Josh: No Ordinary Family: Episode Three (review)

Today, I have decided to organise the individual plots for each of the four main characters into sections so it's easier to read. So, here is my review of 'No Ordinary Family' episode three - No Ordinary Ring(each episode title starting with 'No Ordinary' by the way).

Jim: Jim is still practicing his super-human skills with George just in case he is needed for a crime, but for now he jumps his way to be on time to the tuxedo shop for a new suit for a wedding the Powells are attending. He misses the wedding but turns up at the reception where the procession are robbed of their prized possessions by an armed gang. They also take Stephanie's ring, so then Jim and George find out all weddings in the area are being targeted by the gang so they go to a wedding where Jim fails to capture Steph's ring. But second time around, after he throws one of the gang off the roof onto a police car, George gets hold of Steph's ring which was found on the arrested man. But, the offender isn't proven guilty of robbery so gets off. Meanwhile, Jim organises a moonlight dinner with Steph on top of an expensive restaurant where he returns her ring.

Stephanie: Steph, is closer to being able to get her plant project going but Doctor King asks her to take part in a physical test. So, naturally Steph is worried about her blood test as her blood is now full of weird DNA so Katie offers her blood up to the nurse. But then Steph reminds her that both their blood was taken when they took the job at Global Tech, so their blood won't match and both could end up fired. So, Steph uses her powers to break in Global Tech at night with another employee's card, and swaps Katie's blood with an old sample of hers. She thinks she's got away with it but Dr King has noticed the break-in, checked the CCTV and seen a strange blur near the testubes - STEPH!

Daphne - Daphne's childhood friend who she hasn't talken to for years, asks if she can come round to the Powells as they haven't done so in ages, when in fact when Daphne reads her mind, she doesn't want to be alone. So, when her friend comes round Daphne reads her mind again and discovers that her parents are splitting up, but when she asks her friend about it she thinks Daphne is weird so runs off. Daphne then complains to her parents that she needs to talk to someone about her abilities and her friend is the one, and as she tries to explain to her friend she gives in to her parents' pleas and lies to her friend. Meanwhile in her life Daphne is suspicous of Jim's vigilante actions and discovers he is fighting crime.

JJ: JJ is still being accused of cheating at school as well as being blackmailed by Daphne as she is keeping his secret about his powers. He is doing her homework and in return, she does him a favour by reading the mind of a girl he likes. But the girl thinks he's a tool but Daphne lies and says she only dates Jewish boys. So, JJ uses his genius brain to quickly learn Hebrew and he pretends to do religious things when the girl comes over to study. He freaks her out when he reveals he's trying to be Jewish, she's confused so leaves, leaving JJ to have a go at his older sister for lying to him.

Opinion: Congratulations to ABC for creating yet another great episode of this hit drama, because it was just as good as the first two. Of course I was disapointed that they skated over the previous murder of Yvonne with only a brief mention from Jim. Also, I was slightly annoyed that they didn't include the story arc about Dr King and the Watcher but nevertheless the main plot was strong and interesting. The comic inclusion of Jim trying to dance was pretty funny and I liked the slow-mo break in from Steph. Also, I like how the show dealt with Daphne's storyline about lying and I thought JJ's storyline was a bit cheesy but still of good proportions. I'm looking forward to next week's episode and I hope you are for this review!
Thanks, Josh.

Josh: No Ordinary Family: Episode 1&2 (recap)

"You can't fly but you can jump." George.
Plot: 'No Ordinary Family' is an American television series from the company - ABC, which is a sci-fi, comedy drama which began airing last year in September over in the USA. But, on British channel; Watch (part of the BBC), it began last week with a double-bill.

Episode One sees the Powell Family, who are dysfunctional family living in fictional Pacific Bay, California. Father and police sketch artist; Jim (Michael Chilkis) decide to take the family on a holiday to South America as they do not talk much to each other anymore and he feels left out. But, all goes wrong when their plane crashes into a river in Brazil, which seems to give them supernatural powers. Jim is first when he saves his colleague Detective Yvonne Cho (Christina Chang) from a gunman in the office, by catching one of the bullets. So along with his friend and comic book fan; George St. Cloud (Romany Malco) he develops his new abilities by trying to fight crime and discovers he can jump miles at time and is super-strong. He does this and is able to successfully draw perfect images of the offenders for his superiors.

