"Michael Chiklis"

No Ordinary Family “No Ordinary Future” Review

SE 1: Episode 19 “No Ordinary Future”

In a special second episode this week, the Powells are confronted by “No Ordinary Future.” Trying to clear her head after her injuries and being injected by the power granting serum last episode, Steph goes for a run. Her powers, likely from said serum, develop a new twist, as she ends up a ghost slightly in the future, unseen and unheard by her family, the army, and the FBI that surround her home. The family is getting ready to make some kind of last stand, but Steph is suddenly yanked back to the present before things play out.

Jim and George go to Detective Cardero’s farewell party, but before the poor detective can enjoy his new job, or even leave the party, he is gunned down in the street. This is the second cop friend of Jim’s to get killed in this show, not a good pattern. There are minor developments with Mr. Litchfield the evil teacher and Katie’s pregnancy, and Chris tries to get Daphne to mind-push his boss into a raise.

In a surprise, very comic book development, shape shifter Victoria comes back from the dead. Mrs. X, as Lucy Lawless’ character is known, manages to revive her, supposedly with off-camera help from Joshua/Will, Katie’s ex. Mrs. X then sends Victoria to learn more about Katie and her baby. Chris throws a fit when Daphne finally develops some morals about using her powers and declines to whammy his boss. Katie and Steph find changes in Steph’s body chemistry, likely from her time-jaunts.

Steph finally shares her future runs with the family, but their planning is interrupted when George calls to say the late Det. Cardero’s home has been broken into and searched, and they found evidence indicating that Cardero was working on dirty cops. Steph gets more clues from the future, and figures out that whatever is going to happen that blows their secret happens “today.”

One of the cops confides in Jim that he thinks he knows who some of the dirty cops are, and will meet Jim later with proof. While Katie gets her exam from the disguised Victoria, Jim gets ambushed at his meeting site, leading him to believe that Det O’Bannon, who confided in him, set him up.

Everything comes together when Steph learns that Jim, saving George’s life, exposes their powers. Steph calls him and tells him what happens, presenting the difficult choice of risking George’s life vs. protecting their secret. Armed with the fore-knowledge, Jim manages to take out the sniper without drawing attention this time. When Jim learns of a second shooter, he enlists back-up in the form of Daphne and her telepathy. Daphne even manages to push O’Bannon into surrendering his weapon without the need for flashy heroics. This finally leads to Daphne sharing the secret of her pushing power with the family.

The family meeting leads to them pushing her to use her powers to make Chris forget they have powers. She fights them, but gives in. In a really harsh object lesson, Daphne makes the attempt, and succeeds too well. Chris doesn’t recall the powers, but also has no memory of his relationship with Daphne. JJ comforts her after finding her to tell her that Mr. Litchfield seems to have gone missing.

In an ominous development, “Mrs X” reviews the information that Victoria got on Katie’s baby. The child has signs of powers already, and Mrs. X tells Victoria to acquire the child for them, and then later dispose of Katie. We never do quite hear what Victoria did to the doctor who was supposed to give Katie the exam, but as he’d be making reports and sounding alarms were he still around, I suspect he’s dead.

What I liked and what I didn’t:

This show is continuing to hugely improve. Steph’s powers are jumped up by the serum on top of her powers, and it seems like the writers have undergone some similar change. The show has more depth, the characters are better developed and more well rounded, and the plots are deeper. They also seem to have done away with the irksome “High school hijinks” on-going subplots, while also avoiding the “freak of the week” bit that Smallville went through at one time. While I’m not nuts about the time travel to avoid a certain event trope, this was decently handled. Mrs. X continues to be intriguing. I’m also a bit worried about Katie and her baby-to-be, but I think that’s a sign of good writing.

There wasn’t much I didn’t like here. Chris was pushing again about using Daphne’s power to benefit him, but he relented before she used her power on him. I really don’t like Daphne losing her boyfriend because she more or less caved into her parents’ paranoia. And I miss Joshua, he was an intriguing character. I think Steph kept both her trips to the future and what she was learning to herself a bit too much, but maybe that’s me.

