First Look: Pretty Little Liars

Never trust a pretty girl with an ugly secret

It’s probably too early to write about how exciting and refreshing this new series is, but it’s never a bad thing to be a few episodes ahead.

ABC Family’s new teen drama/mystery series Pretty Little Liars, like most shows in its genre, is based on a series of young adult novels of the same name written by Sara Shepard. The premise is of four old friends – Aria (Lucy Hale), Spencer (Troian Bellisario), Hanna (Ashely Benson) and Emily (Shay Mitchell) – haunted by their  ‘queen bee’ Allison’s (Sasha Pieterse) disappearance which later on turned out to be a tragic death.

Very much like Desperate Housewives in that respect, the show builds its suspense around a mysterious presence in the girls’ everyday life after Allison’s funeral – manifested through text messages and e-mail making it seem like our young ladies are being watched. What’s more, the messages always end with a signature “A”, which puts the creepiness to an even higher level, with the girls doubting if Allison is really six feet under or playing a seriously elaborate hoax.

The supporting cast features one Holly Marie Combs (Charmed), who plays Ella, Aria’s cool, easy-going mom. Her presence on the supernatural hit drama series Charmed, however, will not bear any resemblance in this role as a clueless wife of an unfaithful husband. Also in the supporting actor line-up is Bryce Johnson (Nip/Tuck) as the detective whose good looks the poor girls are trying too hard to ignore.

In a recent interview with The New York Post‘s PopWrap, Lucy Hale who plays the main character Aria, mentions that the show may not all be sugar and spice and everything nice. It deals with issues like drugs, sexuality and indecent romantic relationships (teacher-student). “For some reason TV shies away from it because they don’t think teens can handle it. But teens can handle more than you might expect and it’s awesome ABC Family is willing to give them this show”, the lead actress explains.

Another eye candy (if there weren’t enough already) is another face Filipinos will proudly take credit for once she gains popularity synonymous with Charice. Shay Mitchell makes her TV debut as Emily Fields, the athletic jock who struggles with her sexual identity among other things in life. Mitchell is born to a Filipino mother and an Irish/Scottish father.

If these aren’t enough reasons to check out the show, one last thing would be that there aren’t any superheroes, vampires, werewolves or witches on this one. Just pretty girls with dirty secrets.

Watch Pretty Little Liars online.