police-officer husband and her firefighter boyfriend. Clearly, Flaubert was ahead of his time.

“Snapped” succeeds because it taps into our “Blue Velvet”-ish voyeuristic desires and at the same time makes any real-life problem we have seem downright lame. Bill collectors won’t leave you alone? Losing your hair and still single at 40? At least you’re not married to Susan Wright, an ex-stripper who tied her husband to the bed and stabbed him 192 times.

But Oxygen can’t get enough. “Snapped” airs in a one-hour block, five days a week, with frequent marathons, and new episodes begin April 6.

The network also has “The Bad Girls Club,” a less abusive but more socially corrosive reality series dubbed one of the “20 Most Appalling TV Shows” at EW.com. I love it, but it’s no Lifetime, or even WE, and maybe that’s why Oprah is starting OWN.

On television, just because something is true doesn’t mean it’s interesting. But “Snapped” is salacious and base and a jaw-dropping spectacle of the secret lives of the people next door, but it is also a cautionary tale, telling us to make smarter choices in our lives by showing us how badly all these other people have screwed up theirs. Every episode ends with the same valuable lesson: It’s better, it turns out, not to snap.