Speaking of, some thoughts here. Yes, he was the last one seen with Victoria, but I think Joshua’s reformation was legit. I doubt he went to such lengths to bring Victoria back, especially after she attacked Katie. But, we never actually see that he did, we just have Mrs X’s word for it. And we know she can’t be trusted. We also never see Joshua this episode, although he gets talked around a lot. So I’m both thinking and hoping it wasn’t him. My thoughts on Vicki’s (she’d hate being called that) return go to either the shape shifting letting her heal, or some kind of clone or something from Mrs. X and King’s lab.

No Ordinary Family “No Ordinary Animal” Review

Daphne meets the clawed Winnick while cutting class- she should'a stayed in school!

No Ordinary Family “No Ordinary Animal” Review

No Ordinary Family “No Ordinary Love” Review

This week's guest villains

No Ordinary Family “No Ordinary Love” Review

This week, the Powell’s are dealing with “No Ordinary Love.” Katie is hanging out at the Powell’s place, trying to get over Joshua, and driving Jim crazy with charades and various board games. Jim rushes off to stop a robbery, where a guy with no record robs a drug store of over the counter medicines, oddly. Jim stops him, and elsewhere, Dr. King has found another lab rat for his serum, and plans to use his case to test Steph.

George is gloating over how easy it will be to convict the drug store robber, and then gets visited by the “freak of the week,” to use the phrase from Smallville. This one is a woman who can make men obey her. George not only drops the case, but after seeing her again, goes and robs what seems to be the same drug store. And for the high school silliness, Daphne uses her powers to get Chris out of detention.

Jim arrives on the scene, and gets a description, and ends up sketching George. George seems to not recall his robbery. Back at the school, Chris shows he’s not just a bad boy love interest, and has worked out Daphne’s powers, especially after his father saw Jim and Steph’s powers. Daphne tries to dismiss it with a joke about being a Jedi Master, but ends up using her powers to make him stop asking.

Jim and Steph go out on a double date with George and his new interest, Sophie the Siren. George is acting really weird, catering to Sophie’s every whim, and hugely defensive of Sophie. Jim is ranting to Steph about how he doesn’t trust Sophie, who comes back and puts Jim under her spell. Steph is surprised by the sudden change in Jim.

Daphne starts living her own version of Groundhog Day, as Chris keeps asking about her family, and she keeps pushing him to stop. Jim goes to Sophie’s place, runs into George, they sort of fight, and Sophie learns of Jim’s powers. Sophie then sends Jim off to steal more things for her, trailed by Steph, who was in turn tipped off by Daphne’s telepathy.

Steph sees Jim and Sophie kissing, and later confronts him. Jim leaves to be with Sophie, and drops his stuff off at George’s. Interestingly, George doesn’t even remember who Sophie is. George and JJ compare notes, and start figuring out what’s happening. We see that Sophie is working for someone connected to Dr. King (isn’t everyone?), who is played by Lucy “Xena” Lawless, while King’s new lab rat is the actor who plays Duke on the Sci Fi network series Haven.

JJ and George find chemicals at Sophie’s place, and JJ uses his super brain to deduce that they are parts to make a bomb. Meanwhile Sophie sends Jim off to plant said bombs, apparently at the place where King keeps his experiments. Steph injects the new test case to prove her loyalty to King, trying to learn about who he works for, as hinted at by Joshua. Steph tries to stop Jim, and Sophie sends Jim off to blow the building up. Steph goes after him, revealing her own powers to Sophie. Steph manages to snap Jim out of it, but he seems to remember Sophie and what happened, unlike George. Their tender moment is interrupted when the bomb arms, which Jim throws far away to explode in the air. Sophie reports her failure to “Xena” (we never learn her character name), and gets blown up.

Daphne finally gives up, and lets Chris retain his train of thought about her super family, and that scene goes very well for them, ending with a long kiss. Steph goes to check on her new patient, and finds not only is the prisoner gone, but the file she read on him was a fake- he’s not a check fraud guy, he’s a four time murderer. The patient is with King, and demonstrates his new power- popping claws from his knuckles, making King remark “Well, that’s a new one.” As he leaves King’s office, the new patient gets picked up by Xena, who seems to know what his new powers are already.