Meanwhile, his wife; Stephanie (Julie Benz), discovers she can run incredibly fast, can heal quickly and has a really fast metabolism which helps her keep slim. So, with her friend and lab-assistant (Katie Andrews -Autumn Reeser) at her company; Global Tech, she uses her powers to her own advantages. This includes getting a sample of the water in the river that her family were subjected to in Brazil but she finds nothing in it. But at the same time she is in the middle of a project about an amazing plant which intrigues her boss. But her boss; Doctor Dayton King (Stephen Collins) is more or less the bad guy, who employs 'The Watcher' (another 'super'(Josh Stewart) to keep an eye on other supernatural humans, which leads up to the murder of Yvonne in episode two.

And then we go back to Jim and Yvonne's children; JJ (Jimmy Bennett) and Daphne (Kay Panabaker) who also have powers, but JJ keeps his secret as the powers he owns make his parents proud. You see JJ, has gained a 'super-brain' and is now highly intelligent unlike his previous self which was rather 'dumb'. But this causes his disbelieving teachers to doubt him and accuse of him of cheating, which makes Jim upset. On the other hand we have Daphne, a rebellious teenager who is dating the bad boy of her school, who is now telepathic. This new power is hard for her to handle at first but then she controls and is able suss out her boyfriend is cheating on her with her best friend.

Opinion: An exciting and addictive double-bill of this US drama has intrigued me to review it because I think that it is so good. In comparison to other US super-hero shows like Heroes and Smallville, which I never watched as I think them not good, this is a feel good family show. It has all the basic elements of a normal superhero themed programme and all the original abilities you get with it but this show has a nice twist to it. The show has light-hearted humour, strong fantasy action and an interesting adult take on both the parents and children's lives. It also has a good focus on topics such as teenage sex, dyslexia and relationship problems. If people reading this haven't already tuned in then do, you haven't missed much important plot because I've summarised all here. Tune in tonight at 8pm on Watch, I urge you, this is a great show that I'll be reviewing here every Wednesday starting tomorrow.
Thanks, Josh.

Review: GHTTB:LoM 2.1 and 2.2

Life On Mars, Series Two, Episode One

"Is this ringing any bells?"
Sam Tyler

Life On Mars returns with an interesting episode that throws us in at the deep end, examining what happens when the ideologies of Hunt and Tyler switch places. It also confronts a question no dout screamed at the television set several times during Series One: why doesn't Sam use his hindsight to catch criminals before they act? On the whole, it's also a lot more fortified and tangible than previously.
     Under the glare of the public eye, Gene and Sam investigate the murder/mugging of a man on a bus. Evidence leads them to casino-owner Tony Crane (Hustle's Marc Warren) whom Sam knows as a crime-lord murderer that Sam put away in the 90s, and whom he believes is torturing him by his bedside in 2006. While Gene is acting By-the-Book for the press, Sam is desperately driven by his conscience to try and find/manufature evidence that will get Crane sent down.
    It's not like it hasn't been done before, but the hindsight-induced characterisation flip between Sam and Gene still makes interesting television. Simm's acting is exemplary here; you can see his sheer desperation and also perhaps his loneliness. This is one of the first episodes, as far as I've seen so far in this marathon, that uses a lot of Chekov's guns to achieve its aims, e.g. Lunatics given no fair trial; Sam's invention, several decades early, of the "stinger" for stopping cars. It also kept very strong ties to the present day, a dynamic that I like. Often Mars feels slightly polarised between its Crime and Sci-Fi genres, and it's in episodes like this one that the two blend perfectly. There are also, finally, hints that Sam may be able to return to the future. A great start to the series.
 

Life On Mars, Series Two, Episode Two
"You don't have to play the clown. You're better than that."

