I’ve been watching ABC’s No Ordinary Family online since it debuted. My wife and I saw the premiere on an actual TV while on vacation, and we’ve been enjoying it. The show was given a full season in late October, so I guess ABC is uncertain of its reception. I think it has great potential. I can’t write about it here without at least minor spoilers, but even then I want to spill my guts on deeper issues too which will amount to major spoilers, so watch for the notation if you care to avoid certain things.
If you’ve seen any trailers for the show, you’ve seen about as much explanation they’ve given us for why the Powell family has super powers (which is a word the show writers’ use too much–powers. I’m using my powers right now, but I call it typing or writing. I would love to see and hear less of this word in the show.) In short, the family goes to Brazil for a vacation. Their plane crashes, and sometime after they return home, they discover they have changed. It went by about that quickly in the pilot episode.
Jim, the father, is a police sketch artist and not respected by the rest of the department. When he becomes incredibly strong and bulletproof (nigh invulnerable as The Tick would say), it’s like a dream come true. He has said he failed as an artist before taking up the police work, but I gather he is drawn to the strength of these civil guardians. Now with his great strength, he can help them, but as it usually goes, he works undercover. He has the help of George, a district attorney friend, who is probably the kind of friend every average-man-turned-superhero needs.
Stephanie, the mother, is a successful research scientist. She is the bread-winner of the family and has been very busy, mostly outside the home. In the first show, she discovers she has become fast. She explores her ability with her laboratory assistant, a cute geek named Katie who seems to talk in order to think. While Stephanie races around a track, Katie clocks her, yelling out questions like why isn’t the sand she kicks up blinding her eyes or tearing up her clothes. The show has had a good bit of humor in it so far.
Daphne, the daughter, has become a telepath, and though it’s likely indicative of the family’s mediocre relational health, it irritates me that her parents have not carefully talked to her about the ethics of reading people’s minds. Spoiler: At first, she was trying to keep everyone’s thoughts from invading her own, but now she is eavesdropping on select people. I can see the drama of it, but come on, Powells. Talk to your kids about the needs for super morality.
Their son J.J. has been his own small story arc, and I don’t need to discuss it except to say that it’s part of the family focus of these first few shows. There have been criminals to catch, but the drama has centered on family dynamics so far. Stephanie wants everyone to be safe and to understand how they were changed, while Jim wants to stop criminals who keep evading the cops. J.J. and Daphne just want to negotiate high school. And everyone wants to be understood. It has not been boring, but it hasn’t be suspenseful either.
The last show, “No Ordinary Quake,” delved back into the mystery of superhumans, and I want to talk spoiler material now. Not plot detail, just fantasy detail.
First, I am surprised they have a telekinetic as a bad guy, because Sylar from Heroes is too well known. This guy, as yet unnamed, is not the bad guy. He’s clearly a man taking orders, so that helps, but I think the writers would have tried to steer away from clear parallels to Heroes. In fact, a primary bad guy may or may not be revealed to us as yet. What has been revealed in the last show is a character who doesn’t want to be super. How any of them became this way is still the big question, but so far everyone other than the Powells appear to have been made super by someone unknown.
Only three, possibly four, other supers have been revealed, but the man in the running for lead villain used the word dormitory in the last show. If there’s a dormitory with changed people, it could mean there are several superhumans being held captive, perhaps until they can control themselves or be controlled. Some of them may be failed experiments, unable to live on their own, though that seems too dark for a series which wants to be something the whole family can watch.
I hope that how ever this first season explores the superhuman fantasy, the writers will give us a story with complex drama building over a whole season, not an episodic drama that more or less wraps up in 50 minutes. They have the potential to go big with this.
I’ve been watching too. I enjoy it, but share the feeling that the series hasn’t found its legs yet. (Or, one might say, its Powers.)
Most great shows take about half a season to a season to find its legs.
BUFFY really did not become a great show until the 1st season finale, “Prophecy Girl” (an Amazing Episode). Before then, except for the fun pilot, the show ranged from mediocre to okay.
It was not until SG-1’s Third season that it really started to become great. By Seven, it was amazing.
I have seen the pilot.
I mean I have seen the pilot of NO ORDINARY FAMILY, but not any other episodes.
Furious D has a good piece on how to do a Superhero tv show
http://dknowsall.blogspot.com/2010/08/hollywood-babble-on-on-568-if-you-gotta.html
No offense anyone, but this sounds like another good reason to watch Mythbusters, American Pickers, How Things Work, Factory Made and that pawn shop show…. along with some OLD movies thrown in; John Wayne, Jimmy Steward, and Audy Murphy….
It is unlikely this super human powers show will suddenly go Christian on us….so I will stick with my brand of time wasting…. and enjoy the one-eyed monster that way.
That post from Furious D is interesting. I don’t know why he thinks the villains can’t think of themselves as villains. I understand how some won’t, but others will understand that they are rejecting common morality or the authorities of the country. They will have Napoleon complexes or simply be out for themselves.
I forgot to say one thing I dislike about No Ordinary Family, and I take it to be a weakness of modern TV writing. Characters tend to walk out of conversations. In the second episode, I was irritated that a police detective left a stranger alone at her desk because of this convention of making statements and walking out. I’d like to see an end to this. Conversations can end, but do people have to walk out?
