I wouldnt even care or be half as mad as i am if the show was written by someone else. And the fact that it is beeing developed by RAS that anoys me the most. Uggghhhhh

Yeah I’m just not keen on the Riverdale writers. The description says that they’re paying for the sins of their parents so already I’m getting major Riverdale vibes (the parents are essentially main characters on that show).

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!

Hey! Did you see that PLL will have a reboot by the producers of Riverdale?? What do you think of It?

I did see that! I think it’ll be a complete disaster for 2 reasons: I don’t like Riverdale and also there is absolutely no need to bring back PLL so soon after it ended. If a spinoff with two fan favourite original characters “flopped”, then there’s clearly no demand for a reboot with new characters. It all just feels like a cheap and low-effort attempt to revive teen mystery shows in 2020. Marlene has been liking a bunch of fan tweets about how disrespectful and stupid this reboot is and I 100% agree with her. They need to let the legacy live on a bit and give people a chance to really miss the show, not to mention give the original cast time to do a reunion of sorts before moving onto a new cast. As soon as a new cast comes in, we can kiss goodbye our chances of a reunion with the original cast because they will not want two different PLL shows (or a movie, whatever the reunion will look like) on the air at once. Contractually, it won’t be allowed. So it is selfish by the Riverdale producers to take what Sara and Marlene created, potentially ruin it, and also take away their chances at a reunion. Would I watch it? Naturally I’m inclined to check out the first episode. But expectations are low and I’m going into it expecting to hate it because it has no reason to exist and it’s produced by people who haven’t impressed me in the past (Riverdale).

Hi everyone! Long time no speak. Not even sure if anyone will be here to read this. Just wanted to pop in and say hi to anyone still here, and hope you’re all healthy and staying safe during this crazy time. 2020 is definitely a year for the history textbooks. I started rewatching PLL today given that I’ve got all this extra time on my hands and honestly it’s picked up my mood a little bit. I’ve been feeling a bit low lately due to all this social isolation and PLL instantly brings me back to happier days. I highly recommend it if you’re feeling a bit down. Anyway, hope you’re all doing okay given the circumstances!!

A different line of thinking that I haven’t seen anyone go about yet: what if Freeform cancelled it because they didn’t like Marlene’s plan for the future of the show? Remember how Marlene said she was pitching season 2 to the network - what if Freeform didn’t like it, and so they wanted to protect the PLL franchise/brand from yet another subpar ending? It’s lowkey embarrassing to give it everything you’ve got, only for it to be hated. So maybe they pulled the plugs before it inevitably got messy. Sure, Freeform could’ve just been blunt and told Marlene the truth about her ideas, but asking a writer to change their artistic vision is tough as it could likely damage their professional relationship. Perhaps there were some business issues going on behind the scenes. Maybe this wasn’t just an issue of low ratings due to poor marketing.

I personally don’t believe this is true because I could sense a massive improvement in the writing department in the new show - I don’t believe Marlene would’ve pitched a horrible second season. But we will never know for sure.

💖💖💖

Am I the only one who refuses to believe this is real and is clinging on to hope that another network will pick up the show? No? Just me? Damn, this anger has turned into denial!

Open Letter to Freeform

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to share my response to the cancellation news of “Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists” that became public knowledge yesterday afternoon. As a long-time fan of both “Pretty Little Liars” and the spinoff (for time’s sake, I will refer to them as PLL and TP, respectively, throughout this letter), I could not be more disappointed that the franchise is ending on an unresolved cliffhanger. More than that, however, I am writing to express my extreme dissatisfaction with how your network handled this show from the very start. I fully believe that it was partially your mismanagement and mistreatment of this show that led to its lackluster ratings and subsequent cancellation.

I could predict the poor viewership from the moment I learned that TP was set to air during the same timeslot as “Riverdale.” It is beyond my comprehension why the decision was made to place this new spinoff up against a show that is aimed toward the same demographic, but which has been on-air for several years, receives approximately two million viewers per episode, and airs on a much larger network. It is no surprise that TP encountered some of its highest ratings during “Riverdale’s” several weeklong hiatus. I was, and still am, baffled by both this decision, and the choice to show only one airing of TP each week. During the majority of PLL’s run, episodes aired two times during their premiere night: Once at eight pm, and again at ten pm. This allowed viewers, especially those of us with work and other evening commitments, another chance to view the episodes and have our viewings counted toward the Nielsen ratings. By failing to include a second airing of TP episodes during the first twenty-four hours, you ensured that the only views that would count toward the episode’s live ratings were those who were able to sit down in front of their television in the mid-evening - which is not a large percentage of your target demographic.

