No Ordinary Family is Decidedly Average

Creating a superhero series for television is always rife with challenges. The series has to be authentic enough to satisfy the average comic reader, but not be so geeky that it doesn’t appeal to a mainstream viewer. It must have good quality special effects that come in under budget, and unless it’s specifically a comedy, it must avoid becoming corny. Finally, the series needs to build just the right amount longevity into its storyline to retain interest.

No Ordinary Family is the latest entry into television’s superhero genre, and in writing, seems to tick a lot of the right boxes. It’s the story of a regular family that discover they’ve developed superpowers after a plane crash in the Amazon; superpowers that seems to target personal faults in each of them. The family patriarch, Jim Powell (Michael Chiklis), is a police sketch artist with deep-seated feelings of inadequacy who develops super-strength, near-invulnerability, and the ability to leap over tall buildings. Jim’s wife, Stephanie (Julie Benz), is a scientist who struggles to balance her work and her family, so of course develops super-speed. Their children, Daphne (Kay Panabaker) and JJ (Jimmy Bennett), develop telepathy and hyper-intelligence respectively.

In true traditional genre fashion, the Powell family has to protect their secret whilst coming to terms with their new abilities. However, Jim sees his powers as an opportunity to counter his inadequacies, so he teams up with George St. Cloud (Romany Malco), his long-time friend and Assistant District Attorney, to fight crime. So while Stephanie works to understand how they got their powers and how they’ll be affected long-term, and the kids deal with teenage life with abilities, Jim is learning the hard way how to be a superhero.

The dynamic of the family is quite well portrayed by the actors and the writing. Chiklis and Benz do a completely believable job of playing the husband and wife who aren’t the happiest and are just going through the motions. Chiklis in particular plays the role of the bumbling wannabe-hero excellently. Being an American family-based drama, there is a great deal of wholesome schmaltz presented to the viewer. Although it is at times a bit cloying, it does fit neatly with the superhero genre.

So here we have our fairly stock-standard origin story, right down to the semi-ridiculous way the Powells get their powers, and we have our family dynamic, but the creators didn’t stop there. Following the trend of current American television series, No Ordinary Family has a dark conspiracy underpinning it. The first real hint of this came at the end of the pilot episode, leading to a real WTF moment for me. The unfortunate thing about this conspiracy is that it is completely incongruent with the schmaltz and the humour. It’s as if the writers take 40 minutes of Modern Family, add superpowers, then add five minutes of Heroes; it just doesn’t ring true. The conspiracy may have worked if they introduced it further into the series (or more discreetly initially), and had the preceding episodes all about the Powells mastering their abilities; however, having it rudely thrust in the viewer’s face without any forewarning just didn’t work.

No Ordinary Family is basically a superhero series of two parts. The family discovering they have powers and how they learn to deal with them is a part that’s done very well, even if it’s a bit overly wholesome at times. The second part of the dark conspiracy is, in theory, a solid concept and certainly fits well in providing villains for the series. Sadly, the implementation of the two parts is faulty, leading to the story being more of a multiple-personality than cleverly layered. I’ve only seen the first two episodes at this stage, but I can honestly say that the mismatch of the two parts is enough to make me question whether it’s worth watching.