After last week's straightforward tale, Episode Two presents us with a newfound complexity and potency. It also does some more to adress Police Corruption (at least before that topic becomes stale, which it will.) It also, unfortunately, begins to give credence to the Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory ideas in the Ashes To Ashes finale. Shouldn't bother about that now though. On to the plot.
    Our main plot concerned the capture of "Dicky Fingers," a police witness stolen from under Sam's nose. Under the advice of honoured Superintendant Harry Woolf, Gene goes after gangster Arnold Malone, who tips them off about a bank job he's planned. Dicky, in interrogation, actually gives evidence against Woolf, claiming that he's a crime boss behind the scenes, to Gene's anger and Sam's surprise. Sam intends to take the accusations seriously but Gene, in his love of his Superintendant, tells Woolf everything. Woolf laughs it off, but overnight Fingers disappears. Sam stakes out Woolf but he lets Gene know, leading to some... drastic measures. Fingers is found dead and the evidence stacks up against the superintendant, as doubts start to creep into Gene's mind. They investigate and find firm evidence, after which they confront a gun-toting, desperate Woolf.
     The subplot in this episode covered Tyler's black superintendant, Glenn, who, having died in 2006, appears in 1973 as a young officer. Sam tries to persuade him that he shouldn't play on his skin colour just to survive in the racist world of the time, but is then disappointed when he ends up caught up in Woolf''s corruption. This subplot easily provides the best moment of the episode, in the downright inspirational speech Sam gives to a worrying Glenn.
     This episode is really about idols. Both leads find their idols, their inspirations on the police force, in a disappointing state: Gene with his treasured Superintendant Woolf, and Sam with the now youthened Glenn. It's a fable about how you should never model your life directly off someone elses, how independance is important. Not bad for a small-time crime show, in my opinion.

Thanks.

Review: Lost 4.2: Confirmed Dead

Note: If you want to understand these reviews, I'd direct you to Lostpedia's Season Four portal. All of the images in my Lost reviews have been taken from Lostpedia, and the plot there goes into greater detail.

In the past, Miles talks to a ghost.

Season Four uses its second episode to lay down the ground rules concerning this year's quirks, making use of flashback to show us the new roster of characters coming our way, and how exactly they got involved in the first place. Meanwhile, events in the present turn into a somewhat farcical run-around as the survivors meet the freighter people and vice versa.
      Flashbacks show us scientist Daniel Faraday being upset at the discovery of a false wreckage for Oceanic 815, spiritualist Miles Straume getting rid of a ghost, anthropologist Charlotte Lewis finding a polar bear skull in Tunisia, pilot Frank Lapidus informing Oceanic that the pilot in the wreckage isn't the one that was on the plane, and Naomi (who died last episode) talking with mysterious Abbaddon about how and why she needs top assemble this motley crew. I can appreciate that this episode was caused by the Writers' Guild Strike, but it would have been so much better to display the essence of their character instead of (in Charlotte's case) simply using them for mixing up the plot. I think the most well done of these on a character level is Miles' segment, perfectly capturing his abilities and his personality well.

Charlotte "lands".

     Meanwhile, on the island, Daniel meets with the survivors, as well as Miles, who reveals that Naomi's request to "Tell my sister I love her" was in fact a warning signal. Jack and Kate explain what happened. Meanwhile, Locke's group get funky about their "destiny", and they run into Charlotte hanging upside down. Frank lands, send out a flare and both teams set out to move towards it; Charlotte is shot (not fatally, she's serupticiously wearing a bulletproof vest) and, after some coaxing, Miles reveals why they're really on the island. And it's not to save the survivors - it's to find a man. A man called Ben Linus, the leader of the island's natives who is currently being held by Locke's group. (Again, I direct you to Lostpedia.) The story doesn't waste any time in getting everything into position and blowing away any doubts about how quickly the rescues are going to happen. Unfortunately, this can often feel rushed and out of pace. Again, I can only blame the writer's strike for this.
     Confirmed Dead is an episode with some very interesting ideas and a vested intention of setting out the season's stall before throwing the viewer back into the flashforward world. It does suffer because of the Strike, but what we do have is quite impressive considering those conditions. Otherwise, it's a firm story that pushes the plot along with some enjoyable drama and mystery to chew on.

Thanks.

Review: Misfits 1.2

Nathan meets helper Ruth.