What I liked and what I didn’t:

There is some great teamwork on this one. George letting JJ help him was a good touch. The revelation of a power working against King is an interesting development. I wonder how far either organization reaches? Steph was a likable character in this one, and her love for Jim and her family was very apparent. When George is hearing about what Jim is doing with Sophie, he makes a crack about Jim “acting like Charlie Sheen,” which I loved.

About the only thing I didn’t like is that Katie has only one small scene, and Joshua is wholly gone. Their subplot was one of the parts of the show I have enjoyed the most. It would have been nice if Sophie’s power had broken stereotype and worked on women as well.

I didn’t like Daphne using her power on Chris over and over again, but their final scene worked well, so I’ll call that a wash. I’m looking forward to seeing more about the group “Xena” there is working for/running.

No Ordinary Powell Review

Shapeshifting Victoria, up to her wily ways

No Ordinary Powell Review

This week’s episode is called “No Ordinary Powell.” After the lead up last week, we see Steph walk into the living room, which is trashed, and finds what seems to be Jim dead on the floor. In a somewhat overused plot device, we then see “twelve hours earlier.”

Daphne is still using her mind control powers amazingly irresponsibly, and gets Steph to give her an advance on her allowance. Steph is going to go to work as if nothing was different, trying to scheme a way to get information from Dr. King. She also tells Katie what’s going on with King.

Back to the painful high school hijinks, JJ is still trying to get back with Natalie, who still shoots him down, and then spills that her mother was murdered. After she sees a woman with a locket like the one her mother used to wear, she somewhat freaks out. JJ decides to look into it, and while talking to Daphne about it, says it’s not to get her back, he hated seeing her looking so upset about her past. We also see the shapeshifter that works for Dr. King posing as Stephanie, going through her room, and not improvising real well with the kids when they find her.

Meanwhile, Jim is trying to trace down someone King has been calling a lot, to get information so Steph doesn’t need to be “undercover.” The apartment he finds is suspiciously bare of any personal details, until Jim find a board set up with pictures and details about his family. Victoria the shifter then changes to Daphne to continue her search of the home. The unknowing JJ gives away his and Daphne’s powers to the doppleganger.

Steph and Dr, King (does this man have a first name?) fence back and forth about her continuing the late Dr. Child’s research. Jim tells Steph about the surveillance information he found, and then tries to warn the kids, but gets Victoria-as-Daphne on the phone. Daphne and JJ continue their attempt at sleuthing, and Daphne reveals her new mind control powers to JJ as they get a lead on the locket.

Jim confronts shifty Vicky when she gets home, but she gets away after macing him (apparently his invulnerability doesn’t extend to gas attacks). She gets away and reports back to Dr. King the new information about the kids having powers as well. We finally learn what Vicky has been searching the house for- signs of the super serum. King then orders Victoria to eliminate Jim, and she asks if this is for the program or because of his feelings for her.

Back on the Katie/Will a.k.a. Joshua front, he’s going into withdrawal without the serum again, and won’t go back to King despite Katie’s urgings. Instead of going to Steph, Will wants Katie to try and make a batch herself. So now everyone’s running around keeping secrets. Daphne finds, to her annoyance, that her new control powers don’t work on JJ because of his super brain. Katie gets caught by Steph, and spills Joshua’s secret. Vicky shifts into George to try and ambush Jim, and then finds out that he’s not just strong, as her bullet bounces off Jim’s back. She slips out, and Jim starts to figure out that Vicky is the shapeshifter Steph met a while back. Apparently Jim is color-blind, as he calls the very blonde Vicky a red-head.

Daphne and JJ’s attempt at playing Hardy Boys leads to a man who used to work with Natalie’s mother, and Daphne’s power kicks in again, showing her the shooting. This co-worker’s wife is apparently the shooter. Kyle Rainey, the co-worker, is less than pleased when Melissa, his wife, attacks the kids. But after Daphne calls for help, Jim pulls off a last minute rescue, once again showing off his powers.

