Warning. This review contains several spoilers about the series “No Ordinary Family”!

On April 5 the first season of the show “No Ordinary Family” ended. Currently there are no reports about the possible renewal of this series but the comments on the Internet are negative because of its low ratings so it would be surprising if it were not canceled. A further reason for pessimism is the fact that the actors names are already beginning to be mentioned as part of the cast of new TV shows that might be produced for the next television season.

The cast consists of:

• Michael Chiklis (photo ©Albert Domasin) as Jim Powell
• Julie Benz (photo ©Tomdog) as Stephanie Powell
• Kay Panabaker as Daphne Powell
• Jimmy Bennett as JJ Powell
• Romany Malco as George St. Cloud
• Autumn Reeser as Katie Andrews
• Stephen Collins as Dr. Dayton King

“No Ordinary Family”, as the title suggests, has as its protagonists a family which goes on a trip to Brazil where they have an accident where the plane they’re traveling in plunges into the Amazon. They save themselves but they discover that they have developed extraordinary powers. The family members have to learn to live with these powers which start heavily influencing their lives, also forcing them to find a new balance within the family.

What’s more, during their work Stephanie and Jim discover the existence of other people with extraordinary powers and gradually they uncover a plan of experimentation to activate in people those powers for unclear purposes. Stephanie is a scientist and during her work she realizes that her boss, Dr. King, is involved in the illegal experiments. Her husband Jim works as an identikit artist for the police and with his friend George St. Cloud, who works in the district attorney office, has more and more to do with criminals with superpowers.

The positive side of this show is the cast: the actors are good, work well together and make the comic side of the series work even if dialogues and situations are not exactly brilliant. Katie, Stephanie’s assistant, is a perfect complement to the Powell family. She’s also an incredibly funny character with her frequent references to comics and science fiction shows so geeks cann’t help loving her.

The downside of the series is in the stories. It’s clear that this show is a harmless pastime for families so there are no elements that could prove controversial or too complex, but there’s a limit to everything!

Unfortunately episodes writing is really a sore point because writers only seem to put together many obvious situations and often poorly written. For example people with superpowers have no problem in using them outdoors or at least in places where there are surveillance cameras. In an episode Jim’s using a hood to cover his face but otherwise he’s always at risk of being recognized.

In “No Ordinary Family” you can find several examples of this superficiality in the scripts and you can also see it from the fact that producers often don’t seem interested in developing potentially interesting subplots finishing them in a single episode. Presumably to try to attract occasional viewers there’s little continuity between episodes so the base plot is fragmented among many episodes, which often have a self-contained storyline that ends up diminishing their value.

For example, in the seventh episode – titled “No Ordinary Mobster” – George seems romantically interested in his colleague Amanda, who is shot during the episode. The fact that this character had never been seen before tones down the drama. Instead if if she had appeared a few times in previous episodes we could have been more affected by her being shot, also because she wasn’t part of the regular cast and we’d have been left with the doubt that she could actually die. The fact that Amanda has been briefly seen in the next episode then she disappeared has certainly not increased the quality of the series.

A similar problem occurred in the eleventh episode, titled “No Ordinary Friends”. Jim saves a Dave Cotten’s file at the beginning of the episode and his entire family is very grateful. After 10 minutes it seems that the Powells and the Cottens are old friends, also because the Cotten children go to the same school as the young Powells. After another 10 minutes however it turns out that Michelle Cotten is a thief, the situation goes downhill and this family isn’t even mentioned anymore in the show. The revelation of Michelle Cotten’s secret would have have been much stronger if her family had already appeared in at least a couple of previous episodes to give us time to get attached to them.

Even when some elements that should have consequences in the following episodes are introduced they can actually be forgotten. For example in the fifteenth episode – titled “No Ordinary Powell” – Dr. King orders the shapeshifter Victoria to infiltrate the Powell family killing Stephanie to replace her. In the end however Jim kills Victoria and it’s Stephanie who poses as her but it seems that this plot is too complicated because in later episodes there’s no mention about it.

The impression is that in “No Ordinary Family” production a mistake common to many other series was made: the episodes tend to be formulaic, part of the audience soon begins to get bored and stop watching the show. To try and fix that some fresh elements are introduced but it’s often too little too late because changes are introduced after several episodes.

In “No Ordinary Family” the situation changes in the seventeenth episode – titled “No Ordinary Love” – when finally we start discovering who’s behind Dr. King. Katie would be shocked to see that Cylons are the big baddies. 😉

In the last few episodes definitely more things happen, unfortunately the writing quality doesn’t improve. For example Katie’s pregnancy is a mess: JJ makes explicit reference to the fact that it’s in its first quarter and yet she gives birth to her child more or less at the same time. Katie says that he’s too small to survive, luckily he’s not an ordinary child and he makes it but from scientists such as Stephanie and Katie you’d expect some more comments about such no ordinary pregnancy, instead it’s all very vague.

In the last episode the good thing is that we’re given some answers to the mysteries concerning the superpowers and a chapter in the base story is closed. The season ends providing elements for the base plot of a possible second season but it would consist in the hunt for the villain of the week. In my opinion they’d better cancel the series.

Overall “No Ordinary Family” is a sci-fi series with a light comedic tone, good to spend a few care-free hours. If you want a show about superheroes that’s not dull and obvious but at the same time is fun to watch watch the British show “Misfits”.