As was the case with THE EVƎNT [1], I was moderately loyal about watching this show during the first half of the season.[2] I was enjoying where No Ordinary Family was going, but my life got busy and it took me a while to get around to finishing the series. By the time I did, I just barely managed to catch all the episodes before they were taken down from Hulu.[3] Like THE EVƎNT, this show was cancelled after its first season due to poor ratings.[4]
My verdict: The acting is often on the cheesy side, which is consistent with the previous half-season. However, Jason Antoon, the actor who plays the math teacher, Mr. Litchfield, deserves his own horror movie. The guy seriously has a freaky face. Sometimes the science jargon is laughable and the geek jargon often sounds like it was written to sound geeky, but actually has no geek underpinnings.[5] No Ordinary Family was marketed as a family show but they portray the idea of being an adult and a virgin as something to be embarrassed about and something which a potential boyfriend/girlfriend might not be understanding about. Talk about calling black 'white' and white 'black'! Also, the children rarely get in trouble for disobeying family rules.
Some plot twists get swept under the rug once they've served their purpose (e.g. Katie letting 'Joshua' back into her life so easily). Other plot twists were kind of obvious. The confrontation with Dr. King at the end felt more like a boss battle in a video game than a climactic finale for a television show. Dr. King in general was a poor casting decision; he just didn't know how to be a bad guy. Despite the average writing and acting, I liked the characters and I wish there had been more seasons of this show. However, the lead-in to the next season—being recruited by the U.S. government to fight supercriminals—was a little cliché.
Notes:
[1] Read my review of the second half of Season 1 of THE EVƎNT here.
[2] Read my review of the first half of Season 1 of No Ordinary Family here.
[3] It looks like all of the episodes are available now, without a subscription to HuluPlus. See http://www.hulu.com/no-ordinary-family.
[4] See http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/05/13/v-cancelled-brothers-sisters-cancelled-by-abc-too/92307/.
[5] If you don't know what I'm talking about, you might score low on The Geek Test.
My verdict: The acting is often on the cheesy side, which is consistent with the previous half-season. However, Jason Antoon, the actor who plays the math teacher, Mr. Litchfield, deserves his own horror movie. The guy seriously has a freaky face. Sometimes the science jargon is laughable and the geek jargon often sounds like it was written to sound geeky, but actually has no geek underpinnings.[5] No Ordinary Family was marketed as a family show but they portray the idea of being an adult and a virgin as something to be embarrassed about and something which a potential boyfriend/girlfriend might not be understanding about. Talk about calling black 'white' and white 'black'! Also, the children rarely get in trouble for disobeying family rules.
Some plot twists get swept under the rug once they've served their purpose (e.g. Katie letting 'Joshua' back into her life so easily). Other plot twists were kind of obvious. The confrontation with Dr. King at the end felt more like a boss battle in a video game than a climactic finale for a television show. Dr. King in general was a poor casting decision; he just didn't know how to be a bad guy. Despite the average writing and acting, I liked the characters and I wish there had been more seasons of this show. However, the lead-in to the next season—being recruited by the U.S. government to fight supercriminals—was a little cliché.
Notes:
[1] Read my review of the second half of Season 1 of THE EVƎNT here.
[2] Read my review of the first half of Season 1 of No Ordinary Family here.
[3] It looks like all of the episodes are available now, without a subscription to HuluPlus. See http://www.hulu.com/no-ordinary-family.
[4] See http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/05/13/v-cancelled-brothers-sisters-cancelled-by-abc-too/92307/.
[5] If you don't know what I'm talking about, you might score low on The Geek Test.
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