Steph has a meeting with Joshua, telling him she will help him, but she will come after him if he ever hurts her. Steph then comes home as Jim yells at the kids for the risk they took in their “investigation.” Unfortunately, Steph then calls to say she’s running late. The shapeshifter revealed, she turns into Jim for Jim-to-Jim combat after the kids are sent upstairs. She’s already used the lip gloss we saw several episodes ago to damp down Jim’s powers, and the fight is ugly. Where the kids are in all this, we have no idea. Jim eventually wins, and staggers off to check on the kids, which is when Steph comes home to find the dead Jim from the beginning of the episode. Dead Jim turns back into Victoria, and Joshua/Will shows up to help hide the body. Will warns them that “this whole thing is much bigger than Dr. King,” and they are going to try and fool King into thinking Victoria is still alive.

The wrap up shows JJ giving Natalie her mom’s locket. The more interesting scene is Stephanie pretending to be Victoria pretending to be Stephanie. She manages to fool King, largely by flattering him a lot about how much “Stephanie” likes him. Steph buys them some time, although she looks almost ill afterwards. Next week’s previews look very eventful- Steph finishes her attempt at the serum, someone steals it, and ends up “stronger than Jim,” as we see Jim knocked back through a wall.

What I liked and what I didn’t:

This was one of their best shows yet. The writing is consistently improving, and they create some good dramatic tension with Victoria’s impersonations in this one. Kay Panabaker, who plays Daphne, did fantastically, changing her body language and pronounciations when she was “Victoria.” Jim, Steph, and George all worked together reasonably well, and Daphne was willing to reveal her new power to help JJ. For the record, I do think JJ was trying to help Natalie. I mean, he’ll be thrilled if they get back together, but I think he’d be satisfied with the outcome even if not.

There were much fewer errors and false notes on this one. My concerns are just this- Jim is still roaming around, using his powers, without trying to hide who he is. Tonight, he wrenched the garage door off the Rayner’s place, and shoved the Jeep into them. Yes, he was worried about his kids, but really, how does this get covered up later? My other gripe is they seem to go really quickly from finding out Will/Josh is lying to them about various things, that he works for Dr. King, to trusting him with disposing of a body. They also seem to adapt to Jim killing Victoria really quickly.

This show is getting much better, and I hope it makes it back for a second season.

No Ordinary Double Standard Review

Jim and Steph finally start working together

No Ordinary Double Standard Review

The Powell family is plagued by “No Ordinary Double Standard” in this week’s episode. Steph goes out to dinner with an old friend named Lena. Lena calls Steph from home, but gets attacked mid-phone call. Steph speeds over to help, and finds her friend on the floor, out cold and bleeding. Steph offers to help Jim look into it, he declines, and they begin some truly pointless juvenile bickering that keeps coming up throughout the show.

Other developments include JJ being asked out by senior girl Bailey from the last episode, which Jim thinks is ok, and Daphne being asked out by her bad boy Chris, which both of the parents veto. With the titular double standards firmly established, we’re off and running on this week’s show.

The Katie/Will subplot continues, with Will making her breakfast. It’s an amusing scene, but it shows how powerful he could be- he’s flipping pancakes with his TK, then picks Katie up easily. He’s capable of sustained focus on several fronts at once, which a lot of TK-folks can’t do. We also see someone with the ability to turn to smoke creeping around the edges of the plot, apparently the one who beat up friend Lena. The Jim/Steph bickering continues through an amazingly painful attempt at both of them investigating in competition with each other. Steph even tries to do her own version of a suspect sketch, which comes out looking like something I’d do, and trust me, I have NO artistic ability at all.

