Fall TV: No Ordinary Family

I think this definitely has potential. It has a little bit of The Incredibles, a little bit of Heroes, a little bit of Sky High. I'm not yet sure where it's going, but I'm interested enough to find out.

Our family is the Powells: Michael Chiklis as the dad, Jim; Julie Benz as the mom, Stephanie; and Kay Panabaker and Jimmy Bennett as teenaged kids Daphne and JJ. On a business trip turned family vacation to Brazil, the Powells crash in a small plane into some weird phosphorescent water and discover that they've gained superpowers! Jim, a police artist who considers himself to be kind of a failure, has super strength. Stephanie, a rising scientist who struggles to balance her work and home lives, has super speed. Daphne, dealing your normal teen girl stuff, can now read minds. And JJ, who has trouble in school and thinks he's dumb, is now super smart (though his parents don't know yet).

The parents each have their sidekicks: Jim's is George, an assistant DA who even builds him a high tech lair, and Stephanie's is Katie, her lab assistant played by the adorable Autumn Reeser (love her!). George and Katie are both more enthusiastic about the powers than are the Powells themselves and provide some comic relief. Not that the show is super angsty...one of the things I hated about Heroes was that almost everyone found their powers to be a burden. Remember those mournful videos Claire was making of herself falling off towers and stuff? Here at least we have Stephanie happily speeding through chores and eating a whole plate of muffins (she also has super metabolism) and JJ getting excited reading advanced math books. They're all still figuring out what's going on and having some fun with it.

After two episodes, I think the show is heading towards a Heroes-like mythology, which maybe worries me a little. There's already a bad guy with powers too that has some connection to Stephanie's boss, and Stephanie wants to find out where the powers came from and how to "cure" them (Mohinder Suresh, anyone?). But Jim seems to actually want to, like, catch bank robbers and turn his power into sort of a career, and I'm not sure where they're going to go with the kids. So I'm cautiously optimistic...