A while back I talked about how one of my guilty pleasure shows is an ABC Family show called Secret Life of the American Teenager. During its summer premiere, a new show called Pretty Little Liars got a TON of hype, including a full 5 minute preview during one of the commercial breaks. Usually I ignore those kinds of things, but this show caught my eye. It started off as a just another teenage girl drama, but soon took a turn when one of the girls goes missing. That’s all that the preview would show. There was definitely a hook there, so I tuned in to the full pilot episode the following night.
As it turns out the the 5 minute preview that I had watched was the first 5 minutes of the pilot. From there the show jumps to the lives of everyone a year after the girl, Alison, goes missing. Basically the group of 4 friends has completely fallen out of touch with one another in the wake of Ali’s disappearance. They are brought back together through as series of events that starts with one of them, Aria, returning from an almost year-long stay abroad in Iceland. They try to get back into the swing of things as a new school year starts. As with any high school, everyone has their secrets, but someone seems to know all the secrets that Aria that the other girls are hiding. They start receiving cryptic, semi-threatening texts sharing information they thought only Ali, the missing girl, knew and the messages are signed “A”. They become convinced that she must still be alive, but when her body is found by authorities a couple of days later and the texts continue, the girls start to get scared.
Pretty Little Liars airs Tuesdays at 8pm (EST) on ABC Family.
Pretty Little Liars was a complete surprise to me after watching Secret Life for all this time. I was expecting the acting to be terrible, the dialogue weak, etc. In reality, they casting was very strong and the writing was excellent (much more believable than Secret Life). I think what helped the show, was the fact that it’s based on a very successful book series and the author was very involved with the show’s development. So far the book series has seven parts to it with the most recent book’s release just a couple of days ago. This means the show has a LOT of material to work with.
I love the drama and suspense surrounding the texts. The secrets that the girls have that this “A” threatens to expose are pretty juicy, and it’s already been hinted at that there are plenty more not yet revealed. On top of all that, a new detective has been assigned to the case now that it appears Ali was murdered. So in addition to the girls trying to figure out the origin of the texts, they have to worry about being investigated as part of a murder case. I’m really excited to see how the story develops, especially since I never read the book series, although I might go pick the first book up now, we’ll see. So if you feel like your summer TV schedule has too many reality shows or not enough suspense, I would definitely give Pretty Little Liars a watch. Hopefully, you’ll be as pleasantly surprised as I was.