Kyle XY: It Happened One Night

by: Adela P

Unfamiliar with Kyle XY? Well, here's a synopsis:


Kyle is a boy that was created from the DNA of a genius named Adam Baylin. Kyle was kept incubating in a pseudo-womb until he was a teenager, the idea being that the longer the period of gestation, the longer the brain has to develop inside the womb, and the more intelligent the child will be. The company that was housing Kyle's incubated body is eevvvil, as you probably guessed. When the company analyzes Kyle's brain as a teenager (still incubating) they realize that he's too independent (using verrry scarrrry, futuristic science) and decide to get rid of him. A man by the name of Tom Foss, who had worked for the company for years and whose primary responsibility was taking care of Kyle, decides to save Kyle. Tom gets Kyle out of there and dumps him in the woods. Poor Kyle then wakes up having no idea where he is, no language skills -- basically like a giant baby that can walk -- and wanders into the city.


Obviously people don't take too kindly to seeing a naked teenage boy with pink goo all over him and no belly button wandering about the city, so he's taken to juvenile hall. (No umbilical cord=no belly button, obviously.) They call in Nicole Trager, a psychologist, to figure things out, and she, being the maternal soul that she is, decides to bring him home to her family, and he never ends up leaving.




The series progresses with Kyle figuring out everything I've just written, and then some. Eventually Kyle discovers that there was another child created, Jessie (XX), and the two become closer as they try to escape the evil corporation that created them, and figure out the secrets of their identity and abilities.


The one negative thing to say about Kyle XY is that its network is ABC Family, which means that there are just some places that the show cannot venture. Were it able to, I have a feeling that Kyle XY could be among the ranks of some of the cleverest sci-fi shows on the air right now. It really is an amazing synopsis -- if they were able to get more funding for better special effects, and were able to stretch out the darker storylines so that they actually remained dark, depressing, and nihilistic, it would be a truly amazing show. It still does have amazing qualities, and it's one of my favorite shows on the air right now -- but you have to give it some leeway because of the network it calls its home.


As much as it's concerned with the sci-fi aspects of the show, it's equally, if not moreso, concerned with family and the maintenance of relationships, familial and otherwise. It does have those cheesy moments sometimes, but never to the extent of shows like 7th Heaven where it makes you want to gag. Viewers might be annoyed by the voiceover-aspect of it -- every episode has a voiceover from Kyle at the beginning and end of the episode, and sometimes here and there in the middle of the episode as well. I think the writers want to continually capture the feel of the pilot episode, in which the only way we could really know what Kyle was thinking throughout his initial experiences outside the pseudo-womb was through the voiceovers. This method works and is very beneficial in the first season, but in the second season it didn't have the same usefulness as in the first, and sometimes it seemed out of place. I think the voiceovers probably could have stopped with season 2 -- but it's not something that I get irritated with and I don't think too much about it, so I won't gripe over it.


Another staple of the show is the very cute, very clever dialogue of the teenagers. It's not filled with the sometimes obscure pop culture references as heard in shows like Gilmore Girls or Buffy -- rather, it takes teen lingo to its utmost, ludicrous extreme. I can't even tell you how excited I was the first time I heard the character of Hillary refer to two other characters in a relationship with one mixed name -- Lori and Declan are "Leclan," Kyle and Declan have a "bromance" going on, and are referred to as "Keclan." (And oh god, I just searched for "Keclan" in Google to ensure that I was spelling it correctly, and beautifully displayed before me was a Youtube video fan montage entitled "keclan bromance." Oh how I love the little tweens. I'm going to assume this was a tween that did this or I'll really be disturbed.)





As stated previously, because there are some places the show just cannot go, the potentially amazing darker storylines can't make their homes on Kyle XY. Season 2 ended with Kyle's girlfriend Amanda disappearing after the Prom, and the viewers and Kyle are left to wonder who captured her and why. (Kyle XY is a big fan of the season's end cliffhangers.) If this were any other network, I would have hoped that Amanda would stay kidnapped throughout the entirety of the third season -- but because it's ABC Family, I knew the crisis would be resolved in the first episode of season 3, and probably quite happily. I was correct, of course. Just as Jessie and Adam couldn't stay dead and Andy couldn't remain cancer-ridden in season 2, Amanda cannot stay kidnapped. And if anyone ever permanently dies, or if anything really terrible happens, I will flip my lid.



There is definitely some corny dialogue in Kyle XY, but it's typically followed by skepticism and annoyance from other characters. In last night's episode, when Kyle and Jessie are searching for Amanda, Jessie asks Kyle how they will find her. Kyle responds, "I'll hear her heart beat." And then Jessie does what many viewers are probably doing right at that moment -- she rolls her eyes. And she's probably thinking in her head, Of course you will. We know that Kyle literally does hear Amanda's heart beating, but the line is just too corny to take seriously, and the writers realize that.


Even though there are places that ABC Family can't go, the mature themes on some of its shows are sort of amazing. The other hit show on ABC Family is The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which is all about a girl that becomes pregnant in high school. And unlike other shows, this girl actually looks like she's in high school, and she should -- the actress was 16 when she landed the role of the 15-year-old pregnant teenager. On Kyle XY, most of the actors aren't age-similar as in Secret Life, but there's definitely a lot of talk about sex -- which is surprising to me, considering that darker themes and excessive violence are inappropriate for the network. I guess it's one thing to talk about it and another thing to show it?

Next week, my review of Kyle XY will be more review-like and less like this one, but I thought I'd give readers who've never seen the show a feel for what it's about, as well as why I like it, even though it is on ABC Family. I'm not sure how wide the viewership of this show is to people who read my blog, but I'd like to encourage those of you who haven't watched it to give it a chance and try to catch an episode this season. Or, alternatively, catch up on previous episodes here.