Daphne tries to prove Bailey is just using JJ, and to her amazement, her telepathy tells her Bailey does actually seem to like JJ. Steph rushes to a likely suspect, barely beating Jim there, and indulges in the show’s tendency to display their powers in front of people but somehow not get caught- in this case taking the man’s car keys from his hands. The ever evil Dr. King stops by Will’s place to harass and threaten him some more. There is another great scene of one of the show’s strengths, a montage cutting back and forth between Jim and George on one side and Steph and Katie on the other, arguing their sides of this silly feud. Daphne also finds out, to her surprise, that the reverse is true, and that JJ is actually using Bailey to try and get over his own recent breakup.

Katie visits George to try and talk about “keeping things in perspective” but she actually taps into George’s computers in “the lair.” Later, when an alarm goes off, our two heroes rush off to try and beat each other to the scene, and confront the robber, who turns to smoke and gets out of Jim’s grasp, surprising Jim and Steph both. The heroes and their sidekicks agree to work together, and George finally gets a lead on Mist Man. JJ finally confesses to Bailey that he’s not sure this is right as he’s thinking about someone else (good for him), and Daphne flips out when Chris figures out she lied to date him and suggests she not lie to her dad (Daphne apparently inherited Steph’s bitch gene). Dr. King continues trying to separate Katie and Will, telling Katie that he saw Will on the lab security equipment and that he was involved with Dr. Childs, Steph’s co-worker who was recently killed. Jim and Steph figure out that a lot of scientists have recently been attacked at home, and that all the super villains they’ve run across are also tied into the same prison. As Jim goes off to investigate, Mist Man seeps into Steph’s shower and says he needs to talk to her.

Mist Man didn’t come to fight, he actually needs help. He can’t remember what happened to him, or exactly how he got his powers. Points where they’re due, Steph and Jim agree to help, but once Mist Man figures out Dr, King was the one in charge of the lab, he takes off in search of revenge. Chris, being no fool, follows Daphne after she stalks off, and interferes in someone trying to mug her. When the thug pulls a gun, Daphne manifests another power I was wondering if she’d end up with- mind control. The confused thug walks away.

Mist Man attacks King, knocking him out just before Steph and then Jim arrive. Mist Man nearly chokes out Steph, but Jim uses a tank of liquid nitrogen to freeze the guy. He escapes through the vents. Katie later confronts Will with her info from Dr. King, and he mind controls her into forgetting it. Daphne also uses the same power on her dad when she gets home from her forbidden date.

The show ends with a very interesting montage. Dr. King is being honored at some dinner, with Steph giving the introductory speech. As she does this we see scenes of Steph’s friend being captured by someone with tranquilizer darts, and the same weapon being used on Mist Man (I never did get his name, they did say it once). More troubling, we also see a flashback to Dr. King reviewing the lab footage of the attack on him, and he clearly sees both Steph and Jim use their powers.

What I liked and what I didn’t:

The cut scene argument was very well done, as they tend to be. JJ using Bailey, while not nice, was at least an unexpected twist. The show is interesting in that they don’t quite seem to manage their main characters well, but are continuously surprising us with the minor ones. Will developed into a great support character, and the Will/Katie scenes have become one of the best parts of the show. Now, bad boy Chris is showing a lot more depth and concern that you’d expect, and even Bailey is not the one-dimensional stereotype she seemed at first.

Steph is often difficult to like, and this episode Jim and Daphne both caught the same thing. The fight between Jim and Steph was utterly ridiculous. These are the parents, the mature adults? I was disappointed in Katie actually helping with this silliness, installing the computer tap on George’s machine. Daphne both getting mad at Chris and then using the mind powers on her dad was just wrong of her. Likewise, Will mind wiping Katie. And Steph really needs to have a long chat with her sidekick. A comic geek like Katie (or me) could think of a lot more ways Steph could be using her powers- such as the old stand by of using her arms to disperse the guy in his mist form.

I think this show started off slow, but I will give them points for getting both better and more complicated as they go. They seem to be hitting their stride, and I hope they make it to another season to keep going.

