Even though
there are slight differences to the characters and setting, “Pretty Little
Liars” has been done before. It is “Desperate Housewives” for the “Gossip Girl”
age group. The mystery and the melodrama surround a group of young looking but
sexually promiscuous teenage girls. They are accurately portrayed to be rather
idiotic, but what makes no sense is how stupid all of the adults are in the
show. It feels like a series written for teens by teens, reeking of naivety and
unoriginal storylines from decades past.
Based on the
bestselling book series by Sara Shepard, I am mostly just concerned with the
crap that pre-teen girls read and watch these days. The Twilight craze has had quite an effect, but I wouldn’t argue it to
be a positive one. In this series there are four teen friends. When we joined
these characters in season one, one of the teens is having an affair with her
teacher (“Dawson’s Creek” in reverse), another is desperately trying to
convince her religious boyfriend to take her virginity, a third flirts with her
new lesbian friend while eyeing the brother of an enemy girl, and the last
trashy little teen can’t seem to stop stealing her sister’s boyfriends.
Lying and
cheating are the norm for these girls, but the show weakly tries to justify
their awful behavior. At one time they had a fifth friend, who was the cruelest
of them all. This friend disappeared in a mystery none of the girls will talk
about, though they begin receiving messages from their old friend once her body
is found. This storyline does not move nearly fast enough, because there is too
much relationship junk to wade through. It took two seasons to discover who was
sending mysterious messages, pretending to be the deceased friend, and this
storyline has been dragged out far too long in season four. At least “Desperate
Housewives” knew to leave the dead behind after a season or two.
Season four of
this morally questionable fluff series released under the entirely misappropriate
label of ABC Family has a new murder mystery and an assortment of new eye candy
for the proudly imprudent youth of today. There are other new storylines, but
it all begins to sound like the same old dribble. The 24 episodes from season
four are all included in this five-disc set, along with a handful of extras.
Taking it down a notch from previous seasons, there are only three featurettes,
deleted scenes and a recap episode in the bonus features.
Entertainment Value:
5/10
Quality of Filmmaking:
2/10
Historical
Significance: 3/10
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