Problems with Pretty Little Liars and the show's direction
Originally written July 2014, updated on August 31, 2014
What happened to Pretty Little Liars? The show used to be good. It has good actresses(Troian Bellasario should have received some Emmy nominations the last two years) and it had an interesting premise. What went wrong? Watching the show now is like watching the dying days of World Championship Wrestling. OK, that might not be a fair comparsion, but still. There's plenty of blame to go around:
1)Ezra Fitz and the show's continued romanticization of a teacher-student sexual relationship(Ezra & Aria Montgomery). Up until the TV show made it seem like he was the A that was tormenting the four main characters in the Season 4 Summer finale(well, the A that took over for Mona Vanderwall when Mona was caught and institutionalized at the end of Season 2), Ezra Fitz was the most pointless and most boring character in all of television. Oh, it's true, it's damn true. Every Pretty Little Liars fan knows it. Ezra Fitz actually became an interesting character and wasn't just there to be eye candy for the fangirls like he was throughout the series to that point. But somewhere between August 2013 & January 2014, the show's braintrust panicked and caved to the shippers, saying that Ezra wasn't A, it turned out he was writing a book about Alison DiLaurentis' disappearance & "death". Seemed all fine and dandy, except for a couple of niggling little details: 1)the book reveal actually made Ezra look even sleazier than he already was(as it also turned out that he already knew who Aria was when he met her in the pilot episode, thus making their "first" meeting look a lot less like a chance encounter and more like a guy searching for jailbait and also him looking more like a creepy pedophile) and 2)the backpedaling basically sucked the life out of both the show and its fanbase, as Ezra became yet another red herring in the mystery of who is A.
2) The mystery of who is A. It's been drawn out way too long. There's been too many red herrings given. First it was Mona Vanderwall by herself, then somebody took it over from her. Then it was revealed in the Season 3 summer finale that Toby Cavanaugh(who's dating Spencer Hastings, one of the main four) was part of the A Team(and it's not the group that included BA Baracus), but the show panicked and caved to the shippers(see a pattern?) and said no, he was doing it to protect Spencer(even though he and Mona faked his death to get Spencer shacked up in the wacko basket and the show even made it seem like Spencer turned on the other girls in the Season 3 finale). Then the aforementioned Ezra Fitz reveal. And everybody on the show has been speculated to be A, even the four Liars themselves. It's causing the fans to lose interest in the mystery itself, as it seems like the mystery has taken a backseat to the romance(if you could even call it that with certain couples).
3)Alison DiLaurentis and the show's seeming glorification of bullying(not to mention the show's major depature from the books with Alison being alive and the show seemingly abandoning the story of Alison having a twin sister in the book series). Before her disappearance, Alison was a total bitch to everyone in Rosewood, even to her own friends. The victims of Alison's bullying include:
-making Hanna Marin become bulimic
-driving Paige McCullers to thoughts of suicide
-made Emily Fields ashamed to be lesbian
-blinded Jenna Marshall by throwing a firework into her garage, then....
-made Jenna's stepbrother Toby Cavanaugh take the blame for it
-referred to Lucas Gottesman as a hermaphodite(like The Rock did to announcer Kevin Kelly in WWE)
-bullied Mona Vanderwall to the point where Mona was the original A that tormented the girls.
And so on. Not to mention that since the not-so-surprising reveal that Alison was actually alive in the Season 4 Halloween episode(it was pretty obvious because of certain plot points like Hanna getting run over by a car in the Season 1 summer finale, Spencer getting attacked by Ian in a church in the Season 1 finale, and Emily getting locked in a garage with a car running inside of it in the Season 2 summer finale), character development got flushed down the commode(prime examples being Emily and Hanna).
To be fair, the show did try to have Alison apologize for some of her past behavior when she recently returned to town(Emily set up a meeting between Alison and Paige where Alison apologized to Paige), but even though Mona set it up where Alison lost credibility, it seemed like Alison's apologies weren't all that genuine to begin with. Yet Alison is still beloved by some fans. Go figure.
