No Ordinary Family season 1 thread (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

I still find the writing on the show to be clunky because the dialogue feels shoe-horned in to move the plot along, at the expense of portraying the Powell family members as lacking street smarts at crucial times.

 

[Peter Rohlfs]

The Daphne "fix" is problematic. Not only does she only know her own activites 2nd hand, but she now has knowledge about her brother and parents that she ordinarily wouldn't. Like her dad's super heroing and her brother's needing to think about baseball with his new girlfriend. And even stuff before the series started.


And if she had truly been mind wiped, why was she not having all the problems with controlling her powers she had in the beginning of the series? She would not have retained what she learned about controlling her powers. Very sloppy writing.


I wonder if mom and dad are going to force her to resign the school Presidncy because she used her powers to win. That is the same as her brother using his powers to win at football. They made him quit. Or is there going to be a double standard.


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Peter

 

[Garrett Adams]

Even though I watch the show I often get frustrated by the lazy writing. At least the writers spare us by spreading the stupidity around. Last night it was mom's turn. Her drinking too much and almost spilling the beans on her special ability is so absurd. That is something that could lead to very serious consequences. Close to getting drunk and telling a new friend that a few years back you murdered a family of five down the street. Loose lips sink ships!

 

[Greg_S_H]

I see this moves to Saturday this week. I don't know if it's a permanent move or not.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Originally Posted by Greg_S_H

I see this moves to Saturday this week. I don't know if it's a permanent move or not.

Sounds like a local affiliate decision. The next 2 episodes are listed as being shown on Tuesdays for my area.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Yep. They're running something called Good Morning Texas After Dark. I hope it's not a weekly thing.

 

[NeilO]

Originally Posted by Peter Rohlfs

The Daphne "fix" is problematic. Not only does she only know her own activites 2nd hand, but she now has knowledge about her brother and parents that she ordinarily wouldn't. Like her dad's super heroing and her brother's needing to think about baseball with his new girlfriend. And even stuff before the series started.


And if she had truly been mind wiped, why was she not having all the problems with controlling her powers she had in the beginning of the series? She would not have retained what she learned about controlling her powers. Very sloppy writing.


I wonder if mom and dad are going to force her to resign the school Presidency because she used her powers to win. That is the same as her brother using his powers to win at football. They made him quit. Or is there going to be a double standard.


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Peter

This family excels at double standards and has done so from the beginning when the wife would casually use her powers while objecting to what the husband was doing. It could be that she won't admit what she did. As far as writing away the mind wipe - I agree with everyone that it was very sloppy in apparently leaving no critical gaps.

As far as the episode cliffhanger with the notebook being found - it will be interesting to see what happens next there. There are many different directions to go from this point. I fear that we will be disappointed in how it develops, but maybe they'll surprise us.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I'm already not liking where the Katie storyline is going, but that's because I read the show's news section at the IMDb in order to see if it was moving to Saturday.



Autumn Reeser is pregnant, and they are making Katie pregnant, too.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Alright, I've overlooked a lot of things on this show but I absolutely refuse to overlook the fact that Katie was able to be convinced so easily and so throw-away that she actually didn't read what she read with her own two eyes in that journal!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

That moment of stupidity was no worse than the many, many, many other moments of stupidity exhibited by this show. At this point I just shrug and roll with it. Besides, for all of her scientific acumen, Katie's been demonstrated to be pretty naive. If she has to choose between believing that the words in the journal mysteriously changed overnight or her imagining that it was Stephanie's journal in a moment of late night insomnia, she's going to go with the option that lets her belief she didn't just give her virginity up to a thieving psychopath.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Meh, I don't know, she's a grown woman and knows what she read, to have that just swept aside THAT easily struck me as one of the worst examples of ignorance on this show.


People complain about Smallville and the reset button but this show doesn't even attempt to hide it, they give us a major cliffhanger one week only to sweep it away and forget it completely in the first couple of minutes the following week, it's as if the show is afraid of deepening the story and characters.

 

[NeilO]

I was also disappointed that she immediately confronted him and then he easily mind-adjusted her. More disappointing was that she so easily believed what was told her about Stephanie's opinion of her. I wonder how he will adjust without his powers

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Originally Posted by Inspector Hammer!

Meh, I don't know, she's a grown woman and knows what she read, to have that just swept aside THAT easily struck me as one of the worst examples of ignorance on this show.

I'm not saying that it wasn't stupid and ridiculous, just no more stupid or ridiculous than many of the other things that routinely happen on this show.

People complain about Smallville and the reset button but this show doesn't even attempt to hide it, they give us a major cliffhanger one week only to sweep it away and forget it completely in the first couple of minutes the following week, it's as if the show is afraid of deepening the story and characters.

Bingo.Smallville is sloppy and has gotten sloppier over the years, but it much tighter plotted than this show. That being said, I enjoy both on their own terms. I just adjust my expectations accordingly.

 

[Nelson Au]

I agree, it was just too easy for Kate to think she thought it was the red diary and let it go after the contents were changed. She seems like she wouldn't let that go.


However, I did like that JJ failed at the race track. It bothered me that he could figure out so many things and not take into account certain unpredictable factors. Makes sense he is smart enough to break into the school computer. But how can he look at an engine and tell where the rattling sound was coming from? Its like he'd have to have X ray vision. So I'm glad he didn't take the horse's injury into account.


I did like Daphe's storyline. Where she tries to get to the truth all the time and then getting unexpected consequences. And it was nice she could tell her Uncle was lying to Jim and Stephanie.


Oh yeah, one other thing, I've been watching since the series started, has it been established that Dr. King and his associates has no idea that Stephanie and her family have super powers? I know the guy called The Watcher who is dating Kate now knows something is going on with them. Yet when the glass fell on Kate and Stephanie in an attempt to kill Kate, that girl didn't see how fast Stephanie moved to push her out of the way? I guess she is fast and you wouldn't see her move. But wouldn't Kate appear to disappear and reappear elsewhere? Maybe I'm asking too many questions.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Originally Posted by Nelson Au


But how can he look at an engine and tell where the rattling sound was coming from?

For many problems, a good mechanic can take a look under the hood and tell where a rattling sound is coming from. Different problems cause different sounds. Presumably this expertise is written down somewhere, and if it's written down somewhere, JJ will know it.


I agree 100 percent about the horse racing thing. There's too many variables that don't take shape until after the horses leave the starting gate. JJ's wiz kid brain could identify the most statistically likely horse, even figure out which long shots have the best shot of surprising everybody. He'd be a far more successful gambler than 99 percent of the people at the track on a given day. But I still can't see him doing better than 60-70 percent of the time. I was glad the horse lost, too, for that reason.

 

[NeilO]

Yes, I also was quite glad that JJ lost at the race track. I wish he did it earlier in the episode, but it would have messed up the plot if they did that. It really as stretching things a bit much to see him winning so consistently up until then. And of course, the double standard of using the powers really comes up there.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I wish they wouldn't have just brushed aside a major cliffhanger for the second week in a row, but I do find myself really liking this show in spite of myself. I guess it's because it is lighter than most superhero fare, and the cast is likeable. Still, if they want it to be light, they need to dial back on Stephen Collins and his nefarious plots. Was his assistant Lost's Charlotte?


Since the local affiliate scheduled something else for Tuesday, this aired early yesterday morning for me. 3:10am. Odd time, no? Well, it started at 3. I had to hulu the first ten minutes. Local CBS does that with Jeopardy. A college game will preempt it, so they'll schedule it for 12:45 and my recording will start 15 minutes in.

 

[NeilO]

Color me surprised. Tonight's episode was the best one in the series so far. It was fun, we learned more about various characters, and overall was probably the best written episode they've had. There were nice mini-cliffhangers at the ad breaks. All the characters seemed to be in character. I don't know if they thought things out differently this time around, but all the plots worked worked for me.

Plus, you have to wonder if the woman from IA was really looking for an artifact.

 

[Nelson Au]

I thought it was good too. Agreed all the characters were in good form.


I liked the Breakfast Club/Die Hard homage. I liked how Stephanie's ability was exposed to the fake Kate and Joshua's ability to real Kate. But I couldn't help but ask, why isn't Kate asking more questions about Joshua? I guess she wants to keep the secret, even keeping it from Stephanie. What is nice for her is she has a superhero boyfriend.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

Weekly Stupid Moment: Stephanie finds out who the real Katie is and immediately turns her back on the homocidal maniac shapeshifter.