Pretty Little Liars spin-off series Ravenswood, PLL Season 5 announced by ABC Family

The members of the brilliant social media team that handle ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars were hinting that there would be a huge announcement yesterday, and boy oh boy they weren’t kidding! In addition to the show officially being picked up for a fifth season, the network announced that there will be a Pretty Little Liars spin-off series titled Ravenswood premiering in October! It will reportedly premiere just after the annual Pretty Little Liars Halloween special, with the PLL episode being used as a vehicle to introduce some of the characters that will be featured on Ravenswood.

And all you insta-naysayers out there can curb your curmudgeonness because this isn’t a spin-off in concept only, Ravenswood will be helmed by the Pretty Little Liars writing/directing/producing juggernaut of I. Marlene King, Oliver Goldstick, Joseph Dougherty and Leslie Morgenstein!

Details about the show are still a little sketchy, but we do have this little video teaser:

The video doesn’t reveal too much, but there are a few potential visual clues. There is a gun in a drawer, a bag full of money (inverted for some reason — I flipped it back in the photo below), and a lake house. (I tried to find a photo of video of the exterior of the lake house on Pretty Little Liars to see if it is the same, but so far no luck.) There was also a shot of a hand slamming a switchblade knife down on diamond-plated metal, some graveyard scenes, a lot of ravens, and a few other seemingly non-clueish elements.

    

There is also a lucky token on a rope that appears to read “Good for one [something]”

The brief clip also featured this image of a sign-in book, which got me pretty excited because I thought perhaps there would be some sort of tie-in with the school for the blind where Jenna was for a year (I think that’s the scene this is from). I even went so far as to research some of the names on the sheet, but they appear to be the names and hometowns of cast and crew members from the 2011 episode “The First Secret.”

Here’s a partial list of some of the folks in the book:

Carlos Arguello – cinematographer
Arthur Anderson – first assistant director / second unit director
Heather Hybbert – costumer
Stuart Goetz – music editor
Tara Plizga – art department production assistant

Although there doesn’t seem to be much to glean from the “clues” in the promotional clip (if they are even clues at all), there apparently is some meaning in the “official” clues ABC Family spread about the show’s various social media sites! Here they are mixed in with the official press release from ABC Family — just click on the photos for larger images (except for the closing gate animated gif).

ABC FAMILY ANNOUNCES “RAVENSWOOD,” A “Pretty Little Liars” SPIN-OFF SERIES, AND PICKS UP HIT DRAMA “Pretty Little Liars” FOR A FIFTH SEASON

FROM WARNER HORIZON TELEVISION AND THE CREATIVE TEAM AT “Pretty Little Liars,” “RAVENSWOOD” WILL PREMIERE IN OCTOBER

LEVERAGING THE SOCIAL MEDIA STRENGTH OF “Pretty Little Liars,” THE ANNOUNCEMENT WAS FIRST PUSHED EXCLUSIVELY ACROSS ALL “PRETTY LITTLE LIARS” SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS WITH UNIQUE CONTENT CREATED FOR EACH SOCIAL SPACE

BURBANK, CA — March 26, 2013 – ABC Family has greenlit the original one-hour drama series “Ravenswood,” a spin-off of their number one- rated series “Pretty Little Liars.” “Pretty Little Liars” has also been picked up for a fifth season it was announced today by Michael Riley, President ABC Family. Both series will be produced by Warner Horizon Television.

^ Welcome to Ravenswood – Population 7492 3 sign

Leveraging the strength of the social media phenomenon that “Pretty Little Liars” maintains as the #1 social show on television, the announcement was first pushed exclusively across all “Pretty Little Liars” social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, GetGlue, Instagram, YouTube.com and ABCFamily.com. Content unique to each platform was created to build excitement and reveal clues about the new series to its most likely and influential fan base. New “Ravenswood” Facebook and Twitter pages were also created as a place for new fans to go.

From “Pretty Little Liars” executive producers I. Marlene King, Oliver Goldstick, Joseph Dougherty and Leslie Morgenstein, “Ravenswood” will center on a town, not far from Rosewood, PA (the home base of “Pretty Little Liars”), which has suffered under a deadly curse for generations. Five strangers suddenly find themselves connected by this fatal curse and need to dig into the town’s mysterious and terrible history before it’s too late for each of them. The series will premiere on ABC Family following the annual “Pretty Little Liars” special Halloween episode in October 2013.