Perhaps my largest issue with the management of TP comes from its accessibility to international viewers. While, as a resident of the United States, I was fortunate enough to have both live and streaming access to each episode, tens of thousands of potential new viewers were left completely in the dark. By not making the show available outside of the US either through your website or Netflix, as PLL had been, you pushed out thousands of possible fans that undoubtedly would have increased TP’s ratings by a substantial amount. Hulu’s audience is not nearly as extensive as that of Netflix, and offers no international plans, making it an inadequate way of providing further access to the show. While I recognize the costs of international accessibility, I believe that this lack of access had a direct impact on the poor ratings - simply not enough people were given the opportunity to have their views counted.

Finally, the lack of promotion given to this show throughout its entire run was extremely noticeable, and, in my opinion, shameful. While your network did a great job of promoting the season premiere, it felt as though as soon as ratings did not equal those of the original PLL, the show was essentially thrown to the wayside. Freeform is a channel that I generally keep on as background noise throughout the day. In the week leading up to TP’s season (and, evidently, series) finale, I noticed numerous, almost constant commercials for shows such as “Siren,” “The Bold Type,” and “grown-ish.” In contrast, I recall exactly one advertisement for TP’s finale. Expecting superior ratings from a show that you refuse to promote or advertise is asinine. You cannot expect a show, regardless of quality, to succeed if you do not do everything in your power to give it the tools to do so.

From the very start, it felt as though TP was given up on without giving it a fighting chance. Looking back at all of these factors, most of which easily could have been changed or improved upon for a second season, the show’s cancellation feels like even more of a betrayal. The original “Pretty Little Liars” was one of your network’s most successful shows, and paved the way for your network to become what it is today. The fact that you could not find enough worth in its spinoff to make simple changes and give it a second chance is, frankly, disgraceful. It is beyond unfortunate that the world of your most successful original franchise has ended on an unresolved and unsatisfactory note. The cast, crew, and fans of both series did not deserve to be treated in this way, especially after being strung along for months, waiting for renewal news.

I have been aware of your network’s falling ratings and viewership for several years now, and the cancellation of this show, along with the poor treatment it received while on-air, has cemented my decision to no longer tune in to Freeform’s original shows. I will in particular be making a conscious choice not to watch any new series. Your network has a hideous pattern, which began far before TP, of cancelling shows after only one brief season. I no longer have the desire to engage in watching and enjoying shows that are surrounded by so much insecurity. After all, what is the point in getting absorbed in a show that is only going to be cancelled after ten episodes?

It is my hope that you will take into consideration everything that I have written here. I understand that I am a college student, majoring in Education, who is not aware of every intricate factor that goes into the production and maintenance of a television show. That said, it is clear to me that very obvious mistakes were made during the entire run of “Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists,” and what I can say with certainty is that your network has lost a very loyal fanbase with the cancellation of this show.

Regards.

Yesterday I was disappointed. Yesterday I just said “okay so that’s why they were silent for months, I’m not shocked”. But now that it’s sunk in... I’m actually angry. Like wow, the PLL franchise is actually over. Forever. If a spin-off with Ali and Mona “flopped”, then nothing else will ever succeed. PLL truly is over.

I’m not tuning in to anything ever again except a reunion with the original characters. I’m not letting them make me fall in love with characters just to have them taken away. Yesterday I wanted to be constructive but today I’m just angry. Honestly fuck you Freeform. This decision came after your shitty marketing. YOU lead to this ship sinking. YOU couldn’t be bothered making some corrections and seeing if there are any improvements.

*insert video of Bella Thorne saying fuck Freeform*

I’m literally never ever watching another Freeform show ever again, the network is dead to me.

End rant!

Freeform, please please PLEASE read this

Well, this is why I have been so silent since the finale... I knew the future wasn’t bright so I knew not to waste my time.

