Looking over the scores for No Ordinary Family, I'm really surprised by the oscillation of the numbers, considering that the vast majority of my scores fall into a fairly narrow range.
The main problem is that the writers don't have a clear grasp of what they want. There are two versions of No Ordinary Family. Most commonly, there are the episodes where the family takes precedent over the superpower, and those episodes are highly annoying. On occasion, there are good episodes where the superpowers and mystery are central.
"No Ordinary Mobster," thankfully, is the latter, but still has major problems with the kids. After George's ADA friend, played by the lovely Amy Acker, is shot. Jim has to get involved and is seen by the gangster who's later killed by the Watcher. Stephanie's plot, in particular, was the strong point of the episode, as we see how far her boss's reach is. But at the same time, the Watcher seems to have his own agenda, not telling the CEO about Jim.
And the kids, still mismanaged into groan-inducing tools. JJ making a fake profile for Katie.. why oh why...The Watcher shows up at the date in lieu of JJ's fake guy. How did he know? There better be an explanation next week. Daphne extorts JJ into helping her impress a boy who spurns her in the end. The main problem is that no one plot for the kids is given enough time to grow. Underdeveloped high school drama + superpowers =/= interesting.
Seven episodes into the season and No Ordinary Family has major kinks to work out. However, "No Ordinary Mobster" can count as one of the better episodes, if that means anything to anyone.
Score: 8.6/10
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
View Comments
