No Ordinary Family episode 11 review: No Ordinary Friends

This review contains spoilers.

11. No Ordinary Friends

I was expecting No Ordinary Family to come back next week, but for whatever reason they moved it forward and my seasonal break ended abruptly with the arrival of No Ordinary Friends.

My faith in the concept behind this show has effectively been shaken, so I didn’t have any presumptions that the resumption of it would signal any significant change in direction. It didn’t take long for this story to entirely support my view, with a story that combined the very worst of No Ordinary Family‘s failings.

It started well enough with Jim trying to stop an art thief, and then saving a man from being run over by a bus. These two seemingly unconnected events have a curious link, which becomes apparent after Dave Cotten (played by once child actor Rick Schroder) turns up with his family at the Powell home to thank him in person.

This was a rather fluffy and inconsequential subplot, but it was the agonisingly painful material that they inserted between these portions that made me want to kick the TV.

The most diabolical of these by far was those parts allocated to Katie and her relationship with ‘The Watcher’, where she reveals first to Stephanie and then later him that she’s a virgin. The Office often has moments where you want to look away as characters do or say embarrassing things, but Katie’s scenes were so dire that I wanted to turn off entirely and just move on with my life.

I know Katie, played by the lovely Autumn Reeser, is supposed to be a bit ditsy, but I didn’t buy this diversion for one moment. The writer who creates her dialogue has an entirely inane idea of the sort of things that nerds come out with, and Katie comes over as a decidedly fake one to this fully paid-up member of that subculture.

As if this subplot wasn’t insulting enough, the way Katie’s personality appeared to alter into womanhood after she’s consummated her relationship with the regretful Watcher was remarkably silly. Part of me finds Autumn Reeser a very watchable actress, but not doing what they’ve got her performing here.

Normally, at this point in my No Ordinary Family reviews, I’d maybe suggest that they alter things, and even say perhaps how they might do that, but I’ve actually run totally out of gas on that trip. If this show is fixable, and far be it from me to suggest that it isn’t, then it’s doing an exceptionally good job of hiding any intentions to address what issues it has.

The humour in here isn’t funny, the drama insufficiently dramatic, and the characters are starting to grind on me like a piece of this narrative vehicle is dragging along the ground. Maybe it’s about time the Powells handed their powers back, and we all found something better to do with our time.

Read our review of episode 10, No Ordinary Sidekick, here.

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