Since Heroes is gone, TV audiences have been yearning for the next watered-down, comic book style show all about superheroes, honestly you have. And what do you know, there’s two coming along.
Look out for No Ordinary Family, starring Michael Chiklis (The Shield) and Julie Benz (Buffy, Angel). Then look harder for The Cape starring some bloke no one recognises, Summer Glau (The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Chuck, Dollhouse and Firefly) and… Vinnie Jones?! Umm. OK. Oh, and Smallville is still going, even though it’s on its 10th and final season.
Do we really want more superheroes on TV? Yeah, actually, we do. Heroes, even at its worst, was still action-packed and pretty cool despite being highly confusing and treading a lot of water by the end of its last season.
If you take away all the darker themes of Heroes, use a fraction of the characters, centre it around one family and keep the feel about four beats off a typical US sitcom and you have No Ordinary Family.
It’s basically Heroes, but far more twee. Personally, I find it fills a hole Heroes left and only 12 episodes in I much prefer it to the comic-book-rammed-down-your-throat approach of the moody superpowers angst-fest. No Ordinary Family tells the tales of the Powells, after they mysteriously develop highly convenient superpowers shortly after a plane crash in South America. Somewhere.
No Ordinary Family is a highly American TV show; with family values in its core and on its sleeve. It doesn’t overwhelm you with dark, twisted stories about normal people inevitably turning desperate or violent once they gain super powers. It’s moralistic; each Powell family member is an archetype of the modern American citizen.
The dad, Jim (baldy from The Shield) is a police sketch artist, of all things. It’s mad; angry cop from The Shield is acting all awkward and subordinate in an office full of tough cops. Anyway, he’s caring, open minded and a bit of a loveable fool.
Jim is also deeply devoted to his wife and his family, so it was a no-brainer when he decided to put his super strength to use helping the innocent. What follows is a series of interesting, and often amusing, consequences.
Jim’s wife, Stephanie (blondie from Angel, and recently Dexter), develops the ability to run super fast, giving her the opportunity to be a good mum, finally. You see, she’s a top research scientist, which she gave up a lot to achieve, poor thing. It does mean, however, that Stephanie is able to test the family and slowly work out what’s going on with them. This is an ongoing storyline, very juicy stuff.
Jim and Stephanie’s two kids develop mind reading and super-intelligence, giving over to a number of teen angst stories from a firmly adult viewpoint. Not only did these kids develop super powers, they also developed super control over their hormones. No teenager should ever behave this much.
As with a lot of high-concept shows running on prime time US TV, don’t expect too much and you wont be disappointed. It’s a fun show and it’s not at all deep. But it’s better than Heroes.
As for The Cape; Ha! It’s terrible. The pilot episode was a by-the-book origin story (think the beginning of Spider-Man, Batman Begins or the recent Green Hornet) pandering to a small slice of the population who wouldn’t recognise an origin story if it smacked them on the face. The Cape is patronising, ridiculous and has laughably clichéd characters and dialogue. The casting of the Cape’s wife and child is the show’s most punchable quality though. Oh my god, those actors couldn’t be more annoying, especially the kid. SMILE! For god’s sake.
However, The Cape does feel far more original than Heroes/No Ordinary Family. The protagonist has no superpowers, he’s just very well trained (think Batman but with more illusion thrown in) and the world isn’t filled with overly-powerful enemies for The Cape to face off. It’s only one episode in so it’s still trying to find its feet, i’ll give it time to mature but The Cape has great potential to be gritty, funny, shocking and poignant (but so did Heroes).
In this sense, The Cape is a far more realistic superhero TV show. Because, let’s face it, if we did start developing new abilities they’d be things like ever so slightly better hearing, the ability to work out mental arithmetic a bit faster than most other people and, perhaps, bigger hands.
I don’t think that would be as interesting on TV, somehow. But it would still be better than Heroes.
No Ordinary Family airs on Watch (no, I’ve not heard of it either but it’s a Sky channel), Tuesdays at 8pm. The Cape isn’t available in the UK at the time of writing.
