We’ve already told you the bad news that Kyle XY isn’t returning until January.

Now we hear, via TVGuide.com’s Matt Mitovich, that only 10 episodes have been ordered.

The order could be expanded to more episodes, but I wonder if it mightn’t be better to leave it at 10. (And Mitovich says this, which jibes with what I’d previously heard: “FYI, Season 3 will pick up right at the prom.”)

Kyle’s first season was really good (though gloriously cheesy), and it was short; 10 or 12 episodes. The second summer season also was pretty good. But I felt like the second half of Season 2 just got a bit goofy.

One of the good things about summer series has been that there’s far less filler.

With fewer episodes to get from here to there in a plot, there’s not much room for thumb-sucking.

Why do you think that the most critically acclaimed series of the past few years have been summer series?

The Shield. Damages. Monk. Rescue Me.

Never mind the HBO and Showtime staples — Big Love, Entourage, Weeds.

There’s even the frothy, fun, well-received summer hits Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, The 4400 (though canceled after four seasons), Kyle (until this year a summer series), Psych. 

All of these shows have short seasons — 10-12 episodes each. They get from here to there quickly and enjoyably and have far more high points than low per capita.

If there were decent shows on all year round, I wouldn’t mind it much if my favorites had seasons half the length of the norm (22-25).
NBC, has had the most summer success of any of the networks with its sister networks USA, Sci Fi and Bravo, is ready to throw the playbook out and earlier this year announced it was going to year-round scheduling. I’m not sure if this means there will be shorter seasons of each, but that’d be OK by me.

It’s weird that it makes me feel old to say that I remember when there was nothing on television except re-runs over the summer, that when Beverly Hills 90210 had a mini summer season however many years ago that was, it seemed shocking, yet brilliant (in terms of television programming, that is).

Now, some of my favorite shows have been summer season fare: The 4400 (now canceled), Kyle XY (we have to wait until January this time, though, for new episodes), Burn Notice (starting July 10, yay!) and Eureka (coming later in the summer, yay redux!) and always a show or two on HBO.

In an extreme case, Rescue Me doesn’t come back until March 22! (Though “10 weekly five-minute ‘minisodes’ ” will air at 10 p.m. Tuesdays starting June 24), USAToday reports.

But thanks to the writer’s strike, many shows (Entourage, Big Love) have been pushed back to the fall or even winter. But thanks to USATODAY.com, I have this handy-dandy guide to the summer season for you. It’s not comprehensive, but it hits the highlights of both scripted and so-called reality programming: Read more of this entry »

The good news: The premiere date for Kyle XY’s Season 3 appears to have been set. Found this on the TV.com website: An airdate for “It Happened ….” and this description:

Kyle has been abducted and taken to the same location as Amanda, a Latnok building. Kyle must escape and rescue Amanda; fortunately, Kyle receives some unexpected help from Jessi.

And, even better, it sounds as if the show might be ready to redeem itself from its craptacular prom-o-rific season finale.

The bad news: Did I mention that airdate is Jan. 12, 2009. Yeah, we’ve got to wait until January for more Kyle. I hope it’s on at 8 p.m., because if Kyle goes head-to-head with Jack Bauer on Monday nights, Kyle’s gonna lose. Kyle may have super-powers, but Jack is, well, Jack. I think Jack could take on the X-Men and win.

Photo courtesy of ABC Family. 

Let me off by saying that I like Kyle XY a lot. I’ve watched it since the beginning and appreciate the cheesy high school-ness mixed in with the cool, dark, superhero-y sci-fi elements. Look — I chose to blog about Kyle XY. No one makes me.

But last night? Snooze!

Way too much prom, not nearly enough of anything — anything! — else.

The Lori-Josh dialogue, as has been the case of late, provided the most amusement of the night. Oh, and Kyle’s over-studying for the prom. Loved him watching Prom Night and freaking out.

Lori ticked me off, though, by not getting back together with Declan. What is wrong with her? I felt so badly for him. I just wanted to smack her. And was it just me or did Lori’s face look weird and very un-teenager-y in that scene by the limo?

