My Tuesday nights have been pretty boring since June, as I’m no longer entangled in the webs of lies, scandal, sex, murder, and mystery that was Pretty Little Liars. Luckily, I won’t have to wait too much longer to dive back into the drama and the feels.
Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists, the spinoff of the wildly popular Freeform television series has begun production, according to Entertainment Weekly and show developer and Executive Producer Marlene King’s Instagram.
Based off of another young adult book series by Sara Shepard, Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists is set in Beacon Heights, which, just like Rosewood, is full of beautiful overachievers with lots of secrets to hide.
While much of the plot is being kept a tight secret, we do know that Sasha Pieterse and Janel Parrish will return to the liars’ world as Alison DiLaurentis and Mona Vanderwaal. Joining them will be Disney Channel princess Sofia Carson, The Walking Dead starlet Sidney Park, and Gossip Girl alumna Kelly Rutherford.
Sasha Pieterse as Alison DiLaurentis
“Tonally, it’s very similar,” King told TVLine during the inaugural Freeform Summit in Los Angeles in January. “There is a big mystery, and there is a murder, and there are some characters who are a fractured group at the beginning of our story, and through a murder they become friends. So it’s similar in that regard, but it’s a whole new mystery, a whole new murder. We also have Alison and Mona coming from PLL to Beacon Heights, and that’ll all make sense when you see the pilot.”
Shepard’s The Perfectionists book series does not tie into the Pretty Little Liars world, but King stated that she plans to incorporate much of the PLL television realm into this new series. This means that The Perfectionists source material novels won’t be followed precisely.
Cast of Ravenswood
Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists is the second attempt at a PLL spin-off series, following the failed Ravenswood, which was canceled after only 10 episodes due to poor ratings. Ravenswood transplanted resident hacker Caleb Rivers into a creepy ghost-infested town, and he paired with several others to decode the town’s curse. The campy, unrealistic supernatural tone of the show was its likely downfall.
While the Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists pilot is being shot now, the show has not officially been picked up by Freeform or any other network. A premiere date is not set, but a general timeline of 2019 is being considered.
Were you a Pretty Little Liars fan? Will you watch this new spin-off series?