Second episode, and Misfits shows us just how gritty it can be in this controversial and absurd episode. Both its storylines revoved around the charismatic Nathan, and they surprisingly manage to touch on a vital message about our treatment of the elderly. It feels a bit of a shame that perhaps the already most vocal character is emphasised in lieu of the others, but I feel that it's important to add some more sentimental characteristics to his otherwise obnoxious nature.
     The group are made to help out at an OAP party, where Nathan is otherwise unoccupied. He sees and chats-up a pretty helper girl called Ruth, who after a drunken night in the community centre end up having sex, during which she transforms into an 82 year old woman. It turns out that Ruth was a pensioner affected by the storm, given a power that satisfied her desire to look young again. Nathan tries to avoid the now-rapidly aging Ruth until he goes round to apologise, and in a touching scene finds her dead in the armchair.While the dark absurdity of this plot in some areas made it feel a little crude, the lack of melodrama provided a refreshing change to the sentimental US drama that was prevalent at the time.

Nathan is "savaged" by Jeremy.

      The main subplot (although it was so woven in with the main that one wouldn't think it was one) surrounded Nathan's home-life, specifically his ailing mother and her boyfriend Jeremy, whom Nathan hates. The gang discover Nathan's step-dad naked on the estate, and later on in the night he appears again, acting like a dog. Nathan's mother has kicked him out of the house, and when he returns to warn his mother about her boyfriend's activities she already knows. He's also been affected by the storm, and is nightly given the mind of his favourite childhood Jack Russell. This subplot is as ridiculous as the main but doesn't hesitate to face the domestic issues apparent in today's youth.
     Elsewhere, a few strands of plot did develop, although not very significantly: Curtis found a mysterious, accusing letter on the inside of his locker, and Simon started chatting online to someone called "shygirl". I think the problem with a Character-A-Week format is that other characters too often get stuck on the sidelines, often having nothing to do before suddenly getting a single week of character development and then nothing after. Series One, in fact, doesn't have an episode that focusses on Kelly, which is a shame.
     As an episode of Misfits 1.2 was fairly standard, taking a mixture of the satirical, cynical and grotesque and creating an entertaining drama. As a Second Episode it was just as successful for the same reasons, showing how far the show was willing to stretch the boundaries, and how these stretches could be played realistically.

Thanks.

No. of Writing Staff: 2

One of my fellow online writers, and one of my peers, is "The Doctor", or Josh Stoddard. He, inspired by this website, created his own blog called "Josh's Blog." As I've recently mentioned, I'm looking for guest writers on Audenshaw Reviews to add some variety and specialisation to preceedings. I of course went to Josh first, as he has some blogging experience. For the next 8 weeks (plus a recap week), he will be reviewing the US Drama "No Ordinary Family" on Wednesdays. I welcome him to the team and hope you'll enjoy his writing midweek.

Thanks.

SuperSunday: Moon

Spoilers Follow. Science Fiction in 2009 was shrouded by the release of 3D epic Avatar, a film now recognised as nothing more than a lazy (albeit very pretty) recant of old Western classic Dances with Wolves. But this review isn't about Avatar. It's about the other major Science Fiction film released in 2009, directed by the son of musical legend David Bowie, Duncan Jones. That film was Moon.
     The film stars Hollywood supporting man Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, a worker nearing the end of his three-year work period as a maintenance worker on the titular satelite. His company, the Korean Lunar Industries, employs him to take care of the automated diggers that harvest the helium 3 needed for Earth's clean fusion energy. Problems with communication satellites mean his only communication with home are videos sent by wife Tess, who was pregnant with daughter Eve when he left.
     Two weeks to go before he returns home, and Sam starts to hallucinate. On his way to fix a harvester he crashes, and when "he" awakens in the base his suspicions are aroused. Sam goes back to the rover, and brings back his body. It turns out that both Sams are clones, built from the DNA and memories of the original Sam Bell, who is now back on Earth. Now the two Sams have only a limited amount of time to try and expose the secrets of the base and hopefully escape before the "rescue team" arrive to clean them up...
      Behind all of its ilicit technobabble, Moon is really a parable about sollitude and deceit. The first Sam we see, Sam 4, has lived for three years in the desperate hope that one day he will return to his wife - who, as we later find out, has been dead for many years. In a way, the discovery of this deceit frees him for the little time he has left (clones die after three years, probably of some form of radiation poisoning), and allows him to eventually make the sacrifice that allows Sam 5 to send himself back to Earth. Who are we meant to see as the villians here? Lunar Industries, for creating the program in the first place? Or the original Sam Bell, who willingly gave his DNA and helped create the hundreds of clones stored in the base?
     The vital variable that makes the film work is the outstanding acting by Sam Rockwell and stand-in Robin Chalk. Rockwell manages to portray two sides of one man - the loose, relaxed Sam 4 versus the paranoid but determined Sam 5. His charting of a man's steady breakdown due to sheer loneliness presents a tragic look at the human condition on the whole, and the film would be nothing without it.