Andy, who I usually love, just annoyed me, though Daddy Traeger’s scene with Josh and the condom was vintage Kyle XY amusingness.

Jessi got over herself and helped Amanda; the gang helped Kyle make the prom special for Amanda; Kyle floated himself and Amanda over the dance floor to keep her from getting her feet wet; she wondered how he does all the amazing things he does and he insisted she tell him something he didn’t know. Her response? “I love you.” Um, Amanda, try something that the entire rest of the world didn’t know? Blecch.

Warning: Spoiler coming up; don’t read if you didn’t watch, blah, blah, blah.

The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films announced the nominations for the 34th Annual Saturn Awards this week. Not surprisingly, in the television nominations, Lost led the way, with an impressive seven nominations. Dexter, with five, and Heroes, with four, also did well.

But what was missing?

Jericho.

Now, I know that not everyone considers Jericho to be science fiction. But most sci-fi fans do consider it to be, at least. Sci-fi websites cover Jericho and it’s a post-apocalyptic drama; seems to fit the category, at least loosely. How is it less so than, say, Pushing Daisies? Or Shrek the Halls??

As much as I appreciate most of the noms listed below (but Battlestar Galactica totally should have gotten more nominations, as much as I love Lost!), Jericho should have gotten some Saturn love.

And the (television) nominees are (for a full list, go here): Read more of this entry »

I simply must start this post by saying what I told my husband this morning: I never thought I’d be blogging about a television whose season finale is being billed as the “prom finale.”

Dorky? Yeah. Lame? Heck yeah? Totally cheesy? Absolument. Did I nearly shed a tear when Declan finally got Lori to go to the prom with him? Did I think to myself, “Gee, Josh has really grown up, what a good kid!” when he told Amanda he’d donate his radio winnings that he’d spent all day “earning” with Jessi’s help to make the prom happen? $%(#*% yeah!

I absolutely cannot explain why, but I love this cheese-fest called Kyle XY.

OK, gotten that off my chest, and I have a lot of questions raised by last night’s ep.

First off (OK, this is a statement more than a question, but it has to be said) it’s utterly remarkable how much Ally Sheedy and Jaimie Alexander look and sound alike.

I hadn’t noticed the vocal similarity until the scene toward the end when Jessi and Sarah are strolling in the park, when their hoarse altos were almost interchangeable.

Dear CBS,

I heard from a little bird that another fan movement was afoot to, once again, save Jericho, because it’s not clear at all that it might get a third season, based on relatively low Nielsen ratings.

So I figured I’d stick my two cents in. Don’t worry; I’ve been assured there’s no plan to send snakes (real or fake) to CBS hq. But don’t be surprised if you get more than a few letters and postcards with the following, 100 percent American, image:

Schumi’s post starts out:

Don’t trend on my love of Jericho. Don’t forget I’m here and I’m tuning in.

Count me…. and count on me!!!!!!!!!!!

Count on me to watch on tv sure.

But…..

Count on me more:
to watch online
to watch onDemand, and
to download your show from iTunes or Amazon
because that is where I’m watching my TV, like millions of others.

I’m a TV independent and I’m damn proud of it.

So now we know that Sarah is, indeed, alive. And she looks remarkably unlike Ally Sheedy, which is amazing, considering she’s played by Ally Sheedy.

Last night’s Kyle XY really moved the whole story forward, answering the question about Sarah, but raising a whole bunch of new ones about Latnok.

I’m really suspicious of the Latnokians (Latnokkers? Latnokites?). First off, they have this whole “Star Chamber” vibe going on. Do they always sit in that room, in the dark? Creepshow.

Sorry, I get ahead of myself.

First off, “Gray Matters” was a nice way to show off the difference in the moral certainty in which Kyle operates and the moral relativism exhibited by Jessi. The question almost from the start of this series was whether basically creating a pod person as a near-adult, unspoiled by societal norms, thus created a more perfect human being — not just in strength, intellect and talent, but also in inherent “goodness.”

