Pretty Little Liars season 3 returned this week on Tuesday, January 8 on ABC Family. The cast, including Troian Bellisario, Shay Mitchell, Keegan Allen, as well as executive producers I. Marlene King and Oliver Goldstick spoke at TCA 2013 about what fans can expect in the rest of season 3. 

Here are a few things we know from the panel:

Someday, the show could be called “Golden Girls Liars.” Asked how long the show could keep going, Oliver Goldstick quipped, “They’re going to be the Golden Girls Liars.”

Jason and Spencer will have some sort of alliance this season. Goldstick spoke about Jason and Spencer’s relationship, saying, “Jason has become someone who’s earned particularly Spencer’s trust.  So they will have some alliance.  We can’t tell you really right now what it’s about, but it will be an alliance.”

The show is about more than just the mystery of ‘A’. Asked if the show will ever be about anything else except the mystery of ‘A,’ King said, “Who is ‘A’?” continues to be an overall mystery for us, but there are more mysteries, added mysteries within the show which will continue to be new and fresh and different.”

Shay Mitchell doesn’t really want to know what’s going to happen with her character. Though some actors may like to get any tidbits they can about their character’s arc, Shay Mitchell said, “Personally, for me, I don’t really like to know.  I think, for me, that kind of works better.”

The people who make the show are one big family. Troian Bellisario spoke about how much she appreciated support from the EP’s recently, saying, “This is the most amazing family. This past year, I had an incredible experience in making my first short film that I wrote and produced and was acting in. To be able to go to work and talk to Marlene or talk to Oliver, or talk to Lisa Cochran, who’s our producer, about “I have no idea what I’m doing, please help me.”  And to have these people that are both my business partners and my family guide me through this first artistic endeavor was monumental.”

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The cast and EP’s love getting involved with fans via social media. When the subject of the amount of social media the show gets and the involvement of the fans, Oliver Goldstick said, “What’s great is it’s almost taking us back to old time television where people all watched at the same time because there’s something communal.  It’s tribal.  People are watching this.  They’re not just DVR’ing or watching later online.  There’s an aspect of this that is really old fashioned, as cutting edge as it is, because people are experiencing simultaneously.” King added that, after Toby was revealed as part of the ‘A’ Team, the network got a call from a mother who wanted to complain about having a room full of sixteen-year old girls who couldn’t stop crying. 

Being a “Pretty Little Liar” is synonymous with being in high school. Asked about how realistic the show is, Goldstick replied, “High school is a time where you are inventing yourself, and being a “Pretty Little Liar” is almost synonymous with being in high school because everybody’s lying to some degree, and our characters, as beautiful as these women are and incredibly intelligent and charming and all, they’re all flawed characters. They’re four flawed individuals, but I think what contributes to the show, hopefully the success of the show, is that as a unit they’re pretty strong and invincible, and they complement each other.”

According to King, the answer to “Who is ‘A’?” is the cherry on the sundae, but the ice cream is the cast. 

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What do you think of these tidbits from the cast and EP’s about this season of Pretty Little Liars? Do you hope the mystery of ‘A’ is revealed soon or would you rather see it played out over many more seasons?

Pretty Little Liars airs on Tuesday nights at 8pm on ABC Family. 

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(Image courtesy of ABC Family)

Michelle Carlbert

Contributing Writer, BuddyTV