Kyle XY: We're not twelve-year-olds at summer camp.

Kyle XY:
Lori's having a bit of a rough time getting over her attack, so she.... decides to go hang out in the woods right near the former Zzyzx headquarters. Wow. For once I agree with Declan; that was a really horrible idea...and an extremely slap-dash, ill-conceived and heavy handed plot device on the part of the writers. But once you got past the stupid premise, this episode was rather good.

Hmm, this episode did, however, bring my hopes for a Loryle hook-up crashing down around me, a la the weird, automatic metal doors in the old underground Zzyzx headquarters. My bet is that the Kyle XY execs realized there have been some Lori/Kyle sparks flying the last few eps and decided to squash them as hard as they could in this ep. Why else would Kyle make such a point of calling Lori his "sister" and Lori make such a point of calling Kyle her "brother." There were three sibling references in the episode. Crap!

Not that Kyle really has much room in his life for Lori now that both Amanda and Jessi want him. But question: did Jessi suddenly forsake Declan for Kyle because Zzyzx reprogrammed her, or because she got a good look at Declan's hideous shirt? What was that thing? I welcomed the ill-conceived outing to the woods just because it meant he would put a jacket over that weird, shiny thing.

Notables:

• Kern was back. I had forgotten all about him. He was a jerk!
• Josh: "Tell her 'no' and feel free to slap her upside the head."
• Declan: "We're not twelve-year-olds at summer camp." (Declan speaking reason kind of disconcerts me sometimes.)
• Amanda: "Kyle's totally Fred, minus the blond hair and the scarf." (Whoa, Amanda said something funny! Write down the day!)
• Andy: "I can't believe you brought Sour Patch Kids, but no matches." (Oh, Andy, if you had seen an episode of Kyle XY before, you'd believe it. Trust me.)
• The reprogramming was unnecessary. Even if Jessi hadn't been in love with Kyle before, she definitely would have been after he saved her in the tunnel. Who wouldn't be after that?
• More proof that Kyle XY has tapped into my iPod: the use of "Fire Island AK" and "The Funeral," two of the songs from my Best Songs of 2006 play list. (And, incidentally, the second time today I've heard "The Funeral" used; the first was in the trailer for the movie Penelope, which I really want to see...but we'll save discussing my undying love for James McAvoy for another time.)
• So the real person we're not supposed to trust is Taylor? That's kind of anticlimactic since we haven't even seen that guy in weeks.
• And we finally kind of have an explanation for Andy's headaches. Perhaps Josh will learn some life lessons from this situation--he needs a few.

I realize that TV shows about boys with superpowers don't tend to like letting the girls on the show know anything at all, but it seems to me like Kyle would have much fewer problems if he let Lori and Amanda in the loop a little bit. For one, there would be no daytrips to abandoned tunnels. Also, Amanda would understand that Kyle can withstand more methane exposure than the rest of them. And, next week, she wouldn't be taking a page out of the Lois Lane Handbook for Girlfriends of Superheroes and bitching Kyle out for missing a date because he was off dealing with some superhero problem.

Sweetest Exchange of the Night:
Amanda: Does this mean that you're impressed with me too?
Kyle: I'm always impressed with you.

Greek:

I didn't enjoy this episode as much as I liked last week's. There were, after all, no references to running on vomit :-)

Rusty's new girlfriend was cute. It was nice that Casey's boyfriend got to be not a complete jerk this episode. Dale (Clark and Michael's Clark) stole the show. My favorite part was when he was trying to have a conversation a dumb kid at the party was like, "You go to college?" Ha ha. I definitely ran into a few kids I was baffled were college students during my college career too.

My Boys:
I loved the comparison of Bobby to "a young Harry Hamlin." Hilarious. Too bad Harry Hamlin scares the crap out of me thanks to Veronica Mars.

A Very Solid Monday

Wow. A solid 3-hour chunk of original television on a Monday night in July? Crazy! But thoroughly enjoyable.

Kyle XY:
So now Kyle can telepathically communicate with coma victims. Who does he think he is? Marlena from Days of Our Lives? ("Come to me in dreams, John! In dreeeeeeeeams!") Oh well. Anything that causes Kyle to wake up covered in pastel powder is fine with me.

