Because "No Ordinary Family" has far more in common with "Swiss Family Robinson" than NBC's Chuck or its flash-in-the-pan "Heroes," it comes as little surprise that this family drama with superpowers comes to life on Disney-property ABC. Culled, of course, from the world of graphic novels, "No Ordinary Family" introduces us to Dad, Mom, and two teenagers beset with the normal collection of post-modern developmental and relational complaints, the youngest boasting the added difficulty of a learning disability. After surviving a light-plane crash in the Amazon, the family returns home to discover their ordeal has invested them with super-powers which seem to compensate precisely for their previous inadequacies. Still in its infancy, "No Ordinary Family" faces an unusual challenge: Can it continue developing the lives and times of a typical Southern California family even as it sets the fearsome foursome in hot pursuit of villains culled from the most frightening pages of graphic novels? If it succeeds, "No Ordinary Family" will have added a twenty-first century dimension to Walt Disney's concept of "the plausible impossible."

Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks already had saved Private Ryan and had shown the relatively tame exploits of a brotherly band in the Pacific Theater when they bravely took-on the challenge of recreating the bitter, brutal battles that made Pacific Islands household names in the darkest hours of World War II. Most Americans can trace the broad outlines of the Allies' liberation of Europe, but few can recall the highlights of American Marines' fierce struggles over "tiny specks of earth that we have never heard of." HBO's ten-part mini-series, "The Pacific," retrieves the war against Japan from the threshold of obscurity. Based on survivors' accounts of the battles, and rendered as vividly as the small screen will allow, "The Pacific" tracks three Marines' odysseys from Guadalcanal through Cape Gloucester to Peleliu and ultimately to the epic battle for Iwo Jima. Testifying to "The Pacific's" intense realism, the mini-series collected Emmy Awards for Art Direction, visual and sound effects. More amply testifying to "The Pacific's" overwhelming genius and power, however, the Television Academy awarded it the 2010 Emmy for Outstanding Mini-Series.

As the story begins, Chuck is a twenty-something computer geek working at the Burbank, California, "Buy More" store. Chuck receives an e-mail from Bryce Larkin, his former Stanford roommate, who is now a CIA agent, allegedly a rogue. When Chuck opens and reads the e-mail, it embeds "The Intersect" a "neural super-computer" in his brain, making "Nerd Herd" guy the repository of all the CIA's intelligence information. The CIA dispatches Agent Sarah Walker, of course a beautiