[TV] Kyle XY - Season 1 (2006)

After the longest time, I finally sat down to watch the first season of Kyle XY after initially knowing nothing more about the show then that fact that (1) he doesn't have a belly button for some reason and (2) Kyle's rather cute. I was surprised to find that the show isn't just some random fluff although this first season has its awkward moments with the writers still trying to find their footing.

Given it's a product of ABC Family, you know it'll have its sappy moments but still, it's not all to bad. Try imaging your standard family drama mixed in with a little X-Files for good measure.

The show centers around the life of Kyle, a theoretically 16 year old boy who wakes up naked in the woods and covered in slime. He has no memory of anything before that day including language skills, basic human functions like eating and going to the bathroom and he happens to have no belly button, which sort of implies he was never actually born - although no one ever makes this conclusion in the series itself. A therapist realizes there's more to Kyle than meets the eye and she takes him home to live with her family and there the story pretty much unfolds.

It's not at all a heavy science fiction series. In fact, it starts only moderately strong in that area and pretty much forgets about it for most of the 10-episode season. The first few episodes have him discovering his abilities like accelerated reflexes, an intuitive aptitude for math and science and other stuff. However once those are established in the first few episodes, it sort of wallows into the whole family scene and I wish there had been more development of the whole secretive origins of Kyle. Then again I'm a geek, so what can you do?

The show's main claim to fame is Kyle, as played by Matt Dallas who is actually 25, which is hardly 16. He has such entrancing eyes (a surprise since I never thought I could drown in green eyes instead of blue ones) and a very boyish look about him. He's mastered the childlike smile, which is constantly invoked in the show given Kyle behaves like a boy given his lack of memory. Kyle is rather robotic throughout the show and Dallas has adopted a somewhat monotonous voice level in order to portray that, which is a bit stereotypical.

The story had to pick up on the science fiction aspect once again in the last two episodes or so thus it seemed a bit rushed and sloppy in execution, but still decent I suppose. At least they did provide some initial resolution to that thread, unusually fast development for some of the characters - most notable would be the almost complete reversal of the characterization of Declan (Chris Olivero), but then that may be just me poking fun.

Still, the show has demonstrated that it has significant potential and I'm just hoping they manage their plot threads a bit better in the second season.