I assume that I wasn't the only one who saw that it was Jessi who knocked Lori out and stole her necklace coming from a mile away. Next week looks interesting, as it seems the reprogrammed Jessi likes Kyle instead of Declan. So, I guess, "reprogramming" just means giving her some common sense. (Sorry, Declan and his frosted tips, vapid personality, and somewhat strange-looking eyebrows do nothing for me.)

I suppose the big news from tonight's ep was that Kyle and Amanda finally kissed. Not sure why the "timing wasn't right" while they were having the heart-to-heart in his bedroom earlier, but I guess it finally was in the gardens after talking about her dead father again. Those two are certainly a strange lot. The kiss was pretty hot--but would have been much better if ABC Family hadn't already been showing it in the promos all week.

Speaking of promos, next week they're touring through an underground metal maze. What happened: did they accidentally end up in an episode of second season Lost? Poor Lori. She doesn't get to have any of the boys, but she sure seems to have a lot of crap happening to her lately like getting beat up in the alley and locked behind weird automatic metal doors.

Greek:
Hmm. I'm definitely glad I gave this show another try last night. I enjoyed last night's ep much more than the other 1.5 episodes of it I've watched.

Cappie is growing on me. My major reservation about him is still that he makes me really miss his apparent role models, Hidden Palms' Cliff and Veronica Mars' Dick Casablancas. And missing those two makes me depressed because they are gone. But even though the kid playing Cappie is no Michael Cassidy or Ryan Hansen, he definitely didn't deserve the senator's daughter saying that he looks like Rob Thomas! Ouch! Seriously low blow.

Cappie definitely is the comedic highlight of the show. He has a tendency to over do it, but often he's very funny:

"We're down three goals, there's a minute left. There's only one thing to do: start drinking now."
and,

Quote of the Night:
"We may be puking, but the Omega Chis are not used to running on puke like we are."

My other favorite part of the show is Dale a.k.a. Clark of Clark and Michael. No surprise though: Michael Cera has good taste. Dale's a riot. I love whenever he and Rusty talk physics (because physics geeks really are that nerdy), his borderline-scary religiousness (going to "the most fantastic Left Behind party ever!" and pointing out that "the next one might be in heaven"), and his hot yellow shorts!

What I definitely don't like about this show is the senator's daughter pledge girl. She's so annoying. And are there really people like her in real life? I would recommend that the people in charge of Greek write her off the show and give all of her airtime to Dale.

Two final observations:

Whatever town this college is in is extremely lax in enforcing the underage drinking laws. Does no one ever card Rusty at the bar? He looks like he's 14.

ABC Family is a product placement whore. If it's not Sour Patch Kids, it's Andy Samberg movies... ("Hot Rod? Hilarious." First of all, I seriously doubt that, and somehow I really don't think Casey would find that movie funny either.)

My Boys:
This show is much better if you can somehow train yourself not to pay attention to the voice-over.

Highlights from the two episodes:

• Bobby's NASCAR sound effects
• A cameo from 30 Rock's Kenneth! He's so cute.
• "What am I, a heroin addict? How am I supposed to sleep in the chair?"
• "You put the lotion in the freakin basket!" (he he, what was she talking about?)

I personally didn't find P.J.'s performance on the talk show to be any worse than everyone else's, but whatever, it was funny.

Original, quality programming on the internet! Score!

Clark and Michael:

So if you're not feeling the summer onslaught of crappy look-alike, talent show, lyric remembering, hidden camera reality programming, the good news is that there are now other places to turn to than the major networks. Basic cable is now pulling it's own weight (I'm of course partial to Kyle XY and Damages), but also don't undercount the good ol' internet!

I'm a couple of months late to jump on this bandwagon, but I'm totally in love with the internet episodes featuring Michael Cera (my beloved George Michael Bluth) and Clark Duke (from Greek). Michael Cera could say absolutely anything and it's a distinct possibility that I'll fall off my chair laughing at it. I love, love, love him. Even though (and perhaps partially because) he tends to dress like a grandfather. You're definitely going to want to check out clarkandmichael.com and experience the wonderfulness that is Michael Cera (yep, I linked to it twice: I mean business).

Best line from Episode 1:

Michael: I mean, maybe it's me, but I have a feeling that there's a whole undiscovered, untapped market of shows that aren't about forensic scientists or police officers or school teachers or some such shit.