Four friends - Spencer, Aria, Emily and Hanna- join forces against anonymous foes who threatens to reveal their darkest secrets, while also investigating the disappearance of their best friend, Alison.
* see note on cast before the trigger section.
Pretty Little Liars - called PLL hereafter - is an American teen drama mystery–thriller television series loosely based a series of novels written by Sara Shepard. I didn't read any of the books, so I trust wiki's announcement that it's "loosely based".
The only thing I can share here is that in the book series, Alison's disappearance takes place the summer before the girls went into 8th grade, 3 years prior to the series beginning. In the T.V. show it only takes place 1 year earlier.
The show's cinematography is usually ok, sometimes it takes artistic turns, with more or less of a success in the attempt ; its theme song 'Secret' by The Pierces, was suggested by one of the actresses and I actually like it, as well as the image montage for it - and its variations.
Music, on the other hand, can vary from pop to other genres, which I don't always like.
Overall acting is well done ; some scenes actually got me emotionally invested in the girls' plights.
I read some reviews that opposed to the girls' intelligence, saying that they should have guessed who A was, but, in my opinion, they lacked data/information to even hypothesize, so I still like the fact that each of these main and guests have their smarts, as well as their own strengths and weaknesses, they're human, not just superheroines.
Most dialogues are well written and portrayed, they even pass the Bechdel test in all or almost all episodes, but sometimes with less effort, for example when characters speak in French.
In detail, PLL is set in a fictional town called Rosewood, Pennsylvania, modern times (2010ish) and follows the lives of these teenagers - they're about 15 at the start of the show - having to rebuild themselves from the trauma of missing their friend, who was their leader and group's glue. A year after she went missing (see note above) the girls start receiving messages from a mysterious person, known only as A, threating to expose their secrets, including ones they thought only Alison knew or could have known.
In parallel, the show follows the girls' school lives, some of their classmates, their romances and relationships with their parents and sometimes, towns people. One of these romantic relationships is icky, between a 22 year man and a 15 year or so girl, who also becomes his student quite early in the show. This has many repercussions around them, but am glad that the actors were only 3 years apart for this particular couple.
The entire premise of the show involves multiple cringe age-differences between some of the protagonists and the secondary characters... but I can't say more, without spoilers. In this, the show is problematic, presenting what should be illegal as love stories. Other elements, like in many romance-styled shows, have a LOT of cheating from various characters.
Alison, before she disappeared, was a rather mean bully at school and generally a nasty person - this brings a series of questions as to why these girls were her friends, and then, you see that even people who generally try to be good, can do some nasty things, from lies to thefts etc, and, in a way, explain a cause and effect : Alison's influence and the subsequent A's harassment seems to have pushed everyone into a spiral...
Another aspect of the show is that almost all episodes mix "present" with flashbacks to things that happened before it - for example, when Alison disappeared, or what other characters did at the time, before, or after. Very few flashbacks go back to explain previous scenes, from a different perspective, or as a character tries to justify / explain something. In this I mean that the show doesn't have any flashback episodes where segments from an entire season are shown.
Usually, makeup to de-age cast members is well done, but I felt that a few times, the crew didn't have time to do so or forgot, and the character's age wasn't made to the younger self...
PLL is filled with psychological torture in the early seasons, but as they characters grow older, torture takes worse turns, and so is the graphic and blood content, in sporadic episodes where they warrant the TV-MA rating, whereas the rest of the time, the rating is due to this psychological aspect and the cringe elements mentioned earlier. I'll discuss some of these in the triggers section.
Despite lasting 7 seasons, the first 1-6A, the girls went through two years of high school, bringing the story to about 2012, and then, in the second part of season 6, the show jumps forward, 5 years after events that divided this season. I assume season 7 lasts about another 1-2 years from start to finish. Most characters' growth is interesting to follow, though of course, some seem to only get meaner as time passes...
The mystery in the identity or identities of A, or A's team is there for a huge portion of the show.
It keeps you guessing, especially during the scenes when only a hooded figure is seen, but even after a face or two are glimpsed, you start to question people's sides, loyalties and betrayals - could they be A ? - and perhaps reasons why they'd do what they do... In this, the mystery both keeps you watching, wondering, but also frustrates, because almost everyone becomes a suspect...
I liked the show overall, but the cringe elements and some unrealistic elements make me think it should also be classified as fantasy, though IMDB didn't list it as such...
Artistic cinematography and episodes :
Almost all hooded-A scenes are creative in angles.
Some scenes around bells felt like Hitchcock inspired, or Orson Welles-y.
The 13th episode of seasons 2-5 feature a title opening with a holiday theme, with, more or less, the story revolving around the holiday. Seasons 2-4 have a Halloween and 5 has a Christmas theme. The music and images of the intro are changed to match these themes.
The same goes for the black and white episode "shadow play", filmed and shown like a film-noir, in my opinion, the best episode of the entire show. It's basically like a dream sequence, in black and white, even dialogues and story building are film-noir and done really well, at the end of which, color is back as the 'dreamer' character wakes, realizing something from the experience and thus, it helps move the story forward.