The answer appears to be “no.” But Jessi wasn’t only programmed to be an overachiever. Her genetic mother pushed herself too hard and too fast. The case is still out as to whether Sarah is good or not. She drove Adam from her, but was that her failing, or Adam’s?

The last couple of episodes of Kyle XY have really pushed the story toward the edge of something huge. There’s just two episodes left, so hopefully we’ll really get somewhere by season’s end.

Adam Baylin is totally recovered. Sarah, Jessi’s progenitor, is dead because she was always pushing herself too hard and was psychotically competitive. Brian’s been kicked out of Latnok because he never told anyone that he was creating Jessi. Lori is bicker-flirting with Stephen’s TA and Declan’s jealous. Amanda’s mom is finally backing off a little bit and is even going to let Amanda go to prom with Kyle. Andy’s cancer is completely in remission because Kyle made it so! And Hillary can cook. I mean, she can really cook gourmet food.

There’s a lot to deal with here, so let me start by saying: No way is Sarah dead.

Sorry it took me a couple days to post on Monday’s episode. I took notes the other day.

So what happened?

Amanda annoyed the poop out of me.

Brian totally creeped me out.

Kyle was so … Kyle.

Josh and Andy were quite some team and are just TCFW.

So, here’s my DVR blogging recap:

About 15 minutes into last night’s episode of Kyle XY, I realized where I’d seen the plot before: Three’s Company, when Jack was trying to sneak some hottie out of the apartment under Mr. Roper’s nose.

That said, I really enjoyed it. It was, to be fair, of a higher quality than the average ep of Three’s Company. And it fully brought itself back to full Kyle mythology by the episode’s end.

First off, the scene toward the beginning during which Amanda freaks out after Kyle takes off his shirt was hilarious. His whole, “your cheeks are flushed. your heart is racing,” while stroking her cheek darting his eyes back and forth in that oh-so-Kyle way. He’s going to get her a thinner blanket because her body temp is rising. LOL. It was actually very sweet, their sleeping in the tub together. But why didn’t he put a new shirt on?

Josh is fantastic. His masturbation jokes were delivered were aplomb. I do believe, however, that pulling the cancer card was completely Andy’s idea. She has completely embraced her inner devious cancer patient.

All I could think when Kyle offered Amanda that banana back in his room was what Josh would have said if he’d seen that.

As for the rest of the effort to get Amanda out of the house, I had to think that it must be a fire hazard to have only one of three bedroom windows that can open. It was, of course, merely a device to keep Amanda — and then Amanda and Jessi — trapped in the bedroom.

So, in case you didn’t notice, I sorta live-blogged Kyle XY last night. I say sorta, because it wasn’t on ABC Family last night, it was on my DVR. But I tried to stay true to the ideal of live blogging, and didn’t press pause (except when the baby started to cry and I had to go get him). I did, however, fast-forward through commercials. Ah, the DVR. How did I ever live without you?

So anyway, I had a few things I wanted to expound upon from last night’s episode but didn’t get a chance to.

Plus, I just re-read my post and realized that if you weren’t watching the episode at the same time, half of my comments are virtually unintelligible. Sorry about that.

First off: What is up, Miss Jessi-without-an-e-at-the-end? How creepola was that when Amanda’s mom stopped and thanked Jessi for the tipoff? Jessi has in her head that she and Kyle totally belong together. After all, Adam and Sarah were obviously together in their former life. Eww. Very, very creepy. My question, though, is whether her apology to Lori was sincere. I think it was, that she totally compartmentalizes all of these relationships. Her aversion to Amanda and deep Fatal Attraction connection to Kyle are on a totally different level than how she feels about anyone else.

Aha. Spring Cleaning is the theme of the night. Reflection. What’s worth keeping. What’s lost value.

Nicole is getting rid of some sexy push-up bra. Lori debates on a stuffed pig. Josh wants to throw out everything.

Kyle can’t get rid of anything. He remembers how and why he got everything. “Sentimental pack rat,” Nicole points out.

