That was the nice thing about PLL, the piece of the puzzle, or the immediate threat, was dealt with rather swiftly, an episode or two, while leaving the main danger/perpetrator dangling.
I agree, though, a times it was definitely over the top, which was sometimes the fun part
I did really enjoy the fact that the bad guy wanted the main characters to suffer, but not take them out of the game, it was more fun playing with them, and at times actually moved to protect them from lasting harm... again to keep them as dolls to play with
So who was your fav character?