depends on the execution. when thinking of writing you should consider every idea as if it was a montage.
a montage of an inexperienced student wll be generic. it will jsut show two people going on a date, and nothing unique happening. they are just using the montage as an easy way to show people falling in love without showing WHY they are falling in love.
whereas an experienced writer will use the montage to create unique moments between the characters that only they can share, he uses them to push together multiple reasons why the people work together, something that only works for those two characters as they've already been established.
so the question of the episode is, will it just be 4 girls hanging out with alison, or will it be unique to each of the liars and factor in to the deconstruction of their relationship later? and if so, how?
one thing you have to remember is that Marlene King had a LOT of great ideas, but they all just sort of happened without any rhyme, reason, or consequence.
a great example of this was in season 1. They wanted the liars to find Alison's secret storage unit of NAT videos. they did that by making Emily randomly have a flashback where she got a snow globe, and then she went to the snowglobe and there was a key. the flashback was thrown in for no reason other than to deliver this key. its a very inexperienced persons idea.
compare that toa show like lost, which has its flaws sure, but if they had written this episode they would have had a focus on Emily dealing with her love hate relationship with Alison trying to decide perhaps whether or not Alison really cared for her or was simply being manipulative. they'd layer in several flashbacks leading up to that present, leading Emily to think she really did care, only to reveal the key hidden inside to prove that alison didnt care: it was simply manipulation.
thats how they'd take a minor plot point and turn it in to a growining moment for a character while still deepening the mystery.
so while the 'summer before' might not be a bad idea for an episode, it depends on whats actually in the content. it might even work better in a later episode where each girl can have their own seperate flashback to that summer layered in with whats going on in life now, wherein Alison says something in the flashback that helps them make a decision about what they're doing now, showing how Alison can still manipulate them from beyond the dead.
*when life gives you lemons*
Sara: are you a sour lemon?
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jdpm1991
8 years ago
Think of it as my version of "The First Secret" but it'll be each POV of how the girls know Alison if this makes sense?
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marinaalexis-87074
8 years ago
Sorry to intrude in on your conversation, but imo, unless these are just going to be short little flashback segments, a few minutes each, I don't think something like this would really fit into a rewrite. I can't picture how you would do this without it breaking up the flow of the mystery.
I like the idea of learning more about how the girls each got to know Ali, though.
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bobcat667
8 years ago
it makes sense, i just cant really say whether or not its a good idea without knowing what your plans for it are.
for example, in the books it flashed back to reveal how the girls all met alison, and it made sense to show us that because in doing so it showed how Ali and Courtney had switched places.
a lot of people look back at 'the first secret' and dont like it nearly as much because of how little it had to do with the rest of the show. while there was some obvious hints at mona in there it didn't really factor in, and the show could have continued to exist without that prequel. nothing htere was integral to the mystery.
and thats why a lot of people hate the later seasons of the show as a whole. the ideas are often interesting, but they don't factor in in any meaningful way.
i have a friend who likes to write scripts as well and everytime he pitches an idea and asks how that sounds my first question is always 'why?'. why is the most important reason. if you have an idea you like, figure out the why and decide if its good enough.
in this case having an entire prequel episode before the normal pilot might feel odd. imagine if you watched PLL and it was a whole episode of just the girls being friends with alison... and the mystery didn't start til episode 2. doesn't work so well yeah?
but one thing you can do is have alison die at the very end of the episode. make the whole episode layered with not just the girl sitneracting with alison but with the hints that something is wrong in alisons life. lay down the ground work and clues that you will later expand upon in the show.
but i agree with maria. this type of thing would work better in flashbacks. with a 4 act structure in an episode each act could flashback to that summer with ali, and mirror whats going on in life now. or you can even do character centric episodes where each liar gets one episode focused mostly on them, and show a larger flashback story each of the liars have with alison.
*when life gives you lemons*
Sara: are you a sour lemon?
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