No Ordinary Family's problem? It's ordinary.

Ohhh, we had such high hopes. Look at this: a plainclothes superhero show that just might be able to succeed where Heroes faltered. Major players like Michael Chiklis, who kicked ass on The Shield and earned his superhero chops in the otherwise execrable Fanastic Four flicks. And Julie Benz -- Julie friggin' Benz, man! From Buffy! From Dexter! She was even a stripper on Desperate Howewives; what more could you want? And the co-creator, Greg Berlanti, is the same dude who's bringing Green Lantern to the movie screen and developing The Flash, so he must know about superheroes, right?  Right?

In a word: no.

Berlanti's concept of a 'typical' family -- if by "typical" you mean a Mom who's a high-powered if vaguely defined research scientist, a Dad who's an unfulfilled and low-paid police sketch artist (do they even still have those?), an cookie-cutter emo teen daughter and a forgettably bland dumb-ass teen son -- who get superpowers is not burdened by any real understanding of popular culture, the superhero milieu (ooh, with the fancy-schmancy!), or even the silly little niceties of good plotting. Berlanti seems to think that the concept alone -- "Wow! Ordinary people with, like, super-powers! Like in the funnybooks! Cool!" -- would put enough meat on the bone for admittedly talented people like Benz and Chiklis to make a meal. But come on. They can't. Chiklis' powers are virtually the same as The Thing's, sans the ugly rubber suit -- and presented here with 0 grams of irony. Benz can run rilly-rilly fast, which of course we've never seen before -- at least not since, like, last week. The daughter can read minds (with the echo-y voice effect that's older than my Mom) and the son can ... well, the son can ... do math problems. Like totally right, though. There is no detail here (we're not sure what city they're in; we are never really sure Benz' job or expertise is, really; Chiklis is portrayed as feckless and a failure, but we're never quite sure why; the son is referred to repeatedly as having some sort of learning disability or problem, but it's never detailed or explained, and his reasons for keeping his own 'super power' a secret from his family is ... well, unreasonable.) The sudden and completely unnecessary introduction of a shadowy super-corporation and other 'secret supervillains,' along with Benz' ditzy assistant and Chiklis' Jiminimy Cricket sidekick, show a shocking lack of awareness. These are all comic book cliches that even the better comic books stopped using years ago. Benz' earlier turn in Buffy had more on the ball than this, and we were all much younger then. You get the sense that Berlanti's never even seen an episode of Heroes or read a comic published after 1975.

Heroes looks like Henrik Ibsen next to this stuff. There is a singular lack of chemistry, creativity, or common sense here, and the pacing is so slow you find yourself checking your watch before the first commercial break.  And need we say ... this does not bode well for the big-budget Green Lantern movie.  'Ware, Ryan Reynolds. 'Ware ...

What's cool on TV? We're talking 8 pm Tuesdays here.  So, hey, go one way and you've got the still-enjoyable NCIS on CBS (and not that eerily homoerotic flip-out NCIS: Los Angeles). Go the other and you've got Glee, which seems to have regained at least some of its first-half-first-season mojo. You can even watch back-to-back Tosh 2.0 repeats on Comedy Central. Any one of 'em would put you closer to cool than NOF.

Sorry, Julie.  Love ya, Michael. How's that Buffy movie coming? Or hell, I'll even settle for a Daddio reunion on Jimmy Fallon. But please ... no more Ordinary Family.