Wednesday, October 13, 2010

TV: No Ordinary Family

For those of you who missed the press release (and since I didn't see any promotions for the show personally, I'm sure there are a few of you), No Ordinary Family is a new series on ABC this season that centers around a family who gain superpowers. As of this writing, episodes are also available on Hulu. It just aired its third episode. Warning: spoilers follow.

The show began with a promising pilot. It was a bit rough in places, but thoroughly enjoyable and, dare I say it, exciting. Episode two saw the rough edges trimmed off and delivered everything the pilot promised in a sleeker, improved package. Watching it reminded me of The Incredibles, and Heroes – or at least, what Heroes started off as, back before all the crazy. The second episode had an ending that genuinely surprised me and left me looking forward to what would happen next.

When the third episode appeared on Hulu, I jumped on it with geeky enthusiasm. And collided with the side of a building, just as super-strong hero dad Jim does in a move that characterizes the whole of the episode. To summarize: fail.

The episode begins with the family attending a fancy wedding. By unbelievable coincidence, the wedding is beset by gun-wielding thieves who don’t even bother to mask themselves! They demand all the valuables, and while everyone else hits the dirt, Jim and super-fast wife Rita Stephanie stand there gaping until the robbers’ flashlights spot the wedding ring on Rita Stephanie’s finger and demand it be handed over. The robbers then take off.

What do you think happens when thieves steal supermom’s wedding ring? Does Rita Stephanie use her super-speed to recover her ring before the thieves can even blink? No. She just stands there. A woman with super-duper-speed lets her wedding ring be stolen.

Super-strong husband Jim gives chase. He runs outside where the thieves are scaling up the side of the building. Even though we’ve watched Jim jump buildings for two whole episodes now (albeit with some problems landing), he completely misjudges his jump, smacks into a wall, and falls back down. Then, instead of getting the hell up and trying to jump again, he just lays there and watches as the thieves make it up to the roof and escape via helicopter sound effect. With his wife’s wedding ring.

At breakfast the next day, super-smart son JJ asks dad why he didn’t use his superpowers. Rita Stephanie says, “Because it’s too dangerous!” At least, that’s what the show thinks it said. What it really said is, “Because neither of these people gives a shit about their marriage, your dad gave up after halfheartedly trying, and your mom didn’t try at all.” Additionally, despite her wedding ring being gone for all of one morning, all the IT guys at work noticed and now think Stephanie is single! (This is stupid on so many levels.)

How is Jim’s day going? Not so well, because even though he has a seemingly photographic memory for faces in the first two episodes, and the wedding featured about 11 million candles, and the thieves weren’t wearing masks and then escaped by HELICOPTER – a highly conspicuous method of travel – Jim apparently didn’t get a good enough look at any of the thieves, and neither did any of the 70-odd guests. And nobody in the whole city saw the helicopter. And there were no cameras anywhere at a wedding.

If that weren’t enough, Jim and his best friend George check out a headline on the computer: “ANOTHER LOCAL WEDDING HIT AS ROBBERY TREND CONTINUES.”

Oh my god. If I were the police, I would totally not try and stake out any potential targets! If I were getting married in a city with a wedding crime wave, I would totally not hire security! If I were a thief, I would totally target a gathering of 70+ people because there is no way anyone would manage to surreptitiously snap a photo of my unmasked face lit romantically by candles with their cell phone, much less see my face!! Also, I would totally pick helicopter as my method of escape because they are inconspicuous, impossible to follow, and not registered or tracked by any sort of government administration!!!

There are a couple of other subplots going on in this episode, but I won’t bother with them, because I feel it’s more important that we jump ahead to the next major moment in our main plot: Jim gets another chance at our wedding thieves.

Jim and best bud George start crashing weddings. The thieves show up at the second wedding they crash. (This wedding, to the thieves’ credit, has less candles.) Jim gets up during the robbery and the thieves shoot him. Because he is immune to bullets, this only puts holes in his tuxedo. The thieves assume he’s wearing Kevlar and is the police! Explain to me again why there’s no police presence?

Our thieves run by Jim’s psychic daughter into a well-lit hotel lobby full of people, guns and all. Jim chases them, but is distracted by his daughter for such a long time that when he gets outside, the thieves have managed to climb up at least 8 flights of fire escape to the roof of the building.

Despite the fact we have seen Jim jump from the ground onto roofs of much higher buildings, he opts to jump only onto the top landing of the fire escape. From there he climbs up the ladder after the slowest of the thieves and grabs his ankle! Now what do you think our “hero” does? Does he tackle our thief to the ground and restrain him until police arrive, or hog tie him with his own pants, or any sort of reasonable idea? No. He THROWS THE GUY FROM THE ROOF.

