Friday, October 22, 2010

What I'm Watching: No Ordinary Family

No Ordinary Family: Season 1, Episode 4 “No Ordinary Vigilante” (C+)

So now the things that I had initially excused about this show have begun to overwhelm the main elements of the story and put the show in a lopsided position of starting to contain more bad than good. I could have sworn that I saw J.J. on Television Without Pity's Fall TV 2010 Most Annoying Characters list, but it seems that he was mysteriously left off. His desire to have his parents be proud of him for his achievements is completely undercut by the fact that he's lying to them. Something tells me that they would be very impressed with the way he's using his newfound abilities to improve his academic and sports-related performance, yet his endlessly manipulative modus operandi negates all of that, making him an utterly dumb, detestable character. Daphne isn't that much better, and while I initially praised this show for focusing on the entire family, reading minds to get into parties and steal beer is hardly worthy of a quarter of an episode. I understand that Autumn Reeser on any show is almost entirely for comic relief, but having her and Stephanie fail to come up with anything better than “we're talking about our periods” as an excuse when cheesy villain Chiles walks in on them isn't terribly impressive. I'm also not enjoying the silliness of Jim actually faking allergies and covering up his face to avoid having the witnesses identify him as the vigilante. Guillermo Diaz, of “Weeds” and even “Mercy” fame, you do not belong behind a mustache as a cop on this show. There's much work to be done on this formerly promising show.

2 comments:

Richter Scale said...

Abe, I honestly feel you're being too hard on this show. I kind of agree with you on JJ to an extent. I keep waiting for him to tell his parents about his superpowers, but I feel like he's mostly a kid trying to find himself in High School and he feels that any achievement he may have will be viewed as less if he reveals his superpowers to his parents, so in a way I can see where he's coming from. Also, Daphne is a teenager. You really think a teenager won't use her powers in a stupid move to try to be poipular? Teenagers without them do things this stupid, so cut Daphne some slack. To be honest, I like that this show isn't making these people be experts with their powers right away. I think Jim will eventually get one right with his crime fighting, but in the meantime he's learning and making mistakes, and he has George to watch his back. I'm enjoying the show quite a bit.

Movies with Abe said...

It's always good to hear some positive encouragement, and I'm glad that you chimed in since I really do want to like this show!! With the exception of "Undercovers" and "Better With You," I'm not really liking any of the new broadcast fall shows, so I'm hopeful that this one can improve.