Pretty Little Liars may not technically qualify as a TV series—it’s a weekly, hour-long advertisement for Verizon’s KIN—but folks are buzzing and for the past few weeks it’s been the most appealing addition to Hulu. So I’m going to write about it.
First of all, I cannot stop stop referring to it as Dirty Little Liars. A) This is a much better name for a show. B) ABC Family is basically begging for confusion by soiling the cast in all of the promotional stills (see figure 1).
Now, if you’re not familiar with the premise, it’s fairly straightforward. Three identical high school girls and one blond one share a secret that somehow involves the disappearance of their clique’s bitchy ringleader, Allison. After a year of estrangement, they reunite when their missing friend starts sending them cryptic, antagonizing texts… right around the time her dead body is found. Just imagine the kids from I Know What You Did Last Summer accidentally ran over Gossip Girl.
But what made I Know What You Did Last Summer work (oh, it worked) was the fact that the audience actually knew what happened during the summer in question. Pretty Little Liars wants to stretch out the mystery of what the girls did and how it ended in Allison’s assumed death while also throwing in umpteen loose ends each week—each one of them somehow involving sex.
There’s teacher-on-student nookie, parental infidelities, aggressive lesbian experimentation (starting in the pilot!), sibling spouse-stealing and even a shady cop who seems to be gunning for a mommy/daughter threesome. It’s a lot to handle.
To make matters worse, this is where the “they all look the same” issue makes things even foggier. Maybe I’m not paying attention, maybe I’m channeling my father and unable to distinguish any one teenager from another or maybe the set designer needs to be fired for creating four identical (yet admittedly fantastic) kitchens for the doppelganger cast. Seriously, a solid 60 percent of the scenes take place in the girls’ respective kitchens and each has the same cabinets, counters and subway tile.
If only this was on HGTV, they might throw in some back story on the eerie interior (inteerier?) design. But it’s not. This is ABC Family, and I need to give Pretty Little Liars props for the embarrassing truth that even though I’m not within a 30-mile radius of its target demographic, I’ve still managed to devote three hours of my life to it. If they adopt my suggested title change, I’d even watch the whole season.