At first, when my friend was raving about this TV show, available on netflix, I didn't think it was for me. Eventually she persuaded me to watch an episode, since then I was hooked on this overdramatic drama about a group of teenage girls with a missing friend. Each episode had new twists and turns in the plot and you never really knew who to suspect. The programme revolves around an anonymous character (revealed at the end of the show), who signed of as A. One of the reasons I loved pretty little liars was because there was a main character that every teenage girl could relate to- Aria, the artistic photographer in an inappropriate relationship who loved black and white films. Spencer- The studious, academic one, with an addictive personality and pressuring family with high expectations. Hannah starts off as the stereotypical "hot blonde" of the show, preffering the idea of a new designer handbag than college but eventually becomes aware that she has potential to do better. Emily brings diversity to the show when we watch her journey of coming out as a lesbian and dealing with her mother who starts off completely against it. She is also a very talented swimmer whose dad is in the army and perhaps she finishes as the most feisty character of them all. Of course there is also Alison Dilaurentis, the center of all this drama. In the first series or so we only see Alison in flashbacks, she was the leader of the group and the reason most of them were friends. Throughout the process of the girls finding out Alison was dead and then alive and then a prisoner etc. many of them discovered they did not like who Alison was although Emily had always had a place in her heart for Alison and it wasn't in Aria's nature to have strong feelings of hatred towards anyone.

I found that Mona was the most interesting character in the programme. Mona used to be bullied by Alison and then, when Alison was 'missing' she focussed on recreating herself as Hannah's popular, high-maintenance best friend. Mona was a very smart girl, who took a turn being A or rather part of the A team and then ended up in Radley, the mental institute that kept cropping up throughout the show. She was also A's prisoner for a time, and met up in A's dolls house pretending to be Alison (under A's instruction) with the 4 girls. Unfortunately *spoiler* this elusive character was murdered part way through her plan to expose A.

Whilst there was a lot I loved about PPL, I found, after a large number of episodes, that the plot became repetitive. Don't get me wrong- no two episodes were the same, there was always a new inventive and psycologically shocking way for A to threaten the girls. But eventually the bigger picture became the same - A threatens the girls, the girls pull-through, someone dies, someone looks suspicious, it's not them, one of the girls gets framed. The programme pretty much runs on a loop like that. Also things became a bit far-fetched... getting locked in a freezer in a disused icecream factory or getting burried alive by your own mother doesn't seem all that realistic.