Over seven years, the dark, camp teen drama has given its huge fanbase hints, spoilers and extra OMG moments online; it even lets them write plots. Is this the future of television?
Back in 2010, the teen TV landscape was dominated by the brooding One Tree Hill, the privileged otherworld of Gossip Girland 90210s LA melodrama. So when Pretty Little Liars debuted that summer, it barely cast a shadow. No one could have guessed that seven years on, as it bows out for good, the show would have smashed multiple social media records and be a loss of epic proportions for its fans worldwide.
Based on Sara Shepards eponymous YA series, Pretty Little Liars traced the lives of a high-school foursome studious Spencer (Troian Bellisario), sporty Emily (Shay Mitchell), fashionista Hanna (Ashley Benson) and alt-girl Aria (Lucy Hale) as they were terrorised by a mysterious assailant known only as A, following the disappearance of their best frenemy Alison (Sasha Pieterse). With one text, everything changed: Im still here bitches, and I know everything.
Wed had The OCs Marissa and substance abuse, Awkwards morbid humour and forbidden trysts in every primetime YA show going, but PLL kicked that darkness up a notch. Students had affairs with teachers, were sectioned and framed for murder, set upon in police chases and came back from the dead. As the boyfriendsand the bodies piled up, and consecutive cliffhangers pushed the mystery in ever-more fantastical directions, a compelling story of female friendship emerged. The pace was exhausting, perhaps, but PLLs fans were devoted.
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