4 Years Later, HBO’s 2-Part Psychological Thriller Reboot Is One Of Its Biggest Missed Opportunities

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HBO tried to revive a hugely popular show from the 2010s in 2022, but the changes they made didn’t work and may have permanently damaged the franchise. Reboots and revivals are often tricky – while some, like the Cheers spinoff Frasier, are successful, others, like the 2023 Frasier revival, fall flat.

As a film and TV buff, I’ve been thinking about reboots lately, and it’s a tricky balance. For one to really work, people need to have some nostalgia for the original – it can’t be too soon after the show ended. But the longer you wait, the more likely audiences are to just forget about it, and that initial excitement for a revival fizzles out. We saw this with the 2016 reboot of The X-Files. Even a massively popular ’90s show like that had a tough time finding its footing again, proving that bringing something back isn’t always a guaranteed win.

Despite the failures of other shows, HBO saw potential in the teen mystery series Pretty Little Liars when it gained popularity in the early 2020s. Originally on air from 2010 to 2017, the show was based on the popular novels by Sara Shepard, author of The Lying Game. Pretty Little Liars combined the dramatic social circles of Gossip Girl with the suspenseful murder mystery elements of Twin Peaks, and ran for seven seasons with a total of 160 episodes.

Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin Completely Changed The Original Show’s Formula

As a big fan of the show, I always loved how it started. It really centered around the complicated friendship between Emily, Aria, Spencer, and Hanna after their friend, Alison, went missing. Alison wasn’t always the nicest – she could be a bit of a bully, honestly – and things fell apart between the girls after she disappeared. But then, a year later, they all started getting these creepy, anonymous messages from someone calling themselves ‘A,’ which totally threw their lives into chaos and brought them back together… in a really messed up way!

A mysterious enemy knows a secret the group of friends are desperately trying to hide, and for seven seasons, the show is filled with twists, betrayals, and clever schemes as they try to figure out who it is. Pretty Little Liars started as a realistic teen mystery, but it became more and more unbelievable and strange with each season.

Similar to other shows, The CW’s teen drama Riverdale, inspired by Twin Peaks, eventually saw declining viewership. However, its most dedicated fans continued to watch the increasingly outlandish storylines. Pretty Little Liars also performed well, starting with 2.47 million viewers for its first episode and still attracting a solid 1.41 million viewers for the series finale seven years later.

Teen dramas often lose viewers as they go on, and Pretty Little Liars definitely took some unexpected turns in its later seasons. Despite this, it managed to keep a surprisingly large audience. The show’s popularity also led to two spinoffs, Ravenwood and The Perfectionists, though neither lasted long. Ravenwood premiered during the original series’ run, while The Perfectionists came out two years after Pretty Little Liars ended. Even though the spinoffs only lasted one season each, their creation is a clear sign of how dedicated the show’s fanbase truly was.

Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin Could Have Been A Good Standalone Horror Series

Given the continued popularity of Pretty Little Liars, a revival always seemed likely. Instead of a complete reboot, the show could have continued with the original stars playing grown-up versions of their characters, exploring what happened to Spencer, Emily, Aria, Hanna, and Alison as adults. A new villain – another ‘A’ – could target them, or the story could focus on their children and a new generation of mysteries.

The new series, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, came out before the idea of connecting it to the original show was fully developed. This meant the reboot had to completely change direction. Instead of a typical teen mystery, it became a much darker, more violent horror story. Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin features a new group of teenage girls in a small town who are terrorized by a masked killer using the familiar ‘A’ identity, but with a completely separate storyline.

Beyond a few messages from an anonymous sender (‘A’) and some nods to the original show’s main characters, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin didn’t resemble the previous series at all. It felt much more like crime dramas Mindhunter or The Silence of the Lambs than the original Pretty Little Liars, focusing on darkness and shock rather than entertainment. The new setting – a distant, rural town – also completely changed the show’s look and feel.

Let’s be honest, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin isn’t bad as a scary horror show, especially considering Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa took the reins after Marlene King. It’s about as engaging as the weakest season of Netflix’s Slasher, and it could have been a solid, gritty teen slasher like the Fear Street films. The problem is, it was marketed as a continuation of Pretty Little Liars, which set the wrong expectations.

HBO’s Failed Pretty Little Liars Reboot Makes A Future Reunion Less Likely

While Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin was presented as a fresh take on the Pretty Little Liars series, its second season, Summer School, leaned even harder into this idea by bringing back more familiar faces and including more direct connections to characters from the original show. The first season only featured one recast of a minor character.

However, Summer School featured Annabeth Gish reprising her role as Dr. Anne Sullivan in most episodes, and even directly referenced the original series’ main character, Aria. Despite these connections, fans of the original Pretty Little Liars weren’t impressed, as Summer School still didn’t feel like a natural continuation of that world.

Honestly, this latest attempt really feels like the final nail in the coffin for Pretty Little Liars. The two-season revival means it’s only been off the air since 2024, not the nine years it would have been after the original finale in 2017. Because of that, I think we can safely say a full reboot is extremely unlikely anytime soon. It just doesn’t seem like the studio will revisit this world again for a while.

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2026-06-06 17:09