But Kyle’s only been alive for a year or two. He hasn’t had time to get tired of anything.

And, like Josh said, he always has to do the right thing.

Uh-oh, he’s going to throw a football to the next state. But why is Josh even reotely surprised that Kyle can throw a football that far?

OH! Amanda’s getting out of the cab. Obligatory slo-mo. Hair flip! Heart beating.

Smile.

Whoops. Kyle’s racing pulse just set off every car alarm in the neighborhood.

Hahaha. That Kyle.

New York, so amazing, everyone so talented. Intimidating, but learning about everything. Blahblahblahblah. Amanda’s troubled! Kyle should join Gabriel Byrne on In Treatment over on HBO.

Uh-oh. “We need to talk.”

Nicole, Josh and Lori sure know what that usually means.

Now Nicole has to explain to him.

Um, what’s with the Christmas lights?

Josh is actually right. He’s not so bad a fill-in for Foss, at least when it comes to trying to help Kyle figure out what all he can do.

Gee, Stephen. You just made Kyle feel a whole lot better.

Expertise, blahblah.

I guess Nicole’s going to go back to clinical psychology or social work or whatever it is that she did before.

Um, yeah, Lori, you’re a cynic.

Urp. There’s crazy twin/girlfriend/fellow experiment.

Oh, she learned her lesson?

Talk about the blind leading the blind. Kyle asking Jessi what it means when Amanda says she needs to talk? There’s some professional comedy.

Frankly, I think Kyle should have gone with the strtipes instead of the plaid.

Oh my. That look on Amanda’s face is not good.

Amanda’s mom is such an evil witch.

Hey Amanda’s mom — did you ever think that maybe Amanda just doesn’t like being so far from home or being at the conservatory? Naah, you’re probably right. Amanda probably doesn’t want to be away from her cuddly-wuddly boyfriend.

Kyle is having lots of teen angst. At least everyone can agree on one thing — who’d imagine that Nicole and Stephen would side with Mrs. Bloom? Love the cutting back and forth between Mom and Dad and the kids. They all just feel so strongly about Kyle and his love.

I have to say, I love the relationship between Lori and Josh. They are such siblings. “Why are your feet on my bed?” Indeed.

Um, yeah, Kyle, Mrs. Bloom probably has confiscated Amanda’s phone and now she’s blocking your e-mail. So change your e-mail address.

Um, how corny is Kyle serenading Amanda? Oh my. I don’t think she heard it. She’s listening to loud, angry classical music on her iPod.

Now, look. I’m all about Amanda and Kyle, but Mrs. Bloom is right. Amanda has no idea what she wants. But Mrs. Bloom is totally crazy.

Oh boy. Cyrano time? That’s my guess.

Crazy woman alert!

Um, Jessi has super powers like Kyle, duh.

Me-ow, Lori.

Kyle’s super-brain is hitting high gear now.

OK, so Mrs. Bloom doesn’t know Jessi.

That was pretty funny, though — “You’re Lori’s trampy friend.” “Oh, no, that’s Hillary!”

It’s funny because it’s true.

OK, has Kyle hacked into some city of Seattle computer? That’s kinda creepy. And if it’s not a hack, that’s just all on a computer?

Ah, the code. That’s what that was all about.

That really wasn’t very nice of Kyle, laughing at Lori’s obnoxiousness toward Jessi. I sense an apology coming on. Oh, yep. Here it is.

Awww. Lori and Jessi just made up. There were almost tears. On both sides.

Nicole didn’t get rid of that bra? Haha.

Is Stephen going to start teaching aga — oh, I guess so.

What job, exactly, does Stephen have. Oh. Yeah, that is kinda boring. Elevator control panels? Blech.

OK, if Amanda still has her iPod in her ears, she’s not going to hear that. But I bet her mom does. Oh, yep. Was Mrs. Bloom. Oh, that was the plan? OK, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what the plan is.

OK, that was crazy. What exactly just happened there.

