No Ordinary Family: Season Wrap Up

No Ordinary Family and I have had quite an interesting first season. Before the season started, I had high hopes for the show. It sounded like everything that made Heroes interesting, except with more heart being built around one family. But then the show started and it was just... okay. Not terrible but it definitely did not draw me in either. The cast was well chosen and all the characters were likable with Michael Chicklis as the father, Julie Benz (Darla from Buffy!) as the mom, Kay Panabaker (usually annoying) as the daughter, a well chosen son in Jimmy Bennett, Autumn Reeser (who I adore from her OC days!) as the mom's sidekick and Romany Malco as the dad's sidekick. Great cast!

But... it all still sort of fell flat. I recorded each episode on my DVR and waited weeks before watching the episode. The show felt lackluster and I could not, still cannot, quite put a finger on what it was missing. Maybe it needed added dimensionality to the characters, especially the villains. Maybe it just needed more interesting challenges. Maybe it needed not to have killed off so many potentially interesting good guys right in the beginning. I have NO idea. In any case, of the first 15 or so episodes, I do not think I could name any particularly memorable episode.

However! This somehow changed the final few episodes. I'm not sure what the exact change was, but Katie's fiance/boyfriend added so much to the show and I was sad when he left. Or maybe I liked that the family finally figured out how to better use the kids' powers (uh, hello Dr. Stephanie Powell, you're trying to figure out this complicated formula and you don't think to borrow the superbrain powers of your son?!). Ooh, or Daphne's annoying boyfriend came and left in a few storylines (THANK YOU). But somehow there was more to enjoy and be glad about in the show and less to be bored by. The Powells spent less time being stupid and more time trying to stop the bad guys and bad things from happening. The powers started to evolve in interesting ways, ie. super speed became time travel, pulling thoughts from others' heads became pushing thoughts into others' heads. Lastly, the season finale twist was interesting (both plane crash and Katie's super baby) and set up perfectly for an interesting season 2. Well, if there is a second season of No Ordinary Family gets renewed, which I now do hope gets renewed! One final note, it'll be nice not to have Reverend Camden come back in future episodes.

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...