4)the dismantling of a popular lesbian couple(Emily Fields & Paige McCullers) in favor of a Stockholm Syndrome/battered wife type relationship(Emily & Alison), 5) the show and ABC Family's seeming support of certain fanbases' unjustified hatred of certain characters on social media(for example, the hashtag #hatepaige), & 6) The fanbase itself(more specifically, teenage girls, the target audience of the show). Every fanbase has immature people that make the entire fanbase look bad. Problem is, with this fanbase, it seems like there are too many immature fans, especially on social media like Twitter and Facebook. Seriously, Paige McCullers is probably the single most unjustifingly hated character in any fandom(before that, it was Flay Allster from the Japanese anime Mobile Suit Gundam SEED that got the most unjustified hatred from a fanbase). To justify this hatred, some fans use the scene in Season 1 where Paige dunked Emily's head into the pool while Emily was swimming and try to laughably claim Paige tried to drown Emily, never mind that both girls are accomplished swimmers and Emily could have just grabbed Paige's arm and pulled her in the water with her and one of the writers even confirmed that the head dunk wasn't drowning. Those idiots need to take I.Q. tests and learn how to grow up.
But some fans took to Paige as Paige came out as a lesbian, eventually became Emily's girlfriend, and even became an inspiration to lesbian fans of the show. So what did the showrunners do with all that great publicity. Make it where Alison was actually alive since Emily still had unresolved feelings for Alison and was Alison's most fiercely loyal friend and use that to break up Emily & Paige(by having Paige drop an anonymous note in a police car saying that Alison DiLaurentis was alive and living in Omaha(and one point goes to whoever gets that reference), even though it was the right thing to do because the cops wasted money and manpower investigating Alison's disappearance and "murder" for 2 years), then try to put Emily & Alison together to placate these immature fans. Just like how Arnold Schwarzenegger alienated the part of his fanbase that play video games when he was California governor, the Pretty Little Liars writing staff effectively alienated the LGBT part of their fanbase(although there is one caveat with writer Joseph Daughtery who is a fan of Emily & Paige to the point of writing stories about the pair online. Problem is, he's outnumbered in the writing room), the so-called PLL Army, if you will. Not only that, ABC Family makes itself look bad by seemingly supporting this unjust hatred of one character for doing the right thing and even makes it look like the network directly or indirectly supports gaybashing(although I highly doubt that honestly. If given the chance, they'd drop The 700 Club from its airwaves if they weren't contractually obligated to air it).
But the person that should get the lion's share of the blame is 7) executive producer I. Marlene King. As executive producer of the Pretty Little Liars TV show, she has final say on everything on Pretty Little Liars that ends up airing on ABC Family, just like how Vince McMahon has final say on everything we see in WWE. Which means that, at the end of the day, Marlene is responsible for the major problems fans currently have with the show. As a friend of mine once wrote in his wrestling columns, the executive producer gets all the blame for the show's problems regardless of whose fault it actually is. And quite frankly, despite some good things she's done regarding the show(refuting a rumor probably started by certain fans of certain couples that Paige would kill herself in an episode, for example), she deserves it. She's said to be a fan of the Aria/Ezra pairing(which is partly why the show backpedaled on Ezra being A), which is a problem, because as the executive producer, shouldn't she be 100% impartial and not favor one couple over the others?
Problem is, ABC Family just renewed the show for two more years since Pretty Little Liars is by far their most popular show. But has ABC Family now put too much faith in the show? After all, 7 years is a long time for any primetime TV show, especially for young actors and actresses wanting to move on to other interests(Lucy Hale, who plays Aria, is pursuing a country music career and recently released a CD), and some fans are starting to say the show has run its course. And popularity can breed complacency. If the show continues on its current course, doesn't start answering questions quicker, and quits asking more questions, the fans will start tuning out if they haven't already("Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me").
These problems are easily fixable, though:
1) Fire Marlene King as executive producer. Again, she's responsible for what we see on Pretty Little Liars, good and bad. Firing her and getting a new executive producer(preferably someone already involved in the creative aspect of the show) would keep the show fresh. And it would get rid of a lot of the Vince Russo style booking of the show.
2) Reveal the true A. Fans are tired of seeing false reveals the last two years, Can't keep dragging it out, otherwise no one will care.
3) Break up Aria and Ezra for good. Keeping them together only brings about negative publicity for the show and potentially hurts the show's advertising revenue. A should have been a better shot and got Ezra in the head to paraphrase the Butthole Surfers. Here's a freebie: Have A send an anonymous tip to the police that Ezra is sleeping with one of his students.(Note: I have a feeling that may happen anyway based on 5x07.)