Season's 2 "The First Secret" occurs on the Halloween prior to Alison's disappearance. Characters shop and then are disguised for a Halloween party, and we learn some of the important backstories.
Season's 3 "This is A dark ride", this time a party on a train, with mysteries, secrets, masks, dangers, and partial revelations...
Season's 4 "grave new world" sends the main characters to another city, this time with two plots : the main search for answers about Alison, but also serves as a setup to an unsuccessful spin-off, Ravenswood. I haven't seen it, but, based on this episode's supernatural elements, and unanswered questions within PLL after the spinoff ended makes me think that the supernatural simply didn't grab anyone else either - here, we have a psychic (Meg Foster is creepy and soft spoken), presented as a reality with her abilities ; we have weird tomb mysteries, and no answers within PLL. I may check the spinoff, if it's available, out of curiosity...
Season 5's "How the A stole Christmas" is inspired by Scrooge, with PLL's main storyline...
Before I knew the show's time-span, I felt that the mystery needed to end much sooner ; indeed, if seasons 1 to 6A had been 5 and half years or so, it'd be really too much, but, considering the partial answers at that point correspond only to two years, it makes a bit more sense and less annoying.
There are, however and in my opinion, these few issues with the story :
A seems to not only be ahead of everyone, A knows where and what everyone is doing, and even after having the answers about who A is or are, I'm still perplexed as to the logistics of A being so knowledgeable, and rich in devising all that is set in motion.
Another issue is about the phones that A leaves here and there, with, what seems to me, outrageous battery life, especially that it's a contemporary story, and not set some time in the future where batteries may have such an autonomy...
The same goes with some of the more intricate devices and locations that A owns or uses during the course of this revolving torture and stalking of the girls' lives...
Just like Roswell (a teen scifi show, basically), parents become less and less present on-screen, and therefore, seem to monitor their children far less than at the outset ; why the change? do they all get sudden promotions and must be away for longer portions of the day ? or did the writers forget to add the tensions of girls lying to their parents in their attempts to survive A ? Or, did the parent actors have other roles and couldn't be part anymore, appearing less often? I don't know, but I find that 15-17 year old with so little supervision, AFTER some of these parents have had glimpses into these girls' lives simply didn't make sense to me that they'd be less present at this point of the story. If I were a parent of any of them and learned even a bit of this, I'd not let them roam at night and would drive them to class and other activities alike. This part is under-used in the show.
* Note on cast click on the IMDb full cast only if you've seen the show or don't care about potential spoilers. If you do want to avoid, main cast and guests include :
Troian Bellisario, Ashley Benson, Tyler Blackburn, Holly Marie Combs, Lucy Hale, Ian Harding,
Bianca Lawson, Laura Leighton, Chad Lowe, Shay Mitchell, Nia Peeples, Sasha Pieterse, Janel Parrish, Andrea Parker, et al.
Triggers in the show :
There are multiple scenes when characters are either in closed spaces (may trigger claustrophobia), or seen being buried. These are scattered, and also shown in flashbacks. I cannot remember each time stamp and episode.
There are many deaths, often showing the person's body, but generally not gory.
Dead animals :
A dead pig inside car trunk at the start of season 4 episode 01.Brief but shown again in recaps of 1-2 more episodes later (I skipped recaps for a few)
In some scenes, characters find dead rats, but no blood/gore, S5ep06 (from 17:16 to 17:53 minutes) and from 25:00 to 25:17 minutes) and S5ep17 (from 22:20 to 22:30 minutes), and a possum in S5 ep 04 (around 15:00 minutes in)
The worst was S5 ep 15 (even the title is bad) with several disturbing scenes (from 19:00 to 23:00).
In season five, there is a murder in a house, and blood is all over the house, including broken furniture.
A character is hung from the ropes of a bell-tower.
Another is hit by a car and goes to the hospital, though no blood or anything is shown.
Towards the later seasons, the show grows increasingly more violent, as we see the girls grow up.
The show's premise includes psychological torture, ; some characters are bullied ; a character had an eating disorder, but this is almost never shown, with two exceptions. Another develops an addiction to prescription medication.
Emetophobia triggers :
In several scenes, characters will mention that they're going to be ill, but usually aren't.
On the other hand, there are a few scenes where someone is, but almost nothing is seen nor heard.
S01 ep 13 (from 13:00-15:40), a character is forced to binge-eat, and there's a flashback.
S02 ep 11 ( at 31:30 a character gets queasy from drinking too much, at 32:45 collapses and we hear she's sick but nothing is shown. at 36:27 the dress is being washed in the sink but nothing is visible anymore. Each of these lasts a 1-3 seconds).
S04 ep 21 (04:34 to 047:40), a character realizes something and runs to a trashbin. Heard quickly, not shown, and character wipes mouth.
The worst dead animal was S5 ep 15 (even the title is bad) with several disturbing scenes (from 19:00 to 23:00). These triggered my emetophobia, as it's so severe.
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