Sam examines the model he works on.

     As supporting characters go, the ship computer GERTY (voiced by, of all people, Kevin Spacey) certainly helps to stir the tension with his HAL-reminiscient overtones, and then turns out to be a subversion as, heartwarmingly, he helps the two Sams to escape. I think that was what Jones was going for; playing on the ever-increasing public mistrust of technology. One could say that it's quite clever; one could say that the whole film is quite clever, in the way it plays on so many science fiction tropes and preconceptions to form its own, semi-realistic warning for society.

     If you want to follow the masses, go to Avatar for your Science Fiction. Or, you could look towards a certain British director and his smaller project, Moon, which is an excellent melding of high-standard acting, direction and storytelling. The decision, ladies and gentlemen, is yours.

Thanks.

Review: Lost 4.1: The Beginning of the End

Note: If you want to understand these reviews, I'd direct you to Lostpedia's Season Four portal. All of the images in my Lost reviews have been taken from Lostpedia, and the plot there goes into greater detail.

The year before, Lost had thrown at its already tired viewers a series that was so divisive in quality it carved a significant dent out of the fanbase. They'd finished this mix with one of their famous end-of-series cliffhangers, one that would prove to be the best one of the series - a glimse at some of our castaways off the island. This "flashforward" device would come to define Season Four and make it in particular my favourite. Lost had crossed its halfway point but was still content to throw out question after question on its unsuspecting audience...
     Jack has made contact with the team on the freighter that send now-injured parachuter Naomi, and he and the rest of the survivors around him are elated at the prospect of being rescued. However, the freighter is having troubles with the locating signal and ask for Naomi to be put on the phone - something made difficult by her injured escape into the woods. Eventually she is tracked and fixes the phone, leaving a coded message for her colleagues before dying.

Desmond tells of Charlie's demise.

     On the other side of the island, Desmond swims ashore from where he and Charlie were trying to shut down the station responsible for blocking the phone signal. There, he reveals to Hurley, Sawyer et. al. what we already know; Charlie died in the station, but not before revealing to Desmond his discovery that the freighter people were unsafe. Hurley is stressed and saddened by his best friend's death, and as the group head back towards Jack he goes off on a mad tangent. On his travels, he meets with Locke, who killed Naomi. Locke manages to convince Hurley that Charlie was right, and the people on the freighter should be treated with extreme caution. Both groups eventually meet up and Locke calls for the survivors to pick sides - come with Locke to the Others' secure barracks, or goe with Jack and risk the freighter. After this has happened, the freighter's helicopter sends down another parachuter, and we get out cliffhanger.
    In the flashforward, we see Hurley driving recklessly and eventually getting put into a mental instition, where he gets a vision of Charlie asking him to go back to the Island. Jack later comes to see him, worrying about whether he's revealed their secret. It turns out that Jack, Hurley and Kate are part of a famous group known as the Oceanic Six, and presumebly the public assume everyone else is dead. Hurley asks Jack to go back to the island but he point blank refuses.