4) Be mindful of what hashtags the show and network promotes. That means no more hashtags promoting hate towards a certain character unless they're actually a villain. It just breeds hostility towards not just that character, but also toward the fans of that character and the actor/actress portraying that character. And if that character happens to be gay/lesbian, would GLAAD publicly drop its support of the show? After all, if I were running a company, I wouldn't want to financially support a show that seemingly encourages such behavior. Despite the saying "There's no such thing as bad publicity", cable and broadcast networks do fear negative publicity. For example, UPN refused to allow WWE to use the Muhammed Hassan character on WWE Smackdown because of a segment where Hassan led a beatdown of the Undertaker by several masked wrestlers which happened to air several hours after the July 7, 2005 terrorist attack in London(WWE ended up writing off that character later that month by having Undertaker powerbomb Hassan through a stage at the Great American Bash pay-per-view event and firing the wrestler portraying Hassan afterward). USA threatened to cancel WWE Monday Night Raw in November 1996 after an episode in which Brian Pillman pulled a gun on Stone Cold Steve Austin as Austin broke into Pillman's house.
TL;DR version: Pretty Little Liars has jumped the shark, and changes need to be made to make the show better and get viewers back.
Update: It seems like the show has decided to stick with the book and make Alison A and decided to have A kill Mona. At least they killed off a main character(it makes A continue to appear dangerous), but it still should been that sad sack ass fruit booty Ezra to eat a bullet.
So basically after the Season 5 summer finale.....
-Spencer's in jail for allegedly killing Bethany Young(the girl who was mistaken for Alison), who escaped from Radley
-Seems like they're still not going with the twin angle, but makes it seem like Bethany Young is Alison's half-sister(Alison's mom had an affair with Bethany's father)
-The cops in Rosewood are just like Sheriff Lamb on Veronica Mars. They're all idiots or on the take.
-Emily finally lost the idiot ball she was carrying since the end of Feburary. Aria now has it, as it seems like her and that cockbiting fucktard Ezra are back together. The dumbass is dead. Long live the bigger dumbass.
And after the Christmas episode, Spencer seems to found some evidence to help her stay out of jail.
And the idiots are now considering breaking up Paige and Emily. Morons.
What happened to Pretty Little Liars? The show used to be good. It has good actresses(Troian Bellasario should have received some Emmy nominations the last two years) and it had an interesting premise. What went wrong? Watching the show now is like watching the dying days of World Championship Wrestling. OK, that might not be a fair comparsion, but still. There's plenty of blame to go around:
1)Ezra Fitz and the show's continued romanticization of a teacher-student sexual relationship(Ezra & Aria Montgomery). Up until the TV show made it seem like he was the A that was tormenting the four main characters in the Season 4 Summer finale(well, the A that took over for Mona Vanderwall when Mona was caught and institutionalized at the end of Season 2), Ezra Fitz was the most pointless and most boring character in all of television. Oh, it's true, it's damn true. Every Pretty Little Liars fan knows it. Ezra Fitz actually became an interesting character and wasn't just there to be eye candy for the fangirls like he was throughout the series to that point. But somewhere between August 2013 & January 2014, the show's braintrust panicked and caved to the shippers, saying that Ezra wasn't A, it turned out he was writing a book about Alison DiLaurentis' disappearance & "death". Seemed all fine and dandy, except for a couple of niggling little details: 1)the book reveal actually made Ezra look even sleazier than he already was(as it also turned out that he already knew who Aria was when he met her in the pilot episode, thus making their "first" meeting look a lot less like a chance encounter and more like a guy searching for jailbait and also him looking more like a creepy pedophile) and 2)the backpedaling basically sucked the life out of both the show and its fanbase, as Ezra became yet another red herring in the mystery of who is A.
2) The mystery of who is A. It's been drawn out way too long. There's been too many red herrings given. First it was Mona Vanderwall by herself, then somebody took it over from her. Then it was revealed in the Season 3 summer finale that Toby Cavanaugh(who's dating Spencer Hastings, one of the main four) was part of the A Team(and it's not the group that included BA Baracus), but the show panicked and caved to the shippers(see a pattern?) and said no, he was doing it to protect Spencer(even though he and Mona faked his death to get Spencer shacked up in the wacko basket and the show even made it seem like Spencer turned on the other girls in the Season 3 finale). Then the aforementioned Ezra Fitz reveal. And everybody on the show has been speculated to be A, even the four Liars themselves. It's causing the fans to lose interest in the mystery itself, as it seems like the mystery has taken a backseat to the romance(if you could even call it that with certain couples).