No Ordinary Family “No Ordinary Sidekick” Review

Jim wonders what he's doing as a train approaches

No Ordinary Sidekick “No Ordinary Sidekick”

This week, the focus of the episode is “No Ordinary Sidekicks” on No Ordinary Family. The extended family is out for a night of bowling, complicated by powers for most of them. George, ever the eager hero-phile, brought his police scanner, and found out about a robbery at a nearby dry-cleaner. Naturally, Jim leaps off to the rescue. Somehow, George arrives just a few moments later (an ongoing problem on this show, as it was on Greatest American Hero), and warns Jim the cops are on the way. George sees the pipe Jim used to drop them (why he suddenly used a pipe we don’t know), picks it up to wipe off fingerprints to cover for Jim, and gets found by the police. George is acclaimed as a hero, and gets all manner of attention, awards, and press.

Meanwhile, Daphne finally goes to Stephanie about her concerns about “Will” and confesses both that she can’t read his mind and that JJ faked the online profile “Will” used to start dating Katie in the first place. Steph tries to bring these concerns to Katie, and Katie sort of freaks out. In a nicely done scene, dual conversations occur between Steph/Katie and Jim/George as the sidekicks both more or less “break up” with the heroes.

George goes off an ego trip, and is too busy with public appearances to help Jim with either the usual navigation or his follow up on the dry cleaning robbery, and Katie confesses her new doubts to “Will” who changes his story to seeing Katie waiting for her date the night they met, and deciding to step in.

Other subplots include JJ’s super brain stopping working around a cute girl (he’s a guy, it happens), and Detective Cardero figuring out that Jim saved his life (last episode). The more interesting additional plot is the fired Dr. Childs confronting Dr. King. King sets up Childs to look insane, and Childs slips some of the serum he got spying on King to Steph. Steph is amazed when the rat starts super speeding on its wheel. Steph agrees to meet Childs, but Will, now calling himself Joshua, gets their first and sets up Childs’ suicide.

Jim and George make up, and stop the would-be train robbers. Jim even proves he is, in fact, more powerful than a locomotive. In a rather ominous scene, Will/Joshua goes to the Powell home. He says he’s there to speak with Stephanie, but Daphne will do. What starts as a talk about Katie goes south when Daphne “sees” Will kill Childs. He uses his TK to clear everything out of his way and gets to her, hand extended menacingly.

The show wraps with everyone making up, Steph sharing her insights with Jim that the supers they’ve been fighting are test subjects (although she’s been led to believe it was Childs behind it by King), George salutes the “many heroes” in his award speech. A bit disturbingly, as Steph and Jim’s talk is interrupted by Daphne coming downstairs, asking to be excused from the family trip. The parents look confused, and work out that Daphne is missing three months worth of memories, or everything since the accident that gave them their powers.

What I liked and what I didn’t:

I think the writing is improving steadily on the show. The scenes with Will seem to be the best parts of the show, although I’m not wholly sure why. Katie also continues to be amusing, although her reaction to Steph’s concern seemed really forced. The bit with Dr. Childs was interesting, but I think they killed him off too soon.

The alternating comedic subplots with the kids continue to be a weak point, although JJ and his girl was more amusing than most. Jim continues to use his powers in broad daylight, and Steph is starting to do the same, like at the bowling alley. And in general, the show seems to continue the theme of “no consequences-“ between the heroics with no masks, and Will wholesale erasing Daph’s memories. Gee, the telepath was worried about someone, and was talking to people about him, and gee, he also can’t be mind-read, and now she can’t remember anything. No, nothing suspicious there.

No Ordinary Anniversary Review

Steph looks hot in No Ordinary Anniversary

No Ordinary Anniversary Review

No Ordinary Family- “No Ordinary Marriage”

No Ordinary Family main cast photo

Waning, here there be many spoilers.

No ordinary Family has the Powells continuing to try and get a handle on their new powers in episode two, “No Ordinary Marriage.” The father, Jim, is still bent on being a hero, and wants to use his powers to help people, training himself in secret with his friend George. There’s a great sequence of Jim trying to figure out how to stop a car. His wife, Stephanie, is a lot less enamored of these new gifts, advising caution, not wanting Jim to use his abilities, and trying to figure out what caused the changes in the first place. JJ is still exploring what his “super brain” actually means, not telling his parents and enjoying getting good grades for once, and poor Daphne is still suffering from dealing with telepathy in high school.

