#this is what i’m missing from pll original sin

[thebestplltheories]

Twenty years ago, a series of tragic events almost ripped the blue-collar town of Millwood apart. Now, in the present day, a group of disparate teen girls — a brand-new set of Little Liars — find themselves tormented by an unknown Assailant and made to pay for the secret sin their parents committed two decades ago, as well as their own.

Well the reports ended up coming true! I have quite a few thoughts.

Pros:

It’s by-passing Freeform and going straight to HBO Max which means it’ll likely have mature themes.

It’s described as “horror-tinged, coming-of-rage”. Don’t get me wrong, coming of rage is a childish punchline, but I like the overall message of a darker tone.

It’s been ordered for a 10-episode first season which theoretically means it’ll have less filler content. The Perfectionists also only had 10 episodes and that was relatively action packed with minimal filler.

From the description, it appears that the show won’t have a Spencer, Aria, Alison, Hanna and Emily. It feels like these characters are being respectfully put to rest rather than re-creating them. Thank god.

It’s set in a new town miles away from Rosewood, called Millwood.

So it appears A is coming back. The “who is A” storyline is one of the most addictive and intriguing storylines to ever hit television. Regardless of how the storyline ended, there’s no denying that you were dying to know the answer. I’ve been missing this kind of thrill in my TV shows lately. I wonder if they’ll make me care again.

Cons:

I don’t like Riverdale, I think it reached a stupidly high level of corny, so I’m not excited by the writing team.

If Millwood is “miles away” from Rosewood, there’s the confirmation that this is set in the same universe. So we may hear about the original Liars, perhaps on the news on TV or in a newspaper article in the background. Whilst this was initially exciting to me, I’m putting it in the cons because I just don’t want the Riverdale writers to put a single finger on the original characters. They didn’t create those characters and they don’t know how to write for them. I don’t like the possibility of them butchering the characters we know and love or portraying them in a disingenuous way, even in background noise on the news on TV. The fact that this show exists in the same world as the original show is absolutely terrifying to me.

Also... Millwood? They couldn’t even try come up with something different than Rosewood? The laziness is already apparent. If they start vaguely copying storylines too, I’ll be mad. Watch someone have a twin lmao

My biggest complaint and the main point of this whole post: if it’s miles away from Rosewood and has new characters, why the hell is this called Pretty Little Liars? It’s pretty obvious: they’re banking off reuniting the fanbase that they had no role in creating in the first place. This can easily exist as its own seperate, standalone show. If The Perfectionists flopped after one season and that had two fan favourite original characters, what makes the writers think that a brand new cast will succeed? Are they not getting the message: let the PLL franchise REST for crying out loud. There is no demand for more PLL yet. PLL should only be brought back in the form of a reunion with the original cast at some sort of milestone (such as 5 or 10 years later).

Teen characters were confirmed in the press release. This is where I’m very confused. They’re using the PLL name to reel in the old PLL fans, but don’t they realise that hardly any of us are teens anymore? We were when we started watching the show, but we’re not teens anymore a decade after season one premiered. This just goes to show that the writers are already out of touch with their fanbase, because they never played a role in creating it - they never connected with us. Although The Perfectionists wasn’t the success Freeform wanted, they at least were aligned with the fanbase and gave us a university setting with older characters. We aren’t teens anymore.

I had the “who is A” above in the pros but it also needs to be down here in the cons. It’s just not their story to tell man. I’m just opposed to the whole idea of a reboot. Leave it alone. Okay, you legally bought the rights to it and you’re legally allowed to tell this story but that doesn’t mean it’s morally okay. Come up with something new and seperate from PLL, reel me in with your new addictive story and then you’d have my full support.

So there’s a bit that I like and a lot that I don’t. Overall I’m not a fan. The cons significantly outweigh the pros. I just don’t think this show needs to exist. Will I check it out? Well yeah I kinda have to, I’m a PLL fan. But I’m going into it with low expectations and I’ll be gritting my teeth the whole time, frustrated at its mere existence. I think it’s incredibly lazy that they’re slapping PLL on the title instead of making a new show. They saw that “who is A” was trending on Twitter every week and they want their turn at telling that intriguing mystery. Fucking lame. Be original. Respect someone else’s legacy and let it rest. Yes, legally they acquired the rights to this story but I’m just talking human respect at this point. If I go on to watch the second episode, it’s only because the first one was so good that it made me forget about all my grievances.

I’m curious what the rest of you are thinking, please let me know!

#pll #pretty little liars #PLL Original Sin #pretty little liars original sin #PLL OS #PLL reboot #hbo max