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No Ordinary Family Trailer Blocked In UK – Plus Script Review

NBC seem happy to let the world see the trailer for The Cape. But ABC are terribly protective of their trailer for No Ordinary Family.

So basically I can't see the video above. So, Americans… tell me… what's it like? Does it live up to the following script review posted on BleedingCool a few months ago?

No Ordinary Family Trailer Blocked In UK – Plus Script Review

No Ordinary Family Trailer Blocked In UK – Plus Script Review

It's generally most interesting in superfiction, if superpowers rather than reflect actual power, make up for a loss of it. So Superman reflects the immigrant experience, Spider-Man is the losing-at-life teenager, X-Men are the repressed minorities. Misfits worked better than No Heroics for a number of reasons, but No Heroics parodied minor celebrity culture, where as Misfits filled a gaping hole in the teenage underclass. Heroes gave average joes the chance to be something more – although empowering the already powerful wasn't a great move – Nathan Petrelli worked because his political position was an impotent one. And The Cape creates a more artificial power vacuum, the framed man who has lost his old life.

No Ordinary Family Trailer Blocked In UK – Plus Script ReviewNo Ordinary Family shares many traits with The Incredibles, but thematically they both choose to show a family that is in danger of falling apart with superpowers used to fill the gaps. The Incredibles has the powers being the cause of said faults as well, where No Ordinary Family flips that dynamic. So you can bet that it won't be all happy sailing for the family in episodes to come.

No Ordinary Family Trailer Blocked In UK – Plus Script Review

Just as some people have children to improve their relationship, Jim and Stephanie get superpowers. And whatever they find lacking in their lives is granted a solution. Jim gets an outlet to express himself and make a difference in a world that he thinks ignores him, while Stephanie gets the chance to really be a supermum and have it all, a high-end job and a full and fulfilling family life.

No Ordinary Family Trailer Blocked In UK – Plus Script Review

And yeah, the kids gets superpowers too, which dramatically affect their own school lives, the way they pereceive others and the way others perceive them.

So how geeky is it? Well not very. It's a family comedy drama, albeit one that steers the wheel widely, starting off like a decent episode of Scrubs with multiple justaposed narrators before meandering into the drama and self-reflection of the likes of Huff. Still there are a few superheroic asides…

No Ordinary Family Trailer Blocked In UK – Plus Script Review

This pilot is patchy in parts, never really settling on a style – which isn't a bad thing in itself, but the different elements don't seem knitted together well enough.  An ironic tone of detachment in one scene doesn't fit well with a straight uncritical portrayal of superpowers in the next. This may be a tad disconcerting for the viewer, or it may become a feature of the show.

However it's a much more interesting exploration of poossibilities of superfiction than The Cape. And leagues ahead of the repetitive, moralising and self-defeative melodramatic nature of Heroes.

Tell you what though. It's no Misfits.


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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