The themes this week seem to be complications and secrets. Jim and Steph bicker about their powers, agree not to use them, and then Steph does anyway, which goes as well as you’d expect. JJ gets accused of cheating when he starts acing every test. Jim’s co-worker, Detective Cho, notices he’s been at a lot of crime scenes lately, and grows suspicious. There are a few good scenes with the two “sidekicks”- George and Katie both continue to try and help the adult Powells. George manages to get caught in a bank robbery, while trying to investigate on his own after Jim told him he was going to stop using his powers.

The end of the show had a lot of surprises. When Detective Cho confronts Jim about his turning up where he shouldn’t, he reveals his powers to her. In no time flat she goes from stunned to “You’re a vigilante.” Jim tells her she’ll need him when more of these super criminals start turning up. Steph and Katie learn the water they were all in had nothing to do with their powers. Cho goes home, gets confronted by what we know is one of Dr. King’s henchmen, who shows he has telekinesis, and may have killed her on the way out. And Steph says she is going to find a cure for all of them, and make Jim give this up, even after she acknowledges how much this means to him.

I am still liking the show overall. Jim’s delight in his powers still resonates with me, as does his need to use them to help people. Of all of them, he was really made to be a super hero. The scenes of all of them trying to adapt to their powers are good. I certainly understand JJ hiding his power from his folks, and enjoying the good grades for now. There was a scene with his sister getting him to admit he wasn’t “a moron” before the powers, which was both sweet and believably done. Jim is basically the Golden Age Superman, and Steph seems to be Wally West from the early 90′s- limited to under the speed of sound, and needing to eat a huge amount, which were the hallmarks of Wally’s early days as the Flash.

There are a few things that I’m starting to wonder about- the show seems to be really bad with detail. Jim flips a van over on a city street, and no one seems to notice. Steph has a super speed wipeout on the way to meet her boss, never gets there… and nothing happens about the missed meeting. She runs out to Arizona to pick up the missing water sample, talks to people, signs for it, leaving a big trail if anyone ever looks into it. Jim throws a ball at a dunk tank with an annoying neighbor in it and hits so hard he bends the steel arm back, but no one notices.

Steph is also coming across less and less sympathetically. She forces Jim into an agreement to not use their powers- something she knows he loves- then breaks it when convenient for her. She tells him at the end that she knows what his powers mean to him- but she’s going to force him to give them up as soon as she figures out how. She’s really starting to come across as a wench. And I’m still not sure about the whole evil corporate boss, which has been done so many times.

A COMIC BOOK BLOG RATING

Pros	Cons
Jim and his powers, George helping him, Katie being a comic geek	bad detail and follow up, evil boss, Steph the wench

Rating

80%

No Ordinary Family “Pilot”- review

The cast of No Ordinary Family

Warning, this is a detailed review with spoilers- if you haven’t watched the pilot and want to, you might want to skip this.

This week, ABC premiered one of their new shows, “No Ordinary Family.” The shows tells the story of a regular, if somewhat dysfunctional, family, who all gain superpowers, and then try and figure out what happened and how to deal with it. It sounds cliche, and might get there, but the first episode shows a lot of promise in my opinion.

The family is off the four person model that seems to have become popular on tv and in movies of late- Dad, Mom, sister, brother. Dad, Jim Powell, is played by Michael Chiklis, probably best known as the Thing from the Fantastic Four movies and FX’s show The Shield, and likely the biggest name on the show. Jim is a police sketch artist who is frustrated by his life being out of control- his family never spends time together, he feels he can’t help anyone at work, and his wife spends all her time at work. Mom’s name is Stephanie, played by Julie Benz. Stephanie is a brilliant research scientist who is entirely work obsessed, and has lost touch with her husband and children, which she sort of vaguely notes time to time and then loses the thought amid her work. Sister in this case is Daphne, Kay Panabaker, a teen age girl struggling through high school, texting away at every opportunity, and concerned about losing her virginity and/or her boyfriend. Rounding out the family is JJ, played by Jimmy Bennett, who some might recognize as the young Jim Kirk in the recent Star Trek film. JJ is dealing, not well, with a learning disability which makes everyone, including himself, think he’s stupid.

