“You might look like Sutton, but you don’t kiss like her.” – Ethan
ABC Family’s new teen-drama The Lying Game is basically The Parent Trap with a quarter-twist. Two twin sisters, one rich and one poor, grow up with no knowledge of the other’s existence. They discover each other and eventually switch lives; the poor sister pretends she’s the rich sister and the rich sister embarks on a journey to find their birth parents. It’s not exactly a new idea, but the little twist makes the premise unique enough that it doesn’t feel like a blatant rip-off.
My love of teenage/high school-based series is well documented, so — on paper at least — The Lying Game should be right up my alley. I recognize that I’m well outside the demographic that ABC Family and its stylistic twin sister the CW generally shoot for, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate and enjoy these types of shows for what they are. And I certainly know better than to review a show like The Lying Game using a similar rubric to one I would use to judge a show like Breaking Bad. But even grading on a curve and taking into account my lowered expectations, I still couldn’t get into The Lying Game. I wanted to like it, I really tried, but honestly, the pilot is mostly just boring.
Alexandra Chando, who plays both twins (Emma and Sutton), tries hard, and it doesn’t hurt that she looks like a very young Jennifer Aniston. That said, Chando isn’t asked to switch in and out of accents, so the degree of difficulty with these dual roles is much lower than what Lindsay Lohan dealt with in (the most recent iteration of) The Parent Trap. The blame doesn’t fall squarely on Chando, it’s really the supporting cast that makes The Lying Game such a snoozer. Not a single one of the other teens on the show demand the viewer’s attention and all of them lack any semblance of screen presence. The adults are no better. Andy Buckley, who you will recognize as David Wallace, CFO of Dunder Mifflin, appears bored as Sutton’s father, as if he’s not exactly sure what he’s doing on this show.
In a nut shell, the premise of The Lying Game is this: Sutton’s parents (the rich family) inform her that she is adopted, but won’t give her any information about her biological family. She uses the internet to try to track down her birth parents and in the process she learns that she has a twin. Sutton reaches out to her sister Emma through the web and the two become secret friends. For reasons that aren’t made clear in the pilot, Emma and Sutton decide that they must keep their relationship hidden from the rest of the world. When Emma gets into trouble at her foster home, she jumps on a bus to Phoenix (where Sutton lives) to start a new life with her sister. Sutton isn’t ready to introduce Emma to her friends and family. Again, for reasons that aren’t explained, Sutton wants to find her real parents before allowing Emma into her world. When Emma arrives, Sutton meets her at the bus station, gives her the keys to her BMW and takes off to Los Angeles to find their mother and father. The plan is for Emma to pretend to be Sutton for a few days until Sutton returns from her fact-finding mission.
Most of the episode is very innocent — all makeovers and pool parties. In the last five minutes or so, however, The Lying Game takes a decidedly darker turn. Sutton doesn’t show up in Phoenix when she said she would and when Emma returns to her house — worried about her twin and clueless about her whereabouts — she discovers the home has been broken into and Sutton’s laptop stolen. The pilot ends with a big-time cliffhanger as we watch Sutton get attacked by a shadowy stranger. The end of the episode was a definite improvement over the first 50 minutes, so I suppose it’s possible that there could be some potential hidden away somewhere deep inside this otherwise boring show. But with the fall television season right around the corner and the bounty of new shows that come with it, I don’t think I’ll be checking back in with The Lying Game any time soon to find out.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.