No Ordinary Family episode 17 review: No Ordinary Love

This review contains spoilers.

17. No Ordinary Love

I’m determined, this week, to focus only on the positive in this show, as one of my biggest fans pointed out in last week’s talkback that I’ve not been too kind to No Ordinary Family recently.

He also pointed out that I was wrong about the number of episodes, when I suggested there would be 20 in the season. He was right. There are supposed to be 22, but those devilish ABC execs cut the order to 20. So, entirely by accident, I was right all along.

But in the spirit of ‘the glass is half full’ thinking, there are three more superhero-filled stories after this one to enjoy, for those that do.

So, what’s great about No Ordinary Love? One thing, or maybe two, or a whole bunch, depending what mood you’re in. The super of the week in this story is called Sophie Adler, and she’s another super-villain, this time with super-powered pheromones capable of captivating any man she wishes to control.

The irony of casting the drool inducing Tricia Helfer (Number Six in Battlestar Galactica) as Sophie wasn’t lost on me. Because, frankly, she doesn’t actually need that super power to have exactly the same impact that her character has.

Not far into the story she’s got George and Jim entirely entranced, and doing her evil bidding. If I’m honest, I didn’t really follow how to make plastic explosives you need cough medicine, and if you did, why you didn’t just entrance the man at the store to give you all his stock (unless he’s not attracted to women such as Tricia Helfer, and it doesn’t work on him)?

But then, I was so engrossed in Tricia that details like that just seemed, well, unimportant and trivial. Sigh.

The scenes she was in were so well constructed, mostly around her and her charms, that I entirely forgot that I wasn’t supposed to like this show. For a moment, which actually lasted around thirty-five minutes, I wondered if the writers had been watching old Voyager repeats and suddenly worked out how they might improve their flagging ratings. But that’s the cynical old me talking, not the positive ‘we can make this work’ modern man. They employed Tricia for her acting and she emotes super-ness brilliantly.

I was, therefore, mortified in the final minutes to discover that, while the budget did spring to bring us the almost as charming Lucy Lawless as the uber-villain on the rung above Doctor King, it didn’t actually go to bringing Tricia onboard for more than one episode appearance.

On another positive note, there was relatively little Katie this week, something I was most thankful for. They also introduced a new super baddy, and this guy has claws that come out of his knuckles, which is a totally original idea that we’ve never, ever seen before, on an superhero movie, show or comic. How do they think these incredible ideas up? They’re special, too, I guess.

Given that they’ve only also just brought Lucy Lawless onboard as Mrs X., I’ve got an odd feeling that the next stories are going to be brimming with activity, just to get to the narrative finishing line of the season. I can’t see that all the plot threads will be resolved, but I’d put money on the return of Joshua and the untimely death of Doctor King.

The next two weeks will see the super power of repeat used unsparingly on the Powells, and then we get the final three episodes with the season ending on April 5th. As this is currently the lowest rated ABC show that’s not already cancelled, you don’t need to have Daphne’s powers to work out what happens after that, or very possibly even before then.

But looking on the bright side, Michael Chiklis can then spend some quality time finding a show script that’s more like those on The Shield, and decline any more superhero gigs.

Read our review of episode 16, No Ordinary Proposal, here.

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