^ Rosewood Brookhaven Philadelphia Ravenswood crossroads sign

“’Pretty Little Liars’ is brand-defining and demo-defining for ABC Family. We are proud to be able to grow the ‘PLL’ franchise in two ways – both by adding additional seasons of the original and by extending the storytelling into a spin-off. ‘Ravenswood’ will become another ‘must-tweet-TV’ series for us,” said Riley. Kate Juergens, Executive Vice President, Original Programming and Development, ABC Family added, “’Pretty Little Liars’ has maintained the #1 spot in its cable time period in all core women demos since its premiere in 2010 with fans who are passionate, loyal, social and mobile. ‘Ravenswood’ will have plenty of mystery, drama, friendships and suspense that will inspire the same dedication from its fans. We are very excited about both series.”

^ Ravenswood script by Joseph Dougherty, Oliver Goldstick and I. Marlene King

“Our viewers have an incredible ability to amplify messages and create buzz around things that interest them, including our shows and talent,” said Riley. “In fact, during the season three finale, our viewers made ‘Pretty Little Liars’ the first series episode to amass over 1 million Total airtime Tweets in TV history, accounting for one-third of all Twitter activity in the hour. Many of them also became fans of our new summer drama ‘Twisted,’ which aired as a special sneak peek after the spring finale of ‘Pretty Little Liars.’ With this in mind, we felt it best to announce directly to our passionate and loyal fan base with content unique to the social platforms they visit and let them do what they do best — which is to amplify and engage with our news.”

The social platforms can be found at:

Facebook.com/PrettyLittleLiars
Twitter.com/ABCFpll
Prettylittleliars-onabcfamily.tumblr.com
Pinterest.com/ABCFpll
Instagram.com/ABCFamily
Getglue http://getglue.com/tv_shows/pretty_little_liars
YouTube.com/ABC Family
Facebook.com/Ravenswood
Twitter.com/RavenswoodABCF
Pinterest.com/RavenswoodABCF
Ravenswood-onabcfamily.tumblr.com
Instagram.com/ABCFamily
Getgluehttp://getglue.com/tv_shows/ravenswood

^ Ravenswood missing poster

The recent season 3 finale (airdate 3/19/13) of the award-winning “Pretty Little Liars” ranked as Tuesday’s #1 TV telecast for the 11th consecutive week in Females 12-34 (1.76 million/3.8 rating), Teens 12-17 (909,000/3.8 rating – season high) and Female Teens (807,000/6.9 rating) – each week since its January 8 season premiere – and was also the #1 TV telecast in Viewers 12-34 (2.08 million/2.3 rating) and the #1 cable TV telecast in Women 18-34 (951,000/2.8 rating) and Women 18-49 (1.21 million/1.9 rating).

Season 4 of “Pretty Little Liars” will premiere Tuesday, June 11, on ABC Family, as the Liars strive to make sense of the mysterious “Red Coat” and what plans he or she may have in store for them. For more information on the hit series “Pretty Little Liars,” Janel Parrish (Mona) and Keegan Allen (Toby) discuss the much-anticipated fourth season in the ABCFamily.com web series Inside ABC Family. http://abcfam.ly/PLLspoilers

^ “In every generation…” curse parchment

“Pretty Little Liars” revolves around four teenage girlfriends who lost touch with one another after the mysterious death of a friend, Alison. The girls are suddenly reunited when they each begin receiving messages suggesting Alison is actually alive – and watching them. Based upon the book series by Sara Shepard, “Pretty Little Liars” stars Troian Bellisario, Ashley Benson, Tyler Blackburn, Lucy Hale, Ian Harding, Laura Leighton, Shay Mitchell, Janel Parrish and Sasha Pieterse. Recurring guest stars Holly Marie Combs and Chad Lowe will also appear.

“Pretty Little Liars” and “Ravenswood” are produced by Alloy Entertainment in association with Warner Horizon Television and executive produced by I. Marlene King, Oliver Goldstick, Leslie Morgenstein and Joseph Dougherty.

Clips of the season 3 finale of “Pretty Little Liars” are available at www.abcfamilymedianet.com, as well as new assets for “Ravenswood.”

^ Ravenswood wax seal

Part of the Disney/ABC Television Group, ABC Family is distributed in over 97 million homes. ABC Family features programming reflecting today’s families, entertaining and connecting with adults through relatable programming about today’s relationships – told with a mix of diversity, passion, humor and heart. ABC Family’s programming is a combination of network-defining original series and original movies, quality acquired series and blockbuster theatricals. Emmy(r) Award-winning ABCFamily.com provides a variety of interactive entertainment and COMMUNITY features from rich, fan-centric programming – including blogs, viewing parties, webisodes, full episodes of the network’s hit programming, along with sneak peek exclusive previews and behind-the-scenes clips. ABC Family is also the destination for annual Holiday events with “13 Nights of Halloween” and “25 Days of Christmas.” ABC Family. A New Kind of Family.