No Ordinary Family episode 16 review: No Ordinary Proposal

This review contains spoilers.

16. No Ordinary Proposal

This week’s story includes a big revelation, explaining much about the odd relationship between Joshua and Doctor King.

Before I get on to that revelation, I want to address those who think I’m overly tough on this show. The problem I have with No Ordinary Family isn’t unique. I had it with FlashForward last year. Because, as a viewer, I find it incredibly distracting if the story doesn’t join up, as I wonder if the omission is going to be back-filled at some point. Except what we’ve seen here is that the writers just give up trying to come up with any meaningful reasoning, and assume, as this is ‘comic book’ content, it just doesn’t matter. I’ve news for the writers: it’s just not good enough to do that.

I know they’ve not got that, because this entire story is built on an event that makes no sense, and at the end it was never addressed.

Chris is invited to a party at the Powell’s and steals the super-serum, which his father, played by Anthony Michael Hall, then injects into himself to fix paralysis brought on by a road accident. Except, as he’s not in the super-loop, how did he know what he was stealing wasn’t drain cleaner? How did he know it just wouldn’t kill him, or was even designed to be injected? It’s not like it had a label that said “inject this to become superhuman”, is it?

As an actor, I really like Anthony Michael Hall. He was superb in The Dead Zone, so why he’s reduced to appearing in this, I’ve no idea.

But the biggest disappointment was that the start of the show offered the possibility of an interesting ‘collateral damage’ subplot, where a kid gets hurt when Jim deflects a bullet from a guy he’s fighting. This had real potential for exploring a classic super-dilemma. But in the end, it bookended events, and the resolution, where, while they’re digging for the bullet they find a tumour, was remarkably silly.

It wasn’t all junk, however. It did have one thread that was actually quite interesting, which is the revelation that brought us the key information that Joshua is the son of Doctor King. This goes to explain some of the very odd ways they’ve acted in respect of each other, although it made me wonder why we’ve waited so long for this explanation. Does it mean that if we wait another season that some of the other gapping plot holes will be explained? I don’t think so.

What I really liked in this was that it gave much more depth to the Joshua character, with him leaving after being dumped by Katie and possibly the anti-power serum starting to work. It will be very interesting to see what happens to him, as I can’t believe he won’t reappear before the season (and possibly show) is done.

I also liked that the very irritating teacher, Mr. Litchfield, is now working for Doctor King, and possibly getting JJ to solve his science problems by the back door.

If I’m honest, I don’t think the show is redeemable. But I’m hoping that, in the four stories left, they can at least deliver something interesting, and positively, this story had its moments.

I just hope that Anthony Michael Hall gets a better gig than this soon, as he’s much better than the material he got handed here.

Read our review of episode 15, No Ordinary Powell, here.

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