"Pretty Little Liars" (ABC US TV)

[pkristen]

Summary:
Four high school friends (Aria, Emily, Hanna and Spencer) are reunited upon the discovery of the body of their fifth friend (and queen bee) Alison a year after she disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The series propels forward when the four of them are stalked by "A", who both tortures and saves them and tortures them again as they try to solve the mystery of Alison's murder.

Review:
I discovered this series after visiting the afterellen.com poll about voting for the most popular t.v. lesbian couple when there was the option of voting for Emily/Paige. (Though I admit I was there to vote for Lauren/Bo of "Lost Girl".) After doing a little bit of online research that it wasn't just a regular soap opera show and the first two seasons were available for instant viewing via Netflix, I decided to let it run while I could multi-task on the computer if it became too much for me to watch (and I mean in a bad way.)

So I'm about half-way through season 2 and it's becoming too much for me to watch, and I mean it in a bad way. I am just not meant for shows about teenage melodramatic angst (at least without a lot of singing and dancing to cushion it.) Plus, I'm not a murder-mystery genre fan BUT I do watch a lot of forensic documentary analysis shows and I work in a high tech industry so I'm rolling my eyes a lot more than I should at the stalking actions and reactions on the show.

I described the show to Nico as being a series about teens and adults making bad and/or stupid decisions that you can see coming a mile away, and that's just not entertainment for me. About two or three times an episode, I end up blurting out that "I can't watch this anymore!" but I continue working my way through each episode because I'd rather sit through PLL instead of some stupid stuff meant for straight boys.

Though to be fair, I do prefer the storylines that are actually focused on the "real-life" issues of the characters rather than the drama about "Who really killed Alison?" But the painfully obvious melodrama pushes me back over the edge of wanting to fast forward through the series to find out what happens and be done with it.

[pkristen]

So now I'm fully up to speed (having watched Season 3, episode 13.)

The Emily/Paige storyline is cute and has been interesting to watch it unfold over 2 and a half seasons, each girl taking a very different (and sometime unhealthy) path to coming out. Though I don't think I would have watched the series just for it.

But as for the rest of the show, the murder mystery aspect is more tolerable in that I just don't think about it and let things unfold as the writers want it to. With that though, I have to admit I do like the moments that the series slips in where it's clear that they really know these versions of the characters and play with them.