Pretty Perfect Little Liars

I must say I had higher hopes for Pretty Little Liars. I’ll go easy on the show since it was the pilot, and pilots have trouble introducing characters, plot, setting, and atmosphere all at once, so if felt a little rough. Beginning the show with music by a woman vocalist reminds me of the way Gilmore Girls also used women singers to amp up the feminist, estrogen-driven plotlines. The setting reminds me of The Vampire Diaries, with the classic green lawn, Victorian house, yellow-school-bus-high school, red-fall-trees look. Even though the town seems too pretty and stereotypically “American,” to evoke a sense of originality or geography (in contrast to Veronica Mars, which clearly depicts a very specific type of public school in California), this setting works well with science-fiction and mystery shows, so Rosewood’s generic feeling is a good choice.

But it was pretty hard to stomach all the beautiful people. Not only are they good – looking, but every teenage girl comes from the same petite, heart-shaped-face mold. I think ABC Family is trying to lure in the same crowd as Gossip Girl, which is why they picked pretty actors and trained them to all walk slowly and sexily in short skirts, but come on, at least Gossip Girl seems to have variety in body shape. Even with males, the two young love interests look like the same Prince Charming – I can tell them apart only when the talk, since one has an accent. The show misses diversity somehow even though it displays different colors of skin, which is almost more off-putting to me. That seems like a pretty bad way to help young girls accept diverse body images. The outcome of all these beautiful people in this pretty little town is an insular feeling; everything feels aesthetically homogenized.

A key difference between Lily in Veronica Mars and Alison in Pretty Little Liars is that Lily always seemed to express affection for the people she appears to. When Veronica or Duncan have flashbacks and imaginary visions of Lily, we get a sense that Lily loved her friends. This love compels Veronica to solve the mystery. So far in Pretty Little Liars, Alison seems controlling of her friends in an antagonistic, self-indulgent way, using them simply to exert control. Now in the present, “she” sends them threatening, catty, mean-spirited messages. I wonder if this opposite approach to friendship will still compel the girls to solve Alison’s disappearance. Perhaps in her absence they will become close friends, like Veronica and Logan, but this time because they’ll realize how close they can be to each other without a tyrant in the way.

I’m curious to see how this show plays out the rest of the season in terms of borrowing key themes from Gossip Girl, Veronica Mars, The Vampire Diaries, and Desperate Housewives. I don’t think this plagiarism is bad, if PLL uses themes as a jumping off point to create an original story and new discourse for the millennial viewers, but if they use these themes simply as a cheap way to pull in nostalgic fans from other TV shows, I’ll be bummed.