I love Christmas. I love New York. And I love love. IsDash & Lily, a Christmas rom-com series set in New York, the perfect show for me? Unclear at this time. But what Idoknow is that I watched the trailer and literally bobbed my head to the Christmas music as I watched these younguns get into shenanigans, so you can’t betoomuch of a Scrooge about the Netflix series.
Based on the acclaimed YA bookDash & Lily’s Book of DaresbyRachel CohnandDavid Levithan,Dash & LilystarsAustin Abrams(Euphoria) andMidori Francis(Good Boys) as two star-crossed New Yorkers who start trading secret dares, clues, and Christmas-time admissions of attraction in the same notebook — never actually seeing each other along the way. Will they ever meet and, like,reallyfall in love? The series, created and showrun byJoe Tracz(A Series of Unfortunate Events) alongside executive producersShawn Levy(Stranger Things) andNick Jonas(c’mon, he’s Nick Jonas, he don’t need no credit), will take eight episodes of fast-paced holiday cheer and romance until we can find out for sure.
And speaking of “holiday cheer,” here’s Tracz himself speaking quite warm-heartedly about the goal of the series:
When I read Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares, it felt like New York. It wasn’t just the specificity of the locations (which inspired a pledge in our first script: “We’re gonna be sticklers for New York geography”). It was the way the book captured the spirit of the city – the sense of possibility tinged with loneliness, and the way they both seem to magnify around the holidays.
We shot Dash & Lily on location in the fall and winter of 2019, filming in so many of my favorite places, with no idea how different the city would look by the time we came out. I miss that New York, but I’m grateful to be sharing this story with the world right now. Our series is a romantic comedy that (like Lily) is unapologetically hopeful, while (like Dash) acknowledging that it’s not always easy to believe. When Dash finds a hidden notebook with a dare from Lily on a bookstore shelf, it pushes both of them outside their bubbles to see the world from someone else’s point of view. And when they do, they fall in love.
Like Lily, I’ve always been a believer in love, and in the power of love stories to inspire and uplift. I hope, this season, Dash & Lily can do that for you. So please, warm some cocoa, put on your coziest sweater, and come to New York for the holidays… if only in your dreams.
Well, I sorta teared up just reading “warm cocoa” and “coziest sweater,” so yes, this will likely be the perfect show for me.
Dash & Lilycomes to Netflix November 10. Check out the official trailer and synopsis below. For more Christmas programming,here’s what Freeform has put in your stocking.
A whirlwind Holiday romance builds as cynical Dash and optimistic Lily trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations all across New York City, finding they have more in common with each other than they would have expected. The series is based on the young adult book series Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares from the New York Times bestselling authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.