Hey – where’s Andy? We haven’t seen her at all this episode.

OK, that’s pretty cool, what he’s doing right now. Hitting one bulb at a time, into the entire electrical system. Wow. I have to admit, that was really cool.

Amanda’s sneaking out! You go, girl. Your mom is totally psycho.

Declan! Where have you been all episode?

OK, here’s Lori the cynic. Love her.

Come on, Stephen, just go back to teaching! You know that’s what you want to do. Just give up the elevator panel company. Bo-ring.

Um, Jessi’s a little jealous. She might have to share Kyle with Amanda. Didn’t they have a catfight about Kyle in the first half of the season?

OMG, Kyle as Amanda is too funny. You know he’s going to eat the noodle casserole and like it, though.

Lori — I think Kyle and Amanda have been doing OK on their own. But good tip about not moving the chair in too quickly. Kyle could possibly break Amanda’s legs if he shoved the chair under her.

Awww. Puppy love. Puppy eyes. Corny song.

By the way, how did they get The Rack to let them take over their little room or outdoor terrace or whatever it is?

Amanda could tell Kyle that he had boogers coming out of his nose and he would be happy.

Hillary can cook? That’s a little creepy, though I don’t know why.

Awww, Declan still loves Lori.

Uh-oh, Jessi, jealous much?

There’s Kyle, cutting right to the heart of the matter. No one’s asking you.

Oh boy, look at all the twinkling lights.

OK, this is starting to get weird. Imagine if they had sex. He’d probably blow out the entire power grid of Seattle.

Oh, boy, that’s what all this is about. The piano.

But, Mrs. Bloom, Amanda’s right. If you were so all-fired concerned about Amanda’s ability to play piano, yeah, you shouldn’t have sold her piano.

Oh, Jessi, you beyotch! Wow. That’s totally creepy. I can’t believe you ratted everyone out to Mrs. Bloom. You just know that’s going to come back and bit her in the butt. Jessi’s not such a good egg after all.

Kyle’s grounded! Wow. That’s a first. Kyle’s getting in trou-ble.

I have to admit, I was kinda surprised, too, that Lori is taking this silly school essay seriously. I mean, just write something profound

Oooh, sexy mama,

Jessi’s getting in trouble. Brian sitting in her room. That’s a little creepy, too.

So what exactly is Brian thinking of for his “daughter”?

Jessi’s excited. I’m guessing she tells Kyle.

The record obviously is to trigger something. It’s the song from the jukebox. It’s the actual 45 from the jukebox, actually. The one that was missing.

That IM is from Jessi. Or maybe from Brian. I’m guessing Brian, actually.

It’s The Song.

Kyle’s going to have to hide Amanda now? This can’t end well.

Like Mrs. Bloom isn’t going to figure out that Amanda didn’t go back east and that she went to Kyle?

Crazy goings-on in the house last night, so I didn’t get to watch. Will watch tonight and discuss tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here’s a photo of our favorite teenaged sorta superhero:

I admit, I get a little tired of the “The Future’s So Bright, I gotta Wear Shades” cliche, so I just couldn’t bring myself to use that in the post title, even thought it was the episode title.

First off, I found last night to be a sort of “very special” episode of Kyle XY.

Sure, we learned more about Kyle and Jessi’s powers — we’d seen Kyle previously step off the Traeger’s roof (early in Season 1, remember Amanda crashes the car into the trash can when she sees him do that?), but that wasn’t as high as the school roof and the ground at the Traegers was lawn rather than the hard blacktop of the parking lot.

And we saw how Kyle was able to manipulate water particles in his experiments with Adam. But his ability to, more or less, levitate was still pretty interesting, as was Jessi’s ability to basically walk across water.

All this indicates that we’ve really only just seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of their abilities. They are, more or less, a whole bunch of superheroes tied up in one hot high school body apiece.

But the whole interaction between Kyle and Jessi was annoying, truth be told. And I just wanted to punch Hillary in the face about five minutes after she made her first appearance — not because she was being mean to Jessi, not because she was so self-absorbed, simply because she was SO. Freakin’. Annoying.

