In many ways, the trailer for the new Lifetime movie Britney Ever After is superfluous. It’s a biopic of Britney Spears, which means it’s almost entirely going to be made up of footage of a woman dancing in her knickers, with undue attention paid to the time she shaved her head.

Plus, it’s a Lifetime movie, so in terms of quality it’s bound to be at least the equal of The Brittany Murphy Story, Whitney Houston: A Tragic Love and, of course, the Jamie-Lynn Sigler vehicle Mommy I Didn’t Do It.

And yet, the Britney Ever After trailer exists, and there’s just about enough footage contained within its 30 seconds to justify a closer look. Lucky old you, eh?

Well, there we have it. Less than one second in and Britney Ever After has already met the requirement of women dancing in their knickers. This is just a brief shot of a Britney concert, however, which denies us the pleasure of seeing how this unauthorised biopic of a living celebrity will navigate its likely inability to secure the rights to any Britney Spears music. Perhaps here she’s singing a song called Whoops I Did It Once More. Who knows?

Then we’re presented with this weird quote, which raises so many questions. Such as “Does Lifetime feel it necessary to explain who Britney Spears is in order to entice people to watch?” And “Of all the reams and reams of words written about Britney Spears over the last two decades, why did Lifetime settle on a quote from a woman who works at bustle.com?” And, obviously: “Hasn’t Britney’s career stretched across two millennia? If so, could Shannon Carlin of bustle.com perhaps specify which one she’s referring to?”

Next: a shot of Britney Spears dancing in her underwear in a nightclub, in the middle of the sort of weird dance circle where nobody wants to get near her or look at her.

Except this guy. Justin Timberlake. Or that guy she married. Or that other guy she married. Honestly, this isn’t very good casting, so it’s impossible to say. As an aside, only two seconds of this trailer have passed so far.

So, anyway, this is Unauthorised Lifetime Britney Spears. She’s the most famous woman on the planet, thanks to copyright-free soundalike songs called things like Please Hit Me Again Darling, (You’re Causing Me to Go) Loopy, I’m Neither a Child Nor An Adult Yet, and I Am Slaves R Us. Everything is great and nothing could possibly go wrong.

But wait! Seven seconds in, and we’re already at that weird week in 2007 when Britney shaved her head and started attacking cars with an umbrella. Hopefully though, the film will realise that this was just a blip, and dedicate a suitably short scene to it.

Alternatively, it’ll install this moment as the linchpin of the entire story and obsess about the whole thing in forensic detail, because Lifetime biopics only really work if the subject is dead, and this is the closest that Britney Spears came to self-destruction.

The film also covers Britney’s wedding to, well, whoever this is supposed to be. Maybe Kevin Federline? It’s hard to say. You probably shouldn’t rule out the possibility that it’s Justin Timberlake, I guess.

And then, finally, Britney Ever After ends with a haunting shot of Britney Spears smoking and staring into a mirror with a crazed look in her eye. Only kidding! This shot comes from 15 seconds into the trailer. The second half of the trailer is literally just footage of a woman dancing around in her knickers, which I didn’t bother to screengrab because Jesus Christ.