"Kyle XY" Is "Saved" By "The Closer"

Three new shows airing on Monday nights. I can see why Kyra Sedgwick's "The Closer" is a hit -- it's a relatively straighforward cop show, with Sedgwick drawling out her Southern niceties while tearing through a crime scene like a bloodhound on a trail. But comparing her to Jane Tennison of "Prime Suspect" is a huge leap, even if Sedgwick does have a shabby personal life. But don't people ever wait for their lawyers? Sedgwick ends every episode by cornering a suspect in interrogation and pulling out the info she needs with the ease of Perry Mason cracking a witness on the stand. I thought that sort of manuever went the way of Dudley Do-Right. It's hard to imagine it working when even punk gang members know enough to ask for their "Johnny" (ie Johnny Cochrane ie their lawyer) the second they're arrested.

I kind of like Tom Everett Scott (of "That Thing You Do!") in "Saved" and David Clennon (Miles from "thirtysomething") has some very good moments as his surgeon father. But this meandering look at EMT workers is toothless and confusing. When they touch a patient on the scene, we get a black and white flashback quickly showing us the backstory of the victim. (For a minute, I thought our hero was psychic.) But the accidents are way too "crazy," from a guy falling "out of the sky" onto a woman's car to a crazed dad upset his son is gay going into a gay bar with a hatchet. Throw in Scott's ex-girlfriend and a swishy gay loan shark he owes a gambling debt to (!) and you've got a lot more going on than it's worth keeping track of.

And "Kyle XY" is a pseudo sci-fi mush of everything from "Powder" to "Starman" and a million other sci-fi TV shows, movies and books all whipped together. Our good looking alien (how come aliens made to appear human are never ugly or at least average looking?) just pops up in the middle of the woods and is soon ensconced at the suburban home of a social worker/psychiatrist and her dull, anonymous family. Kyle "observes" the family with endless voice-overs that range from dull to treacly -- though I did like the scene where he feels a pain in his stomach (everything is new to Kyle) and then suddenly feels very, very good and we realize he's peed in his pants. You don't see that every day. But the cast -- Kyle aside -- is too weak to rise above the generic material.