Genre Character of the Week: Jim Powell

After watching the first four episodes of the ABC series No Ordinary Family with my family, I've got to say that it is definitely pulling into a strong second place* this year for my favourite new genre show of the fall 2010 year. A big part of why this show is working so well for me is the lead, and the genre character of the week, Jim Powell.

Here's what I like about Jim - his first characteristic, good dad. Even before he and his family get all super powered, he is clearly invested in his kids, which as a dad, is important to me. Next, he loves his wife (I know that's pretty much a given on a family show), which definitely comes through in both the stories and the acting (hats off to Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz), and finally, even though his big change involves gaining super powers, as a guy who went through a pretty big change myself a few months back (I left my previous job of 10 years for something new), I can really relate.

Now Jim isn't perfect - he does tend to get carried away with his new hobby, being a super hero, and sometime to the cost of more important things, but he is working at it, and in the end working at it is the whole point.

Overall the show is cobbled together from various other sources (Heroes, The Incredibles and The Fantastic Four come to mind), but by focusing on the family throughout the series, it is showing a lot of heart.

*Sorry No Ordinary Family, but when a show pairs my love of zombies and apocalypses, what can I do?

Tomorrow I will live in a house of teenagers

On Friday May 21 my youngest daughter Kaia will be 13-years-old and both of my kids will officially be teenagers.

I've got her a bunch of presents, but it took a little bit of searching for me to find one that would work both as a present for her and a good post for my genre-based blog.

In the past she has complained that I don't have enough pictures of hunky guys on my blog.

So to start, here's a photo of her current genre crush, Zachary Qunto (pictured right). Happy Birthday Kaia

Next, I figured I should find her a new genre based show for us to check out this fall.

You see, Like her mother, my daughter Kaia has the bizarre ability to kill TV shows she likes. Two episodes after she started watching My Name is Earl, it died. Three episodes after she started watching the 2006 BBC series Robin Hood it was cancelled, and earlier this week she found out that her current favourite show on NBC, Heroes, will not be coming back.

Like her mother, Kaia has learned to be guarded in her praises of new shows, as she is pretty sure someone can hear her and cancels them immediately.

But I've always been a hopeful person and I think I may have found an upcomming show that might ease the parting blow from the loss of Heroes.

On Tuesday nights this Fall ABC will start airing the series No Ordinary Family - think of it kind of like a mix between Heroes and The Incredibles. A family survives a plane crash and then each gets super powers. You can check out the trailer here.

I know that a super powered Dad might not be as cool as Sylar, but what the heck, it looks like it has some pretty great potential.

Happy Birthday Kaia,

Dad