**This is a spoiler-free review so feel free to read on!**

“Everybody has secrets…right?”

One of Us Is Lying is a new teen mystery drama series based on the best-selling book of the same name. It premiered on October 7th 2021, featuring six episodes available to stream now on Peacock (approximately 45-48 minutes in length). The remaining two episodes will air on October 21st 2021. The show stars Marianly Tejada, Cooper van Grootel, Annalisa Cochrane, Chibuikem Uche, and Mark McKenna.

One of Us Is Lying introduces us to five teens who wind up with detention, but things get interesting when one of them doesn’t make it out alive, involving them all within the mystery surrounding the death. The remaining characters try to cope with the aftermath, as we soon learn that they all have motives to murder their classmate, but who is the killer?

Here is the trailer:

One of Us Is Lying is very much Gossip Girl meets Pretty Little Liars, but does it do enough to step away from the teenage clichés it wants to comment on? Let’s find out…

The Pros:

Images courtesy of Peacock

A solid mystery to keep you coming back for more.

Sure, I’ve seen this type of show before and I actually recently read this book as well, but I do think this mystery is decent enough to keep you hitting play on the next episode. It keeps you guessing and it reels the audience in that much more to keep you invested from start to finish.

Uses the gossip app in a more strategic way than some of its predecessors.

I was pretty disappointed with the Gossip Girl reboot and it’s hard to be relevant and original when so many of these shows overlap with similar premises, but I actually thought that this show used the gossip app more effectively.

The secrets that were exposed added to the mystery and I liked that we knew the author of the app immediately to prevent things from feeling too much like the original Gossip Girl.

The Cons:

Images courtesy of Peacock

Fits neatly into the tropes it comments on…

The narrator in the opening episode talks about the clicks and clichés in your typical high school setting, but the show doesn’t actually do anything to set itself apart from this. Making a comment on it is not enough for me.

All of the characters fit neatly into tropes we have seen before in these types of high school mysteries and while the characters have some redeeming qualities, I wanted something a little bit deeper here.

So am I in or out?

Images courtesy of Peacock

I’m in about 75 percent…

I like this type of show and I enjoyed the book for the most part. So far I am invested during my watch and I think that the mystery is good enough to keep you coming back for more. I would have liked to see this show take a few more risks and step out of its comfort zone so that it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle of other teen mystery dramas, but it still is entertaining enough and the quick release of the episodes makes it easy to binge-watch.

I hope you enjoyed the review and feel free to post your own thoughts and theories on One of Us Is Lying in the comments section below. Thanks so much for reading and happy viewing!

Best,

Amy Koto, TV Fanatic Girl

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