Parents' Guide to Guilt

With a twisty cliffhanger-before-every-other-commercial pacing and solid acting from a mostly British cast, this drama is an apt complement to Freeform's similarly themed Pretty Little Liars. And, though they're cagey on the exact inspiration for Guilt, the setup -- a young student murdered in a foreign land with roommates with both motive and opportunity to have done the deed -- is similar enough to the notorious Amanda Knox case of 2007 that the proceedings are lent a tawdry sort of true-crime appeal. The glamorous and gorgeous actors, tantalizing settings -- especially the London club scene -- and dirty laundry are appealing, particularly to teens, who may think it looks kind of fun to be caught up in a big murder investigation overseas.

But the clichéd way the show handles the murder at the center of the action may exasperate parents and viewers of a feminist bent. Does our young murdered girl really have to have a past full of dark sexual secrets? And be shown over and over again in a pool of blood with her tiny flesh-colored dress pushed up? And is realistic that her death seemingly causes no one pain except her brother, who uses the occasion to brow-furrowedly vow revenge on his sister's killer? It's all trashy good fun but iffy, too, to make murder look like just another soapy complication. All that said, the show is well done even if it's been done before.