A day late, but not a dollar short.

GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, announced the nominees for its 19th Annual GLAAD Media Awards. As usual, just the TV nominees are listed here. Go to the GLAAD site for the full list here.

Here’s the TV noms:

Drama Series
Brothers & Sisters (ABC)
Degrassi: The Next Generation (The N)
Dirty Sexy Money (ABC)
Greek (ABC Family)
The L Word (Showtime)

Comedy Series
Desperate Housewives (ABC)
Exes and Ohs (Logo)
The Sarah Silverman Program (Comedy Central)
Ugly Betty (ABC)
The War at Home (Fox)

Jessi survived!

I know I didn’t put a spoiler alert before that sentence, but like I said the other day, I can’t imagine anyone actually thought Jessi was going to die when she jumped off that cliff in the mid-season finale of Kyle XY.

OK, except Kyle. And Foss. And Stephen.

OK, except for pretty much everyone on the show (hey – Ballantine didn’t know she survived until she turned up at Madacorp). Geez. Give a girl a break.

Lots happened last night in our first foray back to visit the Traeger family, not least of which was the fact that Nicole, Stephen, Lori and Josh finally know the truth. I have to say, I’m glad that happened. The characters can now develop so much further with them all in on the secret. Though I do have a few thoughts about that:
• When’s Josh going to spill to Andy? I vote next week. Anyone care to wager?
• When did Stephen Traeger become Mr. Mission: Impossible? Oh, that’s right, he didn’t. He got caught before he even managed to halfway finish the job. At least he had the sense to get the transconductor sql cable superthingy connected to the mainframe after Jessi’s psycho window got blown out.
• Nicole, are you stupid? Sneaking into the lion’s den at Madacorp? Didn’t Stephen tell you to stay put?
• Declan’s freakin’ relieved he doesn’t have to lie to Lori anymore. How ’bout those condoms? And, I’m sorry, but it was a little weird when he ripped the head off that little bear.

That’s all OK, because last night was chock-full of all that Kyle XY goodness we love.

Does Jessi XX survive the plunge off the cliff?

I have no inside information, but, seriously, folks — if it’s even crossed your mind that Jessi isn’t alive, you’re fooling yourself.

To get into the spirit of things, I figured I’d share some things that my daily web surfing brought to light, including a preview of “To C.I.R. With Love,” tonight’s second-season mid-season premiere on ABC Family.

It’s been no secret that Kyle finally fesses up to the Tragers and shares his secrets with them. Now the whole family will be in on it and with Stephen working for MadaCorp., they’re uniquely positioned to help him solve the mysteries.

BuddyTV reports that the family heads to a company picnic in an effort to bring the company down. Here’s what Matt Dallas had to say, generally, about how the season is going to unfold:

This show, after they brought us back, they definitely brought the family back to the A- storyline. Last [summer] they went a little more toward the teens, and this year they really wanted to bring the family more into what’s going on in Kyle’s life, the mystery, and integrating them into what’s going on in the story. Which I think is great, because the family is such a great relationship. The family is what brought everybody to the show in the first place. I think it’ll be really great.

As usual, thanks to Ain’t It Cool News for compiling this list of all the upcoming season finale dates, brought to you by the writer’s strike. Basically, most series have very nearly run out of new material, filmed before the strike began. Though this list also includes season finales of many of the shows, such as Jericho and Kyle XY, that start this month and next, as well.

The shows that appear to be missing are the reality and game shows (do they ever really end?), plus a handful of others, such as New Amsterdam and Canterbury’s Law, which were just slipped into the Fox schedule. Amsterdam, as I blogged yesterday, airs its final two episodes in a two-hour finale on April 7. Law begins the next week, on April 14.

I think these omissions are due to the fact that they all end after March, and this list includes all the season finales through March.

Here’s a complete listing, by date, starting (gasp!) tonight:

Too cool. Here’s the Season 2.5 trailer for Kyle XY: