No Ordinary Family
In early February 2010, Michael Chiklis became the first actor to join the series, playing family patriarch Jim Powell.[11] Autumn Reeser was the next actor cast, to play a colleague of Jim's wife.[12] Romany Malco portrays Jim's best friend and college roommate.[13]
No Ordinary Family
March 2010 casting included Julie Benz as Jim's wife and family matriarch Stephanie Powell[14] and Christina Chang as a police officer who works with Jim.[15] Tate Donovan is the mysterious pilot of the plane that crashes.[16][17] Rounding out the cast are Kay Panabaker and Jimmy Bennett, who portray the Powell children Daphne and JJ.[18] Shay Carl- security guard
Praise about the main leads also came from The Boston Globe, with critic Matthew Gilbert saying that it's nice to see Chiklis and Benz in roles different from their previous television roles, and ends his review by saying that "With believable chemistry together, Chiklis and Benz help create a solid TV couple and, let's hope, no ordinary series".[53] However, Verne Gay from Newsday criticized Chiklis' performance saying that it is a "spectacular...case of miscasting".[54]
A lab tech and Stephanie's personal assistant at Global Tech and comic book fangirl. She is aware of the Powells' superpowers. She is also dating the Watcher (under the alias of Will and later Joshua), but it is unknown to her that he had been hired by Dr. King to find out about the Powell family's abilities.[6] Her favorite superhero(ine) is Kitty Pryde.
What didn't make sense was how quickly Stephanie believed that Jim really was leaving her and the kids, going so far as to cut pictures of Jim out of family photos. It effectively painted Stephanie as both gullible and a little dense. Jim was so adamant about not trusting Sophie just a few hours prior and just suddenly fell in love with her? After all the Powells have been through and seen, I don't buy for a second that Stephanie - the supposed smart cookie that she is - wouldn't have figured, or at least suspected, something more sinister was at play.
The side story with Daphne repeatedly having to deter Chris' line of questioning about the family's abilities was smile-worthy, if not a bit distracting. I'm at the point where I want the Powells working together, not on separate tangents, which is why I did like having J.J. tag along with George to investigate Sophie.
In the beginning, Jim was unsatisfied with his life. He felt that his family was breaking apart, and he felt unrealized in his job. His only friends were George, a District Attorney, and Yvonne Cho, a detective with Pacific Bay. However, Jim's life changed forever during his family's trip to Brazil. On their way to Stephanie's research site, the private plane was caught in a storm and crashed into the Amazon River. Luckily, the Powells survived and returned home, virtually unscathed.
Jim then let his friend George know about his abilities. George had accidentally shot him with a gun, and Jim caught the bullet with his hand. However, before Jim could explain, George fainted. Later, when George recovered, they met on a rooftop to see if Jim could fly. Jim fell from the building and crashed to the ground below. However, he jumped back up atop the building next to George. They realized that Jim could jump extraordinary heights.
Jim went to the lair, where George told him that he had isolated the areas where the robbers were striking. He told George about his promise, but George told him that he had to fight crime. When Jim insisted on abiding his promise and said that George didn't understand because he didn't have a family, George gave him the cold shoulder.
Later, Jim talked to Stephanie, who admitted that she had used her speed to go to the Flagstaff facility and to obtain a sample of the water of the river they fell in. Jim said that he stopped using his powers for her, but Stephanie said that it was different with her, saying that she used her powers to help their family while Jim used his to protect strangers. The next day, they apologized to each other, agreeing that things would change. Jim then talked to Daphne and JJ, saying that they would go to the school fair, whether they wanted to or not. As they were preparing to go, George came by and apologized with Jim, saying that he was right and he didn't have a family. But Jim told him that he was part of their family. Jim invited him to go with them, but George saw his sketches and left, saying that he would be along later.
Jim is a man who feels like a failure to his family. He never became the artist he wanted to be, and usually feels inferior to his wife. He feels like his family is falling apart and breaking off into their own worlds. This is the reason for Jim taking his family on a vacation research trip. After gaining his powers, Jim believes that he can finally change his life for the better. Thus, he chooses to use his abilities to fight crime.
Stephanie and Jim go to the hospital and discover that JJ is prepared to operate on his own whether she helps or not. He insists that he couldn't live with himself if he didn't help his teacher. Jim and Stephanie agree to help, and Jim insists they'll do it as a family.
Jim arrives at the carjackers' chop shop and prepares to call the police. The carjackers, Omar and Junior discover him and figure him for a cop, and Jim insists that he's just an artist with a family. Omar shoots Jim and he collapses.
Parents need to know that this fantasy drama focuses on a fairly typical family -- overworked parents and busy teens who sometimes seem to have little time for each other -- who begin to develop superpowers. Yes, there's some crimefighting, but the main thrust of the show is how this incredible event can bring them all closer together. There's some mild swearing (including words like "whore" and "dumbass"), violence (including guns and shooting), and several references to sex -- notably from the teen daughter and her friends, who talk about who's a virgin and who isn't.
Jim Powell (Michael Chiklis) is starting to feel like his family is drifting apart. His wife is a high-powered biotech executive, and his teenage son and daughter always seem to be busy with homework, extracurricular activities, and texting. He misses the togetherness they once had and can't find a way to bring them all together. Then, after a freak accident during a family vacation, they all start to develop amazing new powers. Jim becomes super strong, while his workaholic wife, Stephanie (Julie Benz), acquires super speed. Their daughter, Daphne (Kay Panabaker), can now read minds, and son JJ (Jimmy Bennett) has become a super genius. While figuring out how to live with these powers isn't as easy as it seems, it might help bring the Powells closer.
NO ORDINARY FAMILY is certainly no ordinary superhero series. Yes, there's some crime-fighting -- can you imagine a show about super-powered people who don't capture bad guys? But the focus here is more on how an average family tries to adapt to a very unusual situation. Besides criminals, there are dramas at school and conflicts at work with and spats at home -- you know, real life. These characters seem just like anyone else, except for their new abilities.
Chiklis is in familiar territory. He already looks larger than life, and he's already played a super strong hero, the Thing, in the movie version of Fantastic Four. But the look of wonder that comes over his face as Jim starts to grasp his new capabilities is pure fun. Panabaker also stands out as a mind-reading teen who quickly learns that hearing her classmates' inner thoughts is both enlightening and painful. Jim thinks his family is drifting apart -- and he hopes he can use his super strength to pull everyone back together. It's an intriguing premise -- and an insightful perspective on the busy modern family.
The new ABC television series, No Ordinary Family, borrows the key elements from all the classic tales of heroism throughout ages. In the show, the Powell family is portrayed as an average American family, slightly dysfunctional but also likeable. Their "average-ness" is crucial; it enables us to relate to them and to whimsically entertain the notion that what happens to them could also happen to us. As with many superhero tales, the Powell's adventure begins with a traumatic event. For them it is a plane crash in a remote South American lake that exposes them to an unusual, magical substance in the water.
The show's fun lies in how each member of the family gradually discovers his or her individual superpower. Jim Powell, the father, finds that he now has the reflexes to catch a bullet fired from a gun. Humorous scenes feature him discovering other super-skills such as the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound. His wife Stephanie, while rushing to make an appointment, discovers she can run at the ludicrous speed of over 700 miles per hour. Why do we resonate to heroes with super powers? According to Joseph Campbell, a central part of the hero archetype is the idea that our heroes have supernatural aids. Superheroes, by definition, can do magical things that ordinary people cannot.
In almost all superhero stories, the hero's superpowers are necessary to fight extraordinarily powerful criminals. No Ordinary Family is no exception. Jim Powell encounters a series of villains who also possesses extraordinary physical powers, making the fight between good and evil a suspenseful undertaking with (at first) no clear victor. All superheroes also possess a vulnerability. It turns out that the Powell family members are fallible humans in most ways. Moreover, having only recently acquired their superpowers, the Powells are unaware of the limits their super-skills and how to best use them.
The proliferation of superhero stories, in comic books, movies, and television shows, is staggering. What is the allure of the superhero? At the end of the first episode of No Ordinary Family, Jim Powell tells us that "the problems we face may not be ordinary. But then again, neither are we." With this line, Powell has precisely captured the universal appeal of superheroes. An inescapable reality of life is that we often must face fearful circumstances beyond our control, circumstances that require remarkable courage and strength for us to prevail. Extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions. Superheroes are exactly the tonic we dream of when life punches us in the gut. 041b061a72