It’s obviously more than eight stories up. My immediate thought was “HE KILLED THAT GUY.”

By the way, the thief he grabbed clearly had a gun attached to his belt which mysteriously disappeared while the thief was flying through the air. I don’t mean it flew off him and landed somewhere unknown, I mean it was reclaimed by someone in the prop department between shots. One moment it was there, the next it was gone.

“He killed that guy!” would have been an amazing turn for the show. Think how conflicted our hero father would become. The guilt! The temptation to turn himself in! Having to overcome that guilt in order to do the right thing and save people using your powers! Perhaps a total reversal as his wife tries to convince him to use his powers to do good! A reluctant hero can be a very compelling – dare I say it, human – character for a television show.

We don’t go there. Instead, when Jim meets George down at the precinct, he passes the thief he threw off the roof, who has escaped completely unscathed! The guy dashes away after passing Jim at the door. We next learn that the police can’t keep the thief because there’s no evidence. Because nobody saw him and his buddies run through the well-lit lobby waving guns. Because apparently that hotel lobby had no security cameras. Because there was a getaway car (!?!) but the thieves were nowhere near it. Never mind the fact that the thieves twice climbed up to the roof and twice we heard a helicopter.

But guess what they found at the scene of the crime! STEPH’S RING! See, apparently the thieves decided to bring some of the loot from their previous heist with them, and then DROPPED IT.

So there you have it. That’s how No Ordinary Family went from a promising newcomer about a family of superheros to an unwatchable, contrived, illogical piece of crap that I feel ashamed I ever recommended to anyone. And just in case anyone wants to speculate that the helicopter we heard twice might have been the police and not an escape vehicle, then tell me why the hell did the thieves head for the roof in the first place?

Some additional points:

  • Jim goes jumping around the city and nobody ever sees him or bothers to investigate that loud crashing sound on the roof. There was a conversation about secret identities in this episode. It’s been three episodes now, it’s about time Jim started hiding his face if he wants to engage in superheroics, and time the show stopped pretending that Jim is somehow invisible to the general populace.
  • All of the teenage girls in this show seriously look like they have been dressed by their grandmothers.
  • If you’ve seen the first two episodes, then you’ll remember psychic daughter Daphne had a boyfriend who cheated on her. Just a small word of advice, Daph: you’ll have more luck retaining a high school boyfriend when you stop dressing like Blossom.

IN CONCLUSION: For a fantastic TV show about a family dynamic affected by the existence of supernatural powers, watch Medium.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

TG: Flip Flop (or Flip Flap) Solar Plant

Welcome to the inaugural post of Geek Girl Review!

To explain the purpose of this blog succinctly: I am a geek, I am a girl, and I review things. Mostly things from ThinkGeek. Why? Well, ThinkGeek has many awesome things, but they do not have customer comments/reviews on-site, and frankly, it's hard to know sometimes exactly how awesome something is, or what problems you might encounter with an item.

Our first item up for review is the undeniably adorable "Flip Flop Solar Plant." This item is notable for a few things:

* It is cheap.
* It requires no batteries or water, only light.
* It is part of the GeekPoints reward system, so you can get it for free.
* You can mod it!
* It sometimes arrives DOA or may cease to work after falling off your desk, but is easy to fix. (I'll tell you how.)

In Hand


Initial Impressions
If you have good eyes, one of the first things you will notice about the Flip Flop Solar Plant is that, while "Flip Flop" is an amusing and cute name, the product in question is actually named "Flip FLAP Solar Plant." It's a Japanese product, as its packaging suggests, but fear not: the packaging features both Japanese and English instructions, and using your solar plant is as easy as:

1. Remove plant from package. (Admittedly, this step requires a screwdriver.)
2. Place under light source.
3. Enjoy its soothing motion.

You will need a Phillips-head screwdriver (that's the + tip one) to remove your plant from the packaging, as it is secured to the package base with a small screw. Attempting to simply wrench the plant free is not advised as you may damage your plant in the attempt. The screw can then be discarded; it serves no practical purpose. Flip Flap Solar Plant comes with a small piece of double-sided foam tape. This is so you can mount your plant somewhere, like the dashboard of your car. Please note that you cannot mount Flip Flap sideways or upside-down. As cool as that would be, Flip Flap's internal mechanism needs normal up-and-down gravitational force to operate.