All I have to say is: Freeform, you made several big mistakes. I could take the “fuck you” route, and my anger and disappointment tempt me to take that route, but I’ll keep it civil and constructive. In the one in a million chance that anyone at Freeform reads this - I’d like to offer my constructive feedback as to why cancelling The Perfectionists after just 1 short season was non-sensical decision.

Unfortunately, the majority of fans were not satisfied with the ending of the original PLL. If you could not see this in 2017, you were incredibly out of touch with the fans and your PR team needs a serious restructure. Having a biased set of eyes gets you nowhere in this industry. You NEED to know what the fans are saying, and the fans hated the PLL ending. Because of the poor reception to the ending, there was NOT an overwhelming demand for a continuation of PLL. Yet, you not only decided to make a spin-off, but you even put Pretty Little Liars in the title. This did you more harm than good: you were preaching that the poor writing of the original series will continue into this series. This meant that fans of the original series were disinterested from day 1. Also, you struggled to capture the attention of new viewers, as putting PLL in the title gave the impression that this is a sequel to PLL - and if you haven’t sat through 7 seasons of the original show, you could not understand this new story. And finally, the name was too long. People had no idea what to tweet. PLL? PLLTP? TP? How do you expect to trend on Twitter when everyone is using a different hashtag? (I mean, take a look at my hashtags for this post right here... what a drainer typing all that out.) “The Perfectionists” is a name that can trend, and is a name that does not imply spoilers from the previous series AND successfully separates it from the stigma of the previous series. Your marketing was enough to send this show to the grave, yet you hammered the nails on the coffin with a poor supply system. Again, if you think Hulu is a better provider than Netflix, you are incredibly out of touch with how your audience consumes media in 2019. I know that Netflix is the more expensive partner, but sometimes you have to spend money to get money. I can’t believe I, the psychology student, has to give a basic marketing lesson. Also, your international fans literally had to rely on pirating because you didn’t provide it on basic services that you had for your prior series, such as iTunes. Ouch. Sorry to report the illegal activity for many people (not me, btw).

With poor marketing and a silly supply system: how could you expect success? Your expectations were unfairly high for a show that was destined to fail because of YOU, Freeform. I don’t need a marketing degree to say that. I’m genuinely shocked that no one in your offices could see the issues and therefore devise some corrections to implement in a second season. You’ll never know what could’ve happened if these issues were corrected. PLL The Perfectionists will be the show that could’ve been a sleeper hit, but YOUR tendency to turn a blind eye to reality stopped you from getting the next big hit.

I now know not to tune in to any other PLL related show, given the history of spinoffs being cancelled (Ravenswood and now this). I guess I’ll see you all for the PLL reunion in a few years! I hope The Perfectionists characters can pop in then! I’d love to see what Caitlin, Ava and Dylan get up to.

To the everyone who worked on the show, you deserved way better. I hope you know that the cancellation of your show has nothing to do with the quality of your show - it is entirely the result of poor management. I mean, the fact that you had low ratings from day 1 episode 1 - when it is not even possible for people to say “this show is shit” because the story hadn’t even started yet - goes to show this isn’t an issue regarding the quality of your show. It was a great show with shit management. Thank you for 10 really amazing episodes. I wish the world got to see that lessons were learnt from the original series and the result was 10 really juicy episodes.

Again, see you all for the PLL reunion! Hopefully it’s sooner rather than later!

Freeform, I hope you regret this decision which was clearly based on a lack of knowledge.

Even though I didn’t watch . If I remember correctly Freeform didn’t give a season 2 order of famous in love until early August . And it wrapped it’s 10 episode first season the week before the series finale of PLL . So I don’t really think we have anything to be concerned about . Besides the network hasn’t renewed Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger either and that’s another popular show .

Yeah but it nonetheless shows hesitancy. Remember with PLL how they announced seasons 6 and 7 before season 5 had started. They were so confident and proud of their show. Just not getting any of that right now. They’re not confident. We can get a second season, great, but it’ll probably end there. You can call me greedy for wanting so much security but you know what, that’s what made PLL so great. I felt safe to theorise. I felt safe to dive into it because we knew for a fact that there’s more years to come and we knew for a fact that we will find out the endgame.

