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About so much more than just a sport, Friday Night Lights brought rich, real characters to our screens, dealing with everyday life in a small community that just happened to really, really love football, and focusing on a family who truly cared for the town and the teens growing up in it – even though they didn’t always get the same respect back.

“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.”

Based on the Sara Shepard book series of the same name, Pretty Little Liars kicked off during the summer of 2010, doing the oft-impossible. Its numbers actually went slightly up for its second episode! Yes, there was nothing hotter on ABC Family than these four girls in a small town with a very large secret. With the first finale numbers topping 3 million, ABC Family struck television gold, and they struck it in all the right demos.

Many have made adult allusions to Desperate Housewives because of the noir tone, the mystery backbone and four women at the center, and I’d have to concur. For all the reasons that I adored season one’s DH storyline of why Mary Alice committed suicide, I fell head first into the unraveling of why Aria, Emily, Hanna and Spencer’s friend Alison died and who the mystifying “A” could be.

There hasn’t been a teen show so dark and intriguing, in my opinion, since season one of Veronica Mars. (It doesn’t hold a candle; VMars is bible, folks.) But it has certainly proven a contender, and somehow I wasn’t endlessly annoyed that the mystery wasn’t wrapped up in a pretty, little bow at the end of the summer season.

Normally, I can’t stand a long, drawn out mystery, but if done properly, I get pleasure from sitting on the edge of my seat, week after week. (See: Lost) Pretty Little Liars does just that, though I could do without the overdone teacher-student love story.

I had a strange obsession with Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, a book about gymnasts and figure skaters, which was turned into a 1997 Lifetime made-for-TV movie. The movie depicted the heartbreaking tale of sacrifice, physically and often mentally and emotionally, that gymnasts go through to attain Olympic Gold. So when ABC Family announced a similar TV show, I jumped for joy.

Make It or Break It isn’t as dramatic and dark, but it certainly touches on similar issues. At the center of it all are Payson, Kaylie, Lauren and Emily, the four best gymnasts at The Rock, a Colorado gym. All are training to be future Olympians, and each is as different as day and night. Their friendship doesn’t just get them through the hard falls and the heavy losses. Their support transcends to relationships, parental divorces and financial struggles.

Now, this wouldn’t be a teen soap if there wasn’t boyfriend stealing and backstabbing, but for once, it’s kind of nice to not see kids in their school hallways. This show centers around young women who do what most
consider the impossible and somehow manage to bear that huge amount of pressure.