In the world of teenage girls, where the value of everything increases in direct proportion to the drama it creates, that means this show could be hot.
Not hot like, you know, Aria's English teacher, but, well, you know.
Based on a popular series of HarperTeen books by Sara Shepard, "Pretty Little Liars" follows the nervous lives of four girls in Rosewood, Pa.
It's an affluent town and these girls seem to have it all, which, of course, sets up even better drama when we start to see they also have secrets.
The event that kicks off the TV version of "PLL" is the disappearance and apparent death of the fifth girl in the circle, Alison DiLorentis.
If the "PLL" series were traditional, Alison (Sasha Pieterse) would have been the sweetest girl in school and no one could imagine anyone wanting to hurt her.
If that's what you're expecting here, grow up. Alison was a bitchy gossiper, backstabber and cruel practical joker. Hey, there's one in every crowd, right?
In any case, they were all together the night she disappeared and we join the story a year later, when free spirit Aria (Lucy Hale), bookish Spencer (Troian Bellisario), neurotic Hanna (Ashley Benson) and jock Emily (Shay Mitchell) have drifted apart.
They run into each other in random chance encounters, however, that suggest each is harboring dark secrets, some related to Alison and some not.
Since they apparently weren't into deep sharing when they were all BFFs, they aren't spilling now.
Except they have two problems. One, a local cop is determined to find out what happened to Alison. Second, the girls all start getting mysterious messages that suggest some omnipresent force knows all the secrets and could expose them.
Could the messages be coming from, gasp, Alison? Which is, like, impossible? What kind of phone network lets you keep your minutes when you're gone?
This is, like, way beyond 3G.
But it does set up high drama. As all horror and vampire fans know, the unseen and unknown can easily change tangible lives.
It's one thing to talk with your friends about lacrosse practice or the hot guy in the French class. It's something else when you're trying to figure out what happened to your disappeared friend, and just how disappeared she really is.
It's, like, so much more intense.
"Pretty Little Liars" could go in several directions, including mundane teen clichés. It's got an equally good shot at making us care about these imperfect pretty girls.
0 comments:
Post a Comment