ONE OF US IS LYING
After running a robust marketing campaign that left no corner of the Internet unchecked, ONE OF US IS LYING (trailer here) finally premiered this week on Peacock. Based on Karen M. McManus's bestselling novel of the same name, the teen whodunit has been fittingly described as a BREAKFAST CLUB and PRETTY LITTLE LIARS hybrid. The show follows four archetypal high schoolers who must piece together what happened to one of their classmates, Simon, after he mysteriously dies from an allergic reaction while they’re in detention together. To complicate things further, each of the four students has closely held secrets they’re trying to protect (because of course they do!), and Simon ran a Gossip-Girl-esque blog that threatened to expose them all, giving each of them...a motive! I watched the pilot last night, and I’m pleased to report that ONE OF US IS LYING is a bit of a hot mess. Featuring clunky phone VFX, too many dizzying dutch angles to count, and most importantly, Teenagers Who Don’t Talk Like Teenagers, ONE OF US IS LYING possesses many of the foundational elements of a Good Bad TV Show. It's too early to determine if it’ll have the sticking power of RIVERDALE or PRETTY LITTLE LIARS—the characters are a bit indiscernible, and the show plays things fairly safe when it comes to its twistiest moments—but I’m excited to see how the mystery progresses from week to week. The first three episodes of ONE OF US IS LYING are available to stream now on Peacock.
—Neal Mulani, Development Assistant
