General Information:
Created by – Jenny Han
Starring – Anna Cathcart (Kitty), Choi Min-young (Dae), Anthony Keyvan (Q), Gia Kim (Yuri), and Sang Heon Lee (Min Ho)
Premise – After being the matchmaker for her older sister, Kitty is ready to take a chance on love for herself as she travels to her mother’s former school in Korea to meet her long-distance online boyfriend and learn more about her mother’s past, but everything is deeper than it appears on the surface.
Review:
“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” was one of my favorite trilogies of movies and books as it was always so wholesome and cutesy, playing with the stereotypical rom-com tropes but in a new and refreshing way for the late 2010s. Due to its success, Netflix decided to give the popular little sister character, Kitty, her own spin-off TV series. When this was first announced, I thought it was just another way for a major streaming service to bank off of one IP’s success and milk it for all that it is worth. But “XO, Kitty” is something that can exist on its own without having to rely on the stars of the movies that made it possible, another refreshing change of pace from what has been becoming popular in recent media.
The charm of Cathcart is what drives the show to be as cute as it is. It has that same “To All the Boys” feel without having to constantly mention that it is a spin-off. We start the show with Kitty convincing her dad and step-mom to let her attend her mother’s former international high school, the Korean International School of Seoul (KISS), making them the only recurring characters to physically show up in the show and only for a brief period of time. Her sisters, Margot and Lara Jean, are also only mentioned by name sporadically throughout the series but never make an appearance. If you knew nothing about the “To All the Boys” universe, you could easily get into this show and not be lost. It’s fun to know more of the background information and they do make fun hints to the original movies, but this show can stand on its own, making it even more enjoyable than it already is.
The characters we follow are in some ways a little one-dimensional that has one trait being the main focus over the rest of who they are as a person (the gay one, the rich spoiled one, etc.). They do try to go more in depth with who they are as people throughout the season, but a lot of it is at the end where the storylines begin to feel rushed. While I loved every single character for who they were trying to portray, I wish the series explored each of them more without having to give us the best information at the end. Even though Kitty is the main character and this is her story, I wish there was just extra time in the episodes to dedicate to one person and have them be the driving force of the episode rather than the side character who gets their small B-plot. I know that this show is not going to be the most groundbreaking when it comes to character development, but in my hopes a season two is coming, this is the first thing that I would make adjustments for now that we know who they are.
The story is simple and something that you can shut your brain off and enjoy. Now, most people would take that as a bad thing, but I think that is what makes this show thrive. It is simple and fun and that is exactly what this type of show needs. If it took itself too seriously, that would be a major departure from what we have come to love about Kitty. I also think that it would have taken away from how anyone can get into the show without having to have prior knowledge on who Kitty is. With its flowing and care-free approach, the story is sacrificed a bit but for a greater purpose. The episodes are short and feel short which is a nice change of pace with how long television has gotten in the rise of streaming services. You can easily finish it in a day or two and get on with your life with a new cutesy show to talk about.
Overall, the show is fun and light and does something nice by not relying heavily on its previous work to justify its existence. I am praying for season two so we can fix issues that the first season had, like the simple characters and not having enough time to flesh them out, while keeping the ease of the show that made it so much fun to watch.
