September 30, 2010

TV: No Ordinary Family (ABC, Tue 8)

Parenthood meets The Incredibles.

A suburban family survives a plane crash in Brazil, only to find that they've all developed superpowers. Father Jim (Michael Chiklis) has super-strength (he's essentially a non-orange version of Chiklis as The Thing in the Fantastic Four movies); mother Stephanie (Julie Benz) has super-speed. Teenage daughter Daphne (Kay Panabaker) can read minds, and son JJ (Jimmy Bennett) goes from being a poor student to being a brainiac.

The tone is a little uneven. Much of the family stuff has the earnest dramatic tone of the average family soap opera, but there are moments that are pushing for the high whimsy of something like Pushing Daisies (the musical score is overbearing in this regard). But the sense of humor generally works, particularly in the scenes between Jim and his best friend George (Romany Malco). And the special effects are quite good by TV standards, even Stephanie's speed, which can be a very tricky thing to pull off well -- remember how poorly it was done in The Bionic Woman a couple years back? -- is convincingly presented.

There's a troubling plot twist at the end that raises fears of the show going wholeheartedly down the Heroes rabbithole of elaborate, incomprehensible conspiracies with far too many characters, but if the show can avoid that trap, it could be a lot of fun.

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