You start out brand new with a show and you immediately like it. As time goes forward, you begin to become invested in it. The newness and excitement of a new series is fresh and invigorating and you can hardly wait, week after week, for that new episode to get here. You get to know the characters … the good ones, the bad ones and the ones you may not give a hoot about. Maybe you can even identify with some of them.
Through the course of the freshman season, you find you’ve invested time into the show for whatever it’s worth. You look forward to that Tuesday evening when you will discover what adventures come along, what problems present themselves. You want to know that Jim is going to continue to get better at what he does. You cheer and guffaw and sigh over what the kids are doing to others and to themselves in getting used to their new-found powers. You find yourself caught up in some of the same frustrations Stephanie experiences as a mother and as a brilliant mind at Global Tech. You bristle at what Watcher and Dr. King are doing behind everyone’s back.
You disregard the ratings because it’s a new show and you know anything can happen. You hear the buzz about the program and you discuss it with other like-minded individuals who share your interests. You huff and puff and tear your hair out at some of what’s going on in the middle of the season because it’s so damned silly; who the hell is writing such guff? You want meat and potatoes, you don’t want throw-away filler. For a period of weeks you find yourself unsatiated with the show because it’s just not moving along at the clip you’d like it to. You’re finding the situations comical, the kids’ stories bordering on the ridiculous and you long for a whole lot more.
Then, all of a sudden, you catch an airing that makes you sit back and think for a moment. And then another. And then yet another. What’s going on? All of a sudden, without you realizing it, this show got as engaging as it was in the beginning! Characters and situations are intertwining! Interesting and new again! Things are beginning to make sense! “This is the way it should have been from the beginning!” you say to yourself. Little bits and pieces of answers are slowly and satisfyingly making their way into the fabric of the story and you’re champing at the bit once more for the following week to come along to see what happens!
In a nutshell, that’s what’s been happening on No Ordinary Family.
While rumors have been flying the last few weeks about what’s going to end up happening with the show (Michael Chiklis is starring in a new pilot … the season’s order has been trimmed by a few episodes … Julie Benz, too, is starring in yet another new pilot), nothing definitive has been set in stone. Yes, the ratings haven’t been up to par where an automatic renewal would have been a no-brainer. And, with it being a brand new show, couldn’t we at least have one superhero program that seems to be rolling along nicely, albeit a bit late — especially with the likes of The Event and The Cape tanking or already tanked?
And then comes the kicker which all but dooms hope: No Ordinary Family’s (series?) finale is bumped to a 10:00 p.m. time slot … and on a Saturday night, no less. Still no word on the fate of the show (that word will be coming in May), but if the writing wasn’t on the wall before, it’s definitely been outlined in contrasting colors, practically shouting out to us.
No … I’m not happy. A spiffy little program I enjoy appears to be headed for the history pages on the IMDb reference, complete with little side notes in Wikipedia. A scant few hours worth of life is all the show has left. The “if only” game on what should have transpired with the show all these months is in full swing, being played and bantered about by tons of fans from coast to coast.
But it’s not going to make any difference.
The end is near … and it’s nigh invulnerable.
Clacked by Michael Noble 
on Mar 22, 2011 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
I think your description of the evolution of the show is mimicked in many others, especially genre shows. It starts out promising, decides after a couple of episodes to just flounder around, then after most of the audience has jumped ship the darned thing gets really good. SGU and Caprica immediately come to mind as other examples that same MO. I don’t know if it’s a genre thing specifically, but it’s killing shows that end up being pretty good, they just get to the good too late.
*POST AUTHOR*
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I confess, Tom: My evolution description is hauled out each and every year, dusted off and attached to some innocuous offering. All I need do is change the names and the links and *viola* … there you go.
That MO does seem to happen often, though. Not “more often than not” … just often.
The show was dead several months ago, you act like the Saturday Night burnoff is news.
The ratings are horrible, have been for months, and are still dropping! V has a great chance of getting picked up than NOF.
*POST AUTHOR*
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As of the 18th of this month, the Saturday bump was news, Oreo.
That’s not what I meant.
The bump to Saturday isn’t a death blow for the show. The show is not going to get picked up if the finale episode was on Saturday or not. The show has been dead for months, the writers hopefully know that.
*POST AUTHOR*
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Beg to differ with you, Oreo: It hasn’t been dead for months.
With Episode 12, things started to shake up … and over the course of the successive episodes, not only did things pick up, they improved overall to the point it was exciting again.
Matter’n fact, with Ep 13, thing shifted into high gear …
It’s always felt like an “ABC Family” network show–more like “Kyle XY” and less like a show for grown-ups. Something about the writing, I think.
I think Kyle XY reruns on Friday nights in the summer are doing better than NOF is doing now.
*POST AUTHOR*
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In many ways, ScottH, it has.
But along the way, there have been some spiffy “grown up” situations that have stood up to take notice of. And not only by the grown ups on the show …