I always check Marlene’s twitter and she doesn’t even mention the perfectionists. It’s all about pll. Yeah this show is canned 🤧. They never should’ve brought this show to begin with if they couldn’t advertise it the way it’s needed. They should’ve just brought a pll reunion movie in a couple years. 😂😩 well, if we somehow hear great news I’ll be back but I guess it’s time to close the books on another pll chapter. 🥰 peace and love to everyone 😍❤️💞 thanks for coming back for the new show!!

I agree that they shouldn’t have started this show if they weren’t willing to give it everything they’ve got. They got a bit cocky by assuming that the PLL name/brand will automatically carry them to success. I think that backfired and actually the general public wasn’t thirsty for more PLL. Hence why they need to drop PLL from the name amongst other changes which I’m not getting into again.

I’m technically done with this show as well until we hear about a second season. Im just not gonna spend days theorising about a show that might not come back. And say we do magically get that second season, I don’t want to go through this again for season 3. It’ll be a never ending cycle. I guess with PLL we got spoilt with that double renewal. Remember how season 5 hadnt even premiered and we already knew about seasons 6 and 7! Those were the days. I love security in a show.

The silence has definitely made me lose a lot of my optimism, but I'm not without hope yet. Judging by some of Marlene's tweets, they either just delivered the pitch for season 2, or they haven't done so yet, so in that case it makes sense that it's taking so long for an announcement to come out. That said, the fact that it's taking much longer than anyone, including the cast, seemed to expect does make me nervous.

But I feel like the pitch is irrelevant. Marlene could walk in there and blow them away with an epic concept for season 2… but Freeform still won’t give it the green light because they’ve seen from season 1 that the return on investment is absolutely horrendous. I read that The Fosters spin-off (Good Trouble) season 1 cost around $6 million to make - and that show looks very cheap in the sense that there isn’t any CGI, no explosions, no expensive dresses, smaller and lesser-known cast, etc. If that show cost $6m to make, my educated guess for TP would be around $10m. Ten MILLION dollars for a show that gets 200k viewers weekly? Shay’s 5 minute YouTube videos get more views. That’s a horrible return on investment. Paying writers for scripts, paying to hire the set, paying decently famous/reputable/influential actors, lunch catering, props, you name it… all for… 200k viewers? It’s laughable. Hence I say that Freeform probably won’t care if Marlene has a solid pitch for season 2. I hate to be the one to bring everyone down but at the same time I’m just being realistic because I know how sad the day will be when we see those ‘cancelled’ headlines. I’m just trying to prepare and justify it as of now! The ONLY way we are getting a second season is if Freeform sees some growth potential and they’re willing to throw money at the show to see if there’s the possibility for improvements. All we need for a second season is for Freeform to have a heart! Literally, they’d be doing it out of their own good will, not because they think they have a solid business plan going.

I mean... shit. It’s been a while. I don’t wanna take this as bad news butttt. Damn. I really wanted a s2. I still have slight hopes 😩

Well I’m glad you have some hope, can I have some of that 😂 I’ve already told myself it’s cancelled, I’m just waiting for the announcement any day now!

It got cancelled. The official announcement will probably be up by a week. Sorry :(

Ugh can you please get off my page and stop trolling. You know NOTHING.

honestly tho you not even answering asks makes me sad and is kinda unfair for those of us who sent in msgs we really wanted you to see and reply to :( but i understand why you’re not. if we don’t get renewed are you just never going to come back online?

Please don’t take it personally! We know that Freeform lurks Tumblr so I’m just trying to send a message to Freeform. If they want fans to be actively engaged with the show, we deserve a bit more security around the show. Freeform has a REALLY high quality show on their hands and it’s being managed extremely poorly, for reasons that go beyond the lack of a renewal. I need Freeform to know that this will never be “the next big thing” or “PLL 2.0” if they keep going the way they’re going. I hope that a bit of silence, and thus refusal to participate, can get that message across. You might think that the opposite is necessary... that we need to instead actively show Freeform our love for the show, but that would be condoning everything they’re doing. And as I’ve said countless times, and even in this post, they’ve got a hit show, but they’re managing it so damn poorly. If we don’t get renewed? Well let’s just take it one step at a time.