'Dash And Lily' Trailer: An Unlikely Teen Romance Begins In Netflix Christmas Series

A slew of new Netflix Christmas movies hit the streaming service every year, but how about a whole series set around the holiday? Check out the trailer for Dash and Lily, a young adult romance set at Christmastime in New York City, when a budding relationship begins in a most unlikely manner: through the pages of a notebook passed back and forth throughout the city.

Based on the young adult book series Dash & Lily's Book of Dares from authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, the series follows Dash (Austin Abrams from The Walking Dead and Euphoria), a cynic, and Lily (Midori Francis from Good Boys and Ocean's 8), an optimistic romantic. The two strike up a relationship by writing to each other in a book that's passed back and forth throughout the city, inspiring elaborate scavenger hunts and ultimately bringing these two disparate souls together.

Joe Tracz, who oversaw Netflix's A Series of Unfortunate Events, is on board as the showrunner here, and he released a lengthy statement (via Collider) to potential audiences of this new series.

"When I read Dash & Lily's Book of Dares, it felt like New York," he said. "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."

There's definitely a bittersweetness to knowing that a New York Christmas show like this captures a totally different moment in history than the one we're currently living through, and for many, I suspect that curling up and watching this show will be the closest they get to a NYC holiday vacation this year. Is it cheesy? Absolutely. But I can definitely see how this will be a balm for so many people who desperately need a distraction from 2020.

(Note: If the concept of passing books back and forth intrigues you, seek out a 2013 book called S., which was conceived by J.J. Abrams and written by Doug Dorst. It's excellent.)

Here's the official synopsis for Dash and Lily, which should not be confused with the 1999 TV movie Dash and Lilly, about Dashiell Hammett and Lilly Hellman:

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.

Dash and Lily hits Netflix on November 1, 2020.