by Rebecca Weinstein

Created on: January 22, 2009

The ABC Family Channel's original series, Kyle XY, is now in its third season. Although its seasons have run irregularly, with the first season having been a summertime filler, the second split in half between a fall and spring season, and now the third season finally begun in January of 2009, the show has grown in popularity among teens and young adults alike. Kyle XY is a show about a boy who mysteriously shows up naked in the woods of Seattle. After a short stint at a youth detention center where no one claims him, a kind psychologist, Nicole Trager, takes him into her home. It is the interactions between Kyle, his guardian family, the Tragers, and a secret society called Latnoch that keeps the plot of this television show fresh.

Kyle, a belly button-less teen who couldn't say one word when found, quickly picks up on speech, emotions, and gestures while at the Trager house. He is enrolled in the local high school with the two Trager kids, Lori and Josh. Kyle's strange behavior, including his love of drawing with only dots, fixing electronics, and sleeping in a bathtub, lead Josh to keep tabs on him and to believe that Kyle is an alien. Through the first and second seasons, Kyle learns who he is and where he came from. He also learns that he is not alone: there is a teenage girl with similarities to him, her name is Jessie.

The plot of the first two seasons twists and turns, introducing both allies and foes, exploring Kyle and Jessie's unique abilities, and delving into relationships such as Lori with her boyfriend, Declan, Josh and his girlfriend, Andy, and Kyle's relationship to both Jessie and his girl-next-door girlfriend, Amanda. Teen angst and high school drama abounds in Kyle XY, but it is a fun show. It is inappropriate at times for children under the age of fourteen, as it deals with topics such as sex and drinking.

The third season, although only two episodes in, seems a little bit of a stretch. Don't get me wrong, this entire show is a fantasy, and at times seems unlikely to happen yet still kind of plausible. However, the very first episode of this season featured some death defying acts and Jessie and Kyle drawing a completely detailed radial map on the floor of an abandoned building and figuring out where Latnoch was keeping Amanda, all in a matter of minutes; these events seemed like a stretch even for Kyle XY.

Overall, Kyle XY is an entertaining, plot driven television show appropriate for teens and up. It usually leaves the viewer with more questions than answers at the end of each episode, which for some may leave that "Lost" taste in their mouths. For this viewer, it leaves me chomping at the bit to watch the next episode. This television show receives 4.5 out of 5 stars.

See Kyle XY on Mondays at 9pm on ABC Family Channel.

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