The package helpfully provides instructions like "Please do not give water" and "It Works by the energy of light" if you're still confused. The package also tells you to "Please grow your Flip Flap in your mind and bloom your own special flower." Translation: this product does not actually bloom or grow flowers in reality. (But see further down for more options.)

flippack.jpg image by cpatch1 flippack1.jpg image by cpatch1
Flip Flap Packaging

Flip Flap: I Love You
To be honest, I didn't have high expectations for the plant. I just tacked it on to a ThinkGeek order because I had some GeekPoints and I thought, what the hell, free toy. Little did I suspect this tiny solar flower would take root in my heart. It's so ridiculously charming! I know, you're going: "All it does is move up and down!" But it does so with such a calming, soothing motion! It's design is totally adorable!


The motion of the plastic leaves is generally silent. If you put it under a strong light source, you can get the leaves to move strongly enough that they periodically "click" together. This clearly indicates your Flip Flap is very happy. It's not a very loud or distracting noise, but if the occasional click does bother you, consider moving your Flip Flap further away from light. (Geek Girl: specializing in high-tech solutions to everyday problems since 1984.)


Flip Flap Is Broken
My Flip Flap worked just fine out of the box, but I have noticed on various sites with customer product reviews that some people find Flip Flap DOA -- Dead On Arrival. Additionally, three days after I received Flip Flap, the plant fell off my desk and suddenly stopped working.

Now, most people will take this as occasion to contact the company they ordered Flip Flap from and complain or try to get a replacement. This is not the Geek way. If I were to immediately call customer service, I would lose my Geek cred. Plus, most companies will charge you to ship the item back; it's not worth paying $5 to replace a $5 product.

I decided to see if I couldn't fix Flip Flap myself, and in the process I uncovered the likely reason some Flip Flaps don't arrive in working condition.

Tools required: a small Phillips-head (+ tip) screwdriver
Difficulty: Easy

The outer shell of Flip Flap is secured by four small Phillips-head screws. Unscrew them and the shell will slide apart in two pieces. This reveals Flip Flap's inner workings. BE GENTLE. Flip Flap is made of parts that can break if you are careless or rough.

flipasm1.jpg image by cpatch1
flipinside1.jpg image by cpatch1

Everything inside Flip Flap can be gently pried apart with your fingernails quite easily. You will also find that everything inside Flip Flap can only fit together one way. This means that even if you don't pay attention to what you're doing when you take the thing apart, you will probably be able to piece it back together anyway, as the pieces only fit properly where they're supposed to go.

Flip Flap uses a combination of solar power, gravity, and magnetics to operate. If your Flip Flap is not working, there's a good chance it's because the magnet has been dislodged. Maybe Flip Flap fell off your desk, maybe the package got jostled around during shipping. Maybe you used Flip Flap as a projectile weapon (not advised). Regardless, there is a small grey circular magnet that fits into the bottom of one of the plant leaves. You may find it out of place somewhere within Flip Flap's insides. Slide it back into place and Flip Flap should start working again.

Other potential problems could be plant leaves dislodged from where they should be sitting, or possibly the wires running from the solar cell to the board might be severed. Make sure the leaves are in place and that all wires are intact. I suppose you could also crack the solar cell if you're being rough with Flip Flap, in which case it's probably time to buy a new one.

You will know that your Flip Flap is working if, when all the pieces are put into place and you shine a light on it, it moves. If everything is in the correct place and it's not moving... well, it's not like it costs a lot to replace, anyway. Hell, if you screw the thing back together, you can probably get a replacement without anyone being the wiser, though for the cost of sending it back, you could probably just buy a new one.

If video is not working, try setting quality to 480p.

Customization & Modding
Flip Flap actually has some interesting modding potential. The easiest thing is to adorn it with some stickers or paint it. (Mine I just fingerpainted with some acrylics.) In the process of repairing my flip flap, though, I realized that the inner mechanism could be put in any number of alternative casings. With a bit of modding know-how, there's all sorts of potential. If you happen to mod your Flip Flap in some notable or cool way, let me know. I'm going to get another Flip Flap and see what I can come up with myself.


Flip Flap Variation
If you ordered your Flip Flap from ThinkGeek, you will have the blue Flip Flap with waving green leaves. This is the only Flip "Flop" Solar Plant that TG carries as of this posting, but there are a number of other Flip Flap variations. For starters, Flip Flap comes in other colors, like red. Then there are some alternate Flip Flap cases, like the ladybug one, and little multicolor flowerpots. Then, there are Flip Flaps that don't require you to "imagine" a flower: they come with plastic flowers on them. A simple search on eBay for "solar plant" will bring up all sorts of different Flip Flaps. Honestly, ThinkGeek choose potentially the most boring Flip Flap variant, but it's also likely the most broadly-appealing.
flower.jpg image by cpatch1 fliplady.png image by cpatch1 tomy-flipflap-solar-plant2.jpg image by cpatch1

So, there you have it: Flip Flap Solar Plant inside and out. For $5, it's a great addition to any office cubicle or desk.