‘Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists’ Canceled After One Season

Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists will not have the same long run as its parent series. The spinoff was canceled Friday after only one season and a long road to finally reaching viewers. The Season 1 finale, which turned out to be the series finale, aired back in May on Freeform.

Variety confirmed on Friday that The Perfectionists will not get another season.

The series had a long and difficult road to television, with development starting back in 2014, while the original Pretty Little Liars was still on-air. Creator I. Marlene King originally developed it as an adaptation of Sara Shepard’s book series The Perfectionists, but it was later decided to rebrand it as a spinoff of Shepard’s more popular creation.

In The Perfectionists, Sasha Pieterse and Janel Parrish reprised their Pretty Little Liars roles as Alison DiLaurentis and Mona Vanderwaal, respectively. The characters made up half of the titular “perfectionists,” with Sydney Park and Sofia Carson joining them as Caitlin and Ava. The rest of the cast included Eli Brown, Hayley Erin, Graeme Thomas King and Kelly Rutherford.

The series only ran 10 episodes, beginning in March 2019. It was produced by Alloy Entertainment, Long Lake Productions and Warner Horizon Television. Executive producers were King, Leslie Morgenstein, Charlie Craig, Joseph Dougherty and Gina Girolamo.

The main Pretty Little Liars series ran seven seasons and 160 episodes, from 2010 to 2017. Although a big success for ABC Family/Freeform, the network failed to find a winning formula to get more out of the franchise. They also aired the spinoff Ravenswood in 2014. Like The Professionals, Ravenswood only lasted a season.

Although The Perfectionists did not last long, the show’s stars mourned its end. Pieterse and Parrish took the news hard since it was the last time they will play their PLL characters.

“Ali, you and me have sure been through a lot,” Pieterse wrote on Instagram. “I want you to know how proud I am of how much you’ve grown. Your perseverance and fierce personality has and will always be with me. I know you are finally happy at home with Em and the kids. Kiss them for me!”

“Onward and upward,” Parrish wrote, alongside a photo of herself in Hawaii.

Freeform now only has a handful of remaining original shows. The network is home to The Fosters spinoff Good Trouble, mermaid drama Siren, The Bold Type, the Black-ish spinoff Grown-ish and the Marvel series Cloak & Dagger. Freeform was developing Black-ish creator Kenya Barris’ Unrelated, but that show is no longer moving forward.

Photo credit: Freeform