Husband and I have been watching NOF, but I find it lacking in dialog and character. The wife/mother is not a likable person, and the husband/father isn’t either.
Needless to say I disagree. What would make them likable to you?
Phil,
“They will have Napoleon complexes or simply be out for themselves”
But even then, he will not see himself as the “Villain of the Story of His Life”. He is the hero. Yeah, he knows he is not rescuing orphans r what most people was call a good person, but he is serving himself. And in his mind, serving himself is the most important thing. Therefore, he is the hero of his Story.
Even if he is simply robbing banks to blow on prostitutes and beer, he will not see himself as the villain. He is simply out for himself, but this annoying family of heroes keeps getting in the way.
I can see how that works, Kit, but I don’t agree or understand your use of terms. Bad people, out to get the most for themselves, may have the moral perspective to recognize their villainy and revel in it. They wouldn’t see themselves as heroes, but as tyrants, gods, mavericks, or in some way better than and independent from everyone else.
I think the point is that you generally can’t have a character saying, “Mwa-ha-ha-ha! I enjoy doing evil!” That’s not realistic. The true villain believes he’s serving the greater good, or getting justice for injuries he’s received in the past, or he’s misunderstood, or something like that. This is the difference between a one-dimensional villain and a three-dimensional villain. (Are there any two-dimensional villains? Discuss amongst yourselves.)
What Lars said.
I guess we’re saying the close to same thing.
Sorry Phil—I didn’t see your question until this evening.
I didn’t see the opening episode, nor have I seen every episode, but from what I have watched—I think the wife comes off as believing she is the superior spouse. The husband seems (slightly) harassed by his wife, as do the children.
I’ll continue to watch though, in hopes the characters improve.
Well, she may think she’s superior, but I think she’s just a strong woman putting forward her own ideas. He isn’t harassed by her (I don’t think) as he is by almost everything else in his life.
I’ve been watching since it premiered and find it interesting. One thing I like about it is how each super-power corresponds makes up for a flaw each member of the family felt they had.
Jim felt he wasn’t strong enough both in his work and with the family. Now that he has super-strength he still has a had hard time holding everything together.
Stephanie didn’t have enough time to be with her family and pursue her career. Now she’s able to do both, but still must juggle family demands with her work.
Daphne, suffering from typical teen angst, is worried what people think about her. When she’s able to know what everyone thinks she discovers that it leads to all kinds of other problems, especially when even mind-reading leads to incomplete information.
J.J. wasn’t the smartest kid in school and had serious inadequacy issues, with his scientist mother and all. He seemed to want his parent’s respect for who he is, but doesn’t want to own up to his own talents. The relationship between J.J. and his parents, though a bit forced, at times, in the series, is one of the show’s more interesting dynamics.
I don’t see Stephanie’s behavior as coming from any sense of superiority. In fact, she expressed a good deal of humility, at both home and work, given her high-power research position. Rather, as I noted above, I see a mother pulled between wanting to be a loving wife to her husband and good mother to her children, while pursuing an incredibly demanding career. The first few episodes portrayed this rather well by showing how Jim was more involved with the kids than she, and that she felt unable to deal with some of their issues.
–SPOILER ALERT–
One thing I don’t understand is why the show killed off one of the most interesting characters early in the series. The female cop would have been great to play off of as the series develops. Instead, the audience is left with a department full of belligerent cops, who don’t respect Jim or his work. If I was in the writer’s room when that option was bandied about, I would have strongly dissented.
Cont. the spoiler talk —
I thought the woman you brought up made it very clear that she would oppose Jim to the full extent of the law if she learned for any more heroic activity. He called him a dangerous vigilante, so if she had continued in the series, she may have fired Jim or gotten him fired or jailed or watched. As it is now, they are operating under cover, unless we saw in the last show that the bad guys now know that Jim is a super they don’t control. Of course, maybe the bad guy I’m referring to didn’t notice Jim’s strength at all.
You may be right, Phil. But I thought I caught a bit of sympathy toward Jim from her as well. And after she learned there were people with abilities it would have made for a good amount of conflict as she struggled to be a good cop and keep Jim from getting busted by her peers.
It may be that the Show Runner’s think that’s the role for Jim’s DA buddy, therefore they didn’t want to have two characters doing the same thing.
Maybe she’s only mostly dead, as Miracle Max would describe it, and she’ll be resurrected by the bad guys. 😉
Ha! I’ve thought about saying that on the network bulletin boards, that they need to beware resurrecting people. One thing I would like to see in an superhero story is an idea I thought to write about, a person who can do something incredible but it hurts him like a spinal tap. In Heroes, when the main bad guy healed someone just by holding her shoulders a little, I thought something like that should take a good bit of effort or cause him pain.
Oh, come on. Superheroes are resurrected all the time. Superman, Batman, Robin … All killed off. All brought back to life.
Stephanie does have to eat a lot after she races around, but NOF’s creators don’t make enough of this in the series. But you’re right, in general they don’t make a big deal of using their abilities.