When Stephanie is sent to South America for a research trip, Jim decides it’s going to be a family vacation and brings everyone. As he herds them onto a plane for a sunset tour, you can hear it hasn’t gone well, as Jim says, pointing at each family member: “You work, you text, and you stare at the televison all day.” Naturally, a horrible storm develops and the plane crashes in some oddly glowing water after some amusing dialogue of Stephanie “Who are you texting NOW?” and Daphne replying “God!”

They get home, and their old lives resume, much to Jim’s frustration. Until the changes start- Jim, at work, shoves Detective Cho (Chrstina Chang) out of the way of a bullet fired by a criminal trying to escape, and then catches the bullet, much to his own surprise. Stephanie is worried about missing a meeting with her boss (of course) and suddenly displays super speed. Daphne starts getting flashes of telepathy, which isn’t a great thing at the best of times, and in high school? For most of the show, it seems JJ didn’t get anything out of the experience, leading him to lament “This is unbelievable. My whole family gets dipped in some super water and all I get is wet.”

Jim experiments with his new found powers with the help of his best friend and former college roommate George (Romany Malco), and Stephanie does the same with hers, aided by co-worker Katie Anderson, a comic geek played by Autumn Resser. Jim actually tries to play hero, stopping an armed robber before being shot in the head and passing out, after calling for help. The bullet only mildly penetrated, but the scene leads to Jim and Steph sharing their new abilities with each other. We later learn that Jim wasn’t shot by the robber’s partner, but by the robber himself, who can teleport like Nightcrawler of the X-Men, including a similar effect. Resigned to failing yet another test, JJ suddenly learns he’s become hyper-intelligent to complete the family power-set.

I really liked this show. I mean, yes, I’m a comic geek, so a show about supers is going to appeal to me, but I really like a lot of what they did here. There are a lot of nice touches here. Jim isn’t just strong, he’s essentially the Golden Age Superman- able to leap 1/4 mile at a single bound, catch bullets, and crush baseballs or rip off car doors with his bare hands. Jim is what really endeared the show to me. Not because he’s a guy, not because he actually wants to be a super hero, but because of how he reacted to his powers. Every time he learns something new, or makes something work with his abilities the way he wants it to, he just shows an unrestrained glee, like a kid at Christmas. It’s something great to see. Actually, Daphne seems to be the only one who doesn’t like having the powers, and again, telepathy in high school is just… cruel.

Stephanie’s speed is done with some great special effects, and one small touch I really like- the glamorous, long, blonde hair goes flying everywhere when she stops. I suspect this is going to be a running gag, as she does it a few times, and looks annoyed as it continues.

The supporting cast is good too. Detective Cho is a dedicated, if a bit hard-nosed, cop, and plays it well. Stephanie’s co-worker Katie is amusingly quirky, shooting off science geek questions at Steph as she super speeds by. George, Jim’s best friend, also gets enthusiastically into the hero idea, converting his garage into a secret headquarters. There’s also a great scene where Jim complains to George about the distance between he and his wife, and George offers a suggestion and a business card. Jim looks at it, and asks “A divorce lawyer?” George looks panicked, and says “Oh, wrong card, sorry, sorry.” and offers one for a couples counselor that his “last two ex-wives loved.”

There are some vague hints of more going on than we know- the teleporting crook tells Jim they are not the only ones just before he is killed by Cho. We also see that Stephanie’s boss, played by Stephen Collins of 7th Heaven fame, knows about supers, and will kill to keep the knowledge hidden. Presumably, he is involved with a program that creates them.

I’m really interested in this series, and looking forward to seeing where it goes. There is a lot of potential for cliche plot lines, and I can see a few of them lurking out there, but I’m hoping they get avoided. I am definitely tuning in for the season.