Hurley refuses to aknowledge Charlie

    Like all good Lost episodes, "The Beginning of the End" mixes the traumas of its central character - Hurley in this case - with the main plot surrounding everyone else. Some shows would be too hasty to clean up after cliffhangers, and wouldn't bother to, as Lost has here, issue important developments like Charlie's death and Locke's actions against Naomi. Often the show is accused of being too isolating, too locked out to new viewers, and quite a bit of the dialogue here supports tht, but most of the time it stood up on its own.
     Is it wrong to say that my favourite part of this story was the music? Michael Giacchino has composed a wonderfully potent and beutiful score for the show over the years, and indeed won an Oscar for his work on Disney Pixar film Up in 2009. One of the things that I love about the lengthyness of American shows is that they have the ability to spend more time on quiet moments like this (not that many use that ability...).
     The Beginning of the End (an adequate title, as we cross the halfway point) is an episode which mixes the outstand and the understated, one with no qualms about jumping from exciting action scenes to deep emotional sequences filled with stirring music. As season starts on Lost go, it tickles the mysteries while not exciting them - a perfect way of easing the viewer into the season.

Thanks.

Review: Misfits 1.1

The "Misfits" get their powers.

Channel Four, as a company, always held a strange position around the TV dinner table - BBC the responsible mother figure, ITV the precocious teenager and Channel 5 the little brat in the armchair. C4 and its various spinoff channels hold the role of "quirky uncle", sitting on the sidelines and firing off obscure, under-the-table jokes and ideas. In essence, Four was the eptiome of the "alternative," and couldn't escape its mixture of reality shows like Big Brother and its weird comedies.
     Then, in 2007, E4 premiered Skins, an innovative and gritty teen drama. Suddenly, "innovative and gritty" became E4's thing, the channel nearly typecast as showing either American reruns or "innovative and gritty" dramas, and parodied as such. Oh well, they said. Howard Overman (a mainly BBC writer, know for Hotel Babylon, New Tricks, Hustle and Merlin) was brought in to write a show of his own creation. That show was a Skins-reminiscient superhero drama called Misfits. It was, indeed, "innovative and gritty". With that in mind, how does the premier of this new show fare? Let's just say it didn't do badly.
     Misfits 1.1 is quite strong in terms of storytelling because it holds the show's characteristic energy and determination, firmly setting down strong characterisations while pushing forward an amusing and mildy intriguing plot. Of note is the way that the show manages to dodge many of the main tropes plaguing the superhero genre, keeping it firmly about character instead of spectacle.
     As you should know (if you've read any of my Misfits reviews so far), the episode focusses around a group of  five six delinquents working on their community service - cocky irishman Nathan, chav Kelly, sexy Alisha*, shy Simon, runner Curtis and thug Gary. The episode starts with the six being adressed on their first day by frustrated probation worker Tony, each being very strongly characterised from the off. We get our Mass Super Powering Event - a storm, which imbues all of the characters with their abilities.

The five six characters paint some benches

     While not wearing now, the episode uses Misfits' commonly seen "freak of the week" plot, where the group are stalked by a super-powered murderer. Here, Gary is offed by a power-induced-rage filled Tony, after which he attempts to assault the group while they hide from the storm in the Community centre. Simon is the first to mention his abilities (turning invisible when people ignore him), followed by Kelly (who'd been hearing people's thoughts.) After a few conveniences, Alisha and Curtis' powers are also revealed (a sex-inducing touch and time reversal, respectively) and Kelly manages to dispatch Tony with a whack from a fire-extinguisher. They, frightened at being blamed for the two murders, drag the bodies away and buy them under the motorway.
     As an introductory episode, 1.1. does a very good job of painting the pattern that the series will follow. The most refreshing thing is of course the more-or-less realistic dialogue - the powers aren't the core focus of the series, and there isn't any melodrama beyond Nathan's usual madness. A sign of good things to come, perhaps?

Thanks.

*Spelt differently in subtitles, promotional material and other sources, as well as in these reviews. For the remainder of my Misfits reviews, she shall be refered to using one i - "Alisha".

New Year News

Happy New Year, everyone. I'm sure you're all looking forward to 2011 as I am, and here at Audenshaw Reviews I've shaken up some of the schedules. You can see the January schedule here.

I'm also looking for Guest Staff, so if you're interested please leave a note in the comments. Please remember that if you want to write for the blog, you will need to set up a Blogger account. Also remember that I get no money to do this and neither will you.

Thanks. Happy New Year.