Posted in: Max, streaming, TV | Tagged: exclusive, freeform, interview, Lindsay Calhoon Bring, max, Pretty Little Liars, pretty little liars original sin, pretty little liars: summer school, Roberto Aguierre-Sacasa

Pretty Little Liars EPs on "Summer School" Building On "Original Sin"

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School EPs Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Lindsay Calhoon Bring discuss season one aftermath, self-aware horror & more.

When Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Riverdale) and Lindsay Calhoon Bring (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) were tasked to create and show-run Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, they had a talk task to be faithful to the Sara Shepard franchise but also expand what I. Marlene King has already built from the original teen mystery drama on Freeform. Set after the original series, Original Sin offered a clean slate with a fresh cast and allowed for darker creativity as an homage to the horror genre on the Warner Bros Discovery streaming platform Max. Original Sin follows five teenage girls living in Millwood, Pennsylvania, who team up after receiving cryptic messages from a mysterious person calling themselves "A," who holds their mothers responsible for a series of events that resulted in a classmate's death on New Year's Eve 1999. Season two, now called Summer School, offers a direct aftermath of the events as Aguirre-Sacasca and Bring spoke to Bleeding Cool about trying to achieve the same quality storytelling with fewer episodes, contingencies on how to end the series depending on the show's status, creative flexibility depending on the platform, and surprised they tease for season two.

Pretty Little Liars Creators on Expanding Season One with 'Summer School'

Bleeding Cool: For 'Pretty Little Liars' season two, you got eight episodes compared to 10 in season one, did you find any differences for you creatively?

Bring: No, I wouldn't say problems. In season one, we're so happy we had those ten episodes because we were introducing a new show, story, and five leading characters. To have a little more runway to be able to let the girls get to know each other, become friends, and tell some special stories was great. In season two, Look! We're greedy! Had we had ten, there probably would have been maybe some more specialty episodes. We talked about something we would have loved, like doing a whole 'Unfriended' episode, but with this franchise of spooky spaghetti. We feel at the end of the day, we love the episodes. We love how they shook out, and having had season one behind us, we all know these characters. We know who they are. They're all so close now, so we were able to hit the ground running and jump right in, which was great.

When it comes to planning the season out as it releases and awaiting renewal news, are there contingencies you have just in case this might be the final season?

Aguirre-Sacasa: Not really. Lindsay and I are creators, but we also approach this as fans. We also love…I don't want to say conventional but traditional storytelling with a beginning, middle, and end. We think it's important for every season to be a satisfying entity on its own. That said, we love these characters. There are many more stories to tell, but we are not the kind of writers that hold things back. If we want to tell a story, we usually attack it and live in the belief that should we get a third season, which we would love, our fourth season or fifth season, we will always find the new, fresh, and exciting. We attack it with gusto and want to give our fans make sure every episode is special. Every episode has something to talk about. Every episode feels like a full force, so after you finish it, sometimes you'll see an episode, and you'll be like, "What was that?" We run into all of that with our arms open.

What's the difference creatively when dealing with a 20+ episode season compared to when it's cut to at least half on a streamer?

Aguirre-Sacasa: Lindsay alluded to it. When you have 20-22 episodes, you do get to follow subplots and other characters; you can tell those special, standalone, one-off episodes that focus on a theme or a supporting character and work the show. I will say this about the shorter order, we've worked on shows that are shorter order, 8-10 episodes, and worked on shows that were 22-24 episodes. There's an integrity to the shorter episodes that, although we would love like to tell those standalone episodes when you're following a mystery, sometimes it's almost better to have a finite number of episodes because you must make everyone count. The danger of having 22 episodes is that sometimes fans can be like, "These writers have no idea what they're doing." It's a balance, right? There are good and bad things. Our reality is that we live in a streaming world, and Max has been a great home for this show. That's what that means every episode is, is jam-packed, with story and event.

Bring: Even with a smaller order, there is still a bit of creative freedom to being on a streamer, too, in a way that we might not be able to on a network show. That is being able to tell maybe darker stories in our genre as horror and being able to push the horror in other ways, focusing on teenagers, having a bit of the freedom with the language they use in a way that we might not be able to otherwise use on other networks. There's a balance, but we feel so proud of season two and every episode to us, each of these eight episodes, there's no such thing as a skippable episode. Every episode is full, rich, worthwhile, and not to be missed. We're so excited about this.

What do the additions do for the season, and how do they enhance the existing cast?

Aguirre-Sacasa: We're excited we have…one of the fun things about season two is healing from the trauma of season one. The girls are encouraged by their therapist, Doctor Sullivan, played by Annabeth Gish from the original series, to get summer jobs and have summer love interests. We are introducing a love interest for Imogen (Bailee Madison) and a love interest for Tabby (Chandler Kinney). Someone from Noah's past is coming and that adds to the overall summer loving. Our second episode is called "Summer Loving", an homage to 'Grease', which is one of our favorite movies. It's always nice to populate these shows with love interests who also happen to be suspects and potential victims. It's good to have those fresh faces populated, and we were joking when Tabby brings home someone who may or may not be her boyfriend, Sharon's [Leal] character, Sydney, who's her mom is so protective of her and immediately, we love how on the defensive she is and Mama Bear she is towards her daughter. That's fun family, domestic dynamics that are the fun of these shows.

The first two episodes of Pretty Little Liars: Summer School, which also stars Zaria, Malia Pyles, Mallory Bechtel, Elena Goode, Alex Aiono, Lea Salonga, Jordan Gonzalez, and Elia Kacavas, are available to stream on Max with new episodes dropping weekly – every Thursday.

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