XO, Kitty - TV Series Review

In XO, Kitty, Head teenage matchmaker Kitty Song Covey follows her own odyssey to reunite with her long distance boyfriend in a stunning boarding school. Reminding herself of the complexities of her own heart, she is learning lessons of love and individuality of people around the world. XO, Kitty is a spin-off series and follows a theme of teenage romance combined with the memories of her late mother attending the same school. It still maintains comedic relief here and there yet has rather deep undertones that point to the complex theme of young love. LGBTQ+ themed, it provides a much diverse and inclusiveness of the romantic comedies genre. The love story well captures what is usually termed as ‘true love’ within the Asian-American cultural setting and personal transformation.

Anna Cathcart does well portraying Kitty full of vigor and joviality and a deserving recipient of love in the narrative of a teenage girl. A talented main cast is also supported by strong secondary characters; Gia Kim, Sang Heon Lee, Minyeong Choi and Anthony Keyvan enhance the series’ cast with various dynamics of character relationships. The young cast brightly conveys joy and fearlessness, which is characteristic of the years of youth, and authentically embodies the experiences of young people.

Directed by Katina Medina Mora, Jennifer Arnold, and Jeff Chan, the series gently intertwines laughter with compassion. That is why the viewers feel Jenny Han’s and Sarah Choi’s intention, and receive cultural additions to the frame, while at the same time do not lose the idea of teenage life and adolescent love drama.

The music also reflects the series’ mood with young and romantic hits that improve the drama’s fauna. It adds emphasis on key scenes and puts in another layer of emotion, adapting the sounds of today’s popular pop music for its target demographic of teenagers.

The cinematography is great and combines the beautiful ambiance of a British boarding school. It adds youthful vitality of life to the movie and provides the movie with pastel color palette and also works very carefully to capture best cuddle moments between the characters. Focus is paid to details: buildings where scenes take place are credible and convincing as well as characters’ outfits; The use of special effects is limited, but they amaze during particularly emotionally charged moments. Additional multifaceted visual changes assist in adding the overall depth of teen romance and add to the series’ whimsicality.|Efficiently, the show spans around 30 minutes per episode helping both comedy and drama segments be concise yet whole in their narrative. Smooth scene changes allow viewers to watch in comfort.

Tracking of events is fast and fans are presented with wonderful side stories and character developments. They interpose intellectual scenes with actively tense ones, which will ensure that the audience does not lose interest in the storyline revolving around Kitty.

The dialogues are quite sharp and true to the character and type of the show, particularly how teenagers talk to each other. What is more, the script incorporates comedy into drama and embraces cliches, which allows characters to evolve and make people, especially the show’s target audience of young viewers, find their likeness in them.

Over all, despite the playful and romantic dramedy nature of XO, Kitty , the plot is driven by the extrusive cliche and predictable stereotype of typical romantic comedy. Some episodes might be rather episodic than part of a whole, while focusing some more on side characters could help the show to be even more enthralling. On these grounds, however, it is vivacious to a certain extent.

In my opinion, XO, Kitty is a rather charming story about teenage love and growing up. It also has a romantic feel to it, while at the same time being playful and transmitting the values of diversity of contemporary relations. In this context, the series reflects the teenage life more appreciably closer and engaging than it can be in real life.