3)Alison DiLaurentis and the show's seeming glorification of bullying(not to mention the show's major depature from the books with Alison being alive and the show seemingly abandoning the story of Alison having a twin sister in the book series). Before her disappearance, Alison was a total bitch to everyone in Rosewood, even to her own friends. The victims of Alison's bullying include:
-making Hanna Marin become bulimic
-driving Paige McCullers to thoughts of suicide
-made Emily Fields ashamed to be lesbian
-blinded Jenna Marshall by throwing a firework into her garage, then....
-made Jenna's stepbrother Toby Cavanaugh take the blame for it
-referred to Lucas Gottesman as a hermaphodite(like The Rock did to announcer Kevin Kelly in WWE)
-bullied Mona Vanderwall to the point where Mona was the original A that tormented the girls.
And so on. Not to mention that since the not-so-surprising reveal that Alison was actually alive in the Season 4 Halloween episode(it was pretty obvious because of certain plot points like Hanna getting run over by a car in the Season 1 summer finale, Spencer getting attacked by Ian in a church in the Season 1 finale, and Emily getting locked in a garage with a car running inside of it in the Season 2 summer finale), character development got flushed down the commode(prime examples being Emily and Hanna).
To be fair, the show did try to have Alison apologize for some of her past behavior when she recently returned to town(Emily set up a meeting between Alison and Paige where Alison apologized to Paige), but even though Mona set it up where Alison lost credibility, it seemed like Alison's apologies weren't all that genuine to begin with. Yet Alison is still beloved by some fans. Go figure.
4)the dismantling of a popular lesbian couple(Emily Fields & Paige McCullers) in favor of a Stockholm Syndrome/battered wife type relationship(Emily & Alison), 5) the show and ABC Family's seeming support of certain fanbases' unjustified hatred of certain characters on social media(for example, the hashtag #hatepaige), & 6) The fanbase itself(more specifically, teenage girls, the target audience of the show). Every fanbase has immature people that make the entire fanbase look bad. Problem is, with this fanbase, it seems like there are too many immature fans, especially on social media like Twitter and Facebook. Seriously, Paige McCullers is probably the single most unjustifingly hated character in any fandom(before that, it was Flay Allster from the Japanese anime Mobile Suit Gundam SEED that got the most unjustified hatred from a fanbase). To justify this hatred, some fans use the scene in Season 1 where Paige dunked Emily's head into the pool while Emily was swimming and try to laughably claim Paige tried to drown Emily, never mind that both girls are accomplished swimmers and Emily could have just grabbed Paige's arm and pulled her in the water with her and one of the writers even confirmed that the head dunk wasn't drowning. Those idiots need to take I.Q. tests and learn how to grow up.
But some fans took to Paige as Paige came out as a lesbian, eventually became Emily's girlfriend, and even became an inspiration to lesbian fans of the show. So what did the showrunners do with all that great publicity. Make it where Alison was actually alive since Emily still had unresolved feelings for Alison and was Alison's most fiercely loyal friend and use that to break up Emily & Paige(by having Paige drop an anonymous note in a police car saying that Alison DiLaurentis was alive and living in Omaha(and one point goes to whoever gets that reference), even though it was the right thing to do because the cops wasted money and manpower investigating Alison's disappearance and "murder" for 2 years), then try to put Emily & Alison together to placate these immature fans. Just like how Arnold Schwarzenegger alienated the part of his fanbase that play video games when he was California governor, the Pretty Little Liars writing staff effectively alienated the LGBT part of their fanbase(although there is one caveat with writer Joseph Daughtery who is a fan of Emily & Paige to the point of writing stories about the pair online. Problem is, he's outnumbered in the writing room), the so-called PLL Army, if you will. Not only that, ABC Family makes itself look bad by seemingly supporting this unjust hatred of one character for doing the right thing and even makes it look like the network directly or indirectly supports gaybashing(although I highly doubt that honestly. If given the chance, they'd drop The 700 Club from its airwaves if they weren't contractually obligated to air it).
