Previewing No Ordinary Family

No Ordinary Family is the most shocking new show of the fall season. It is shocking in that it doesn’t try to be shocking at all. Every year for the past decade we have seen shows try to push the limits of what they can get away with in primetime that networks haven’t placed a family friendly program on their schedule since the heyday of ABC’s TGIF. No Ordinary Family is so safe, ABC could simulcast the show on its sister station Disney Channel.

Disney is a good reference point because you cannot write a review of No Ordinary Family without mentioning The Incredibles, the Pixar movie about a family of superheroes living in suburbia. In the live action version we get Michael Chiklis (Fantastic Four) as the super strong dad. Mom is played by Julie Benz (Angel) who can run really fast. Kay Panabaker (Nancy Drew) can read others’ thoughts while her brother Jimmy Bennett (Star Trek) who can, well; I am not entirely sure what h can do. But like every good superhero story, the blessing of superpowers can also be a curse. Chiklis realizes his mortality; Benz has to feed refuel to keep up with all the calories she burns by running a mile a second; Panabaker learns, much like Buffy Summers before her, that telepathy is not all what it is cracked up to be; and Bennett, well, I am still not sure what he does.

Yet the most entertaining characters of No Ordinary Family are the sidekick. Romany Malco (Too Legit: The MC Hammer Story) gets all the best lines as Chiklis’ buddy who he enlists to see what he can and cannot do. While Autumn Reeser (Lost Boys: The Tribe) is the frantic assistant to Benz whom she confides in about her new found power. No sidekicks for the children yet, hopefully that means they die a horrible death because they are beyond annoying in the first episode. Hopefully they bite the big one and focus on the adults or the superpowers give them an attitude adjustment because they are really dragging down the watchability of the show.

What is conspicuously missing from the first episode is that of a big bad. Hopefully someone (or something) arises because what are superheroes without nemesis(‘s-eses)? A twist at the end gives me hope there might be one.

No Ordinary Family airs Tuesdays at 8:00 on ABC. You will be able to steam episodes on Hulu. You will also be able to download No Ordinary Family on iTunes.