Not Even Ordinary

The idea of No Ordinary Family doesn't sound bad--a TV show about a mom, dad, son and daughter with superpowers. In fact, it sounded like The Incredibles, which itself was like other stuff--no one owns the patent on superpowers.  But until Tuesday, I'd never watched a full hour.  Then I heard this week's episode, "No Ordinary Love," featured Tricia Helfer and Lucy Lawless, better known to Battlestar Galactica fans as Six and Three (though they're both tens), and I was there.

Anyway, promising premise, absurd execution.

There was a subplot about the daughter's mental powers, and another about the wife's evil boss, but I'll concentrate on what Tricia Helfer was doing.  She played a woman who used pheremones (not sure if it was a superpower) to make men fall head over heels.  First she gets some no-name guy to steal stuff for her.  When he's caught by the Dad and is being prosecuted, she turns her charms on Dad's prosecutor friend, and he starts stealing stuff. He also plans to marry this woman, which gets the Dad suspicious.  Next thing you know, however, Tricia has the Dad doing her bidding, this time with superpower efficiency.

Tricia builds a bomb out of what the guys stole, and has Dad place it on top of the building where Mom has been doing questionable experiments for her evil boss.  Tricia's boss is Lucy Lawless, who has been impatient for Tricia's plan to move forward.  Mom, who had been pretty confused when her husband dumped her after 18 years of marriage, has by this point figured out what's going on.  She uses the power of True Love to defeat the power of Chemical Love.

So the day is saved.   Lucy Lawless, who doesn't take disappointment well, kills Tricia Helfer by planting a bomb on her car, so I guess Six isn't a recurring character. (Though BG featured plenty of Sixes.)

Pretty much every step of this plot makes no sense. First, the whole plan is way too complex for the job at hand. The bomb material is pretty much everyday stuff, and placing it on the roof of this building (which Dad and Tricia have no trouble walking right up to) seems pretty easy as well.  So why go to all the trouble of making people fall in love to do it? Just do it yourself.  In fact, why should Lucy Lawless go to the trouble of hiring Tricia Helfer when she has no trouble blowing up Helfer on the spot?

When the first guy under Helfer's control is arrested, she goes to see the lawyer, presumably to convince him to drop the charges. Next thing you know, she's getting the lawyer to do her bidding.  Why bother to get the guy off, then?  He's just a dupe.  Write him off and start again.

At first I figured Helfer was doing it all to get to Dad and his superpowers.  But what she asked him to do wasn't that hard, and there was no indication that she did anything but chance upon him.  In fact, that was the weirdest part of the show.  Halfway through, Dad and the lawyer face off over Tricia, and Dad effortlessly tosses the lawyer across the room.  Rather than be shocked, or register much of anything, Helfer's attitude seems to be "what a stroke of luck--I've stumbled across a guy with superpowers--just the thing I need to speed up my plan--good thing too since Lucy Lawless seems pretty impatient to blow up that building."

Then, when Mom uses True Love to snap her husband out of it, why didn't that work before when he left her on a dime? How could she know it would work?  Considering her power was superspeed, it'd be a lot easier to let him plant the bomb then grab it and run off a few miles.

One more thing.  Pheremones?  Tricia Helfer doesn't need pheremones.

I realize this is a family show, and perhaps ABC figures the plots should be kept simple.  But simple doesn't mean dumb.