But the person that should get the lion's share of the blame is 7) executive producer I. Marlene King. As executive producer of the Pretty Little Liars TV show, she has final say on everything on Pretty Little Liars that ends up airing on ABC Family, just like how Vince McMahon has final say on everything we see in WWE. Which means that, at the end of the day, Marlene is responsible for the major problems fans currently have with the show. As a friend of mine once wrote in his wrestling columns, the executive producer gets all the blame for the show's problems regardless of whose fault it actually is. And quite frankly, despite some good things she's done regarding the show(refuting a rumor probably started by certain fans of certain couples that Paige would kill herself in an episode, for example), she deserves it. She's said to be a fan of the Aria/Ezra pairing(which is partly why the show backpedaled on Ezra being A), which is a problem, because as the executive producer, shouldn't she be 100% impartial and not favor one couple over the others?
Problem is, ABC Family just renewed the show for two more years since Pretty Little Liars is by far their most popular show. But has ABC Family now put too much faith in the show? After all, 7 years is a long time for any primetime TV show, especially for young actors and actresses wanting to move on to other interests(Lucy Hale, who plays Aria, is pursuing a country music career and recently released a CD), and some fans are starting to say the show has run its course. And popularity can breed complacency. If the show continues on its current course, doesn't start answering questions quicker, and quits asking more questions, the fans will start tuning out if they haven't already("Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me").
These problems are easily fixable, though:
1) Fire Marlene King as executive producer. Again, she's responsible for what we see on Pretty Little Liars, good and bad. Firing her and getting a new executive producer(preferably someone already involved in the creative aspect of the show) would keep the show fresh. And it would get rid of a lot of the Vince Russo style booking of the show.
2) Reveal the true A. Fans are tired of seeing false reveals the last two years, Can't keep dragging it out, otherwise no one will care.
3) Break up Aria and Ezra for good. Keeping them together only brings about negative publicity for the show and potentially hurts the show's advertising revenue. A should have been a better shot and got Ezra in the head to paraphrase the Butthole Surfers. Here's a freebie: Have A send an anonymous tip to the police that Ezra is sleeping with one of his students.(Note: I have a feeling that may happen anyway based on 5x07.)
4) Be mindful of what hashtags the show and network promotes. That means no more hashtags promoting hate towards a certain character unless they're actually a villain. It just breeds hostility towards not just that character, but also toward the fans of that character and the actor/actress portraying that character. And if that character happens to be gay/lesbian, would GLAAD publicly drop its support of the show? After all, if I were running a company, I wouldn't want to financially support a show that seemingly encourages such behavior. Despite the saying "There's no such thing as bad publicity", cable and broadcast networks do fear negative publicity. For example, UPN refused to allow WWE to use the Muhammed Hassan character on WWE Smackdown because of a segment where Hassan led a beatdown of the Undertaker by several masked wrestlers which happened to air several hours after the July 7, 2005 terrorist attack in London(WWE ended up writing off that character later that month by having Undertaker powerbomb Hassan through a stage at the Great American Bash pay-per-view event and firing the wrestler portraying Hassan afterward). USA threatened to cancel WWE Monday Night Raw in November 1996 after an episode in which Brian Pillman pulled a gun on Stone Cold Steve Austin as Austin broke into Pillman's house.
TL;DR version: Pretty Little Liars has jumped the shark, and changes need to be made to make the show better and get viewers back.
Update: It seems like the show has decided to stick with the book and make Alison A and decided to have A kill Mona. At least they killed off a main character(it makes A continue to appear dangerous), but it still should been that sad sack ass fruit booty Ezra to eat a bullet.
So basically after the Season 5 summer finale.....
-Spencer's in jail for allegedly killing Bethany Young(the girl who was mistaken for Alison), who escaped from Radley
-Seems like they're still not going with the twin angle, but makes it seem like Bethany Young is Alison's half-sister(Alison's mom had an affair with Bethany's father)
-The cops in Rosewood are just like Sheriff Lamb on Veronica Mars. They're all idiots or on the take.
-Emily finally lost the idiot ball she was carrying since the end of Feburary. Aria now has it, as it seems like her and that cockbiting fucktard Ezra are back together. The dumbass is dead. Long live the bigger dumbass.
And after the Christmas episode, Spencer seems to found some evidence to help her stay out of jail.
And the idiots are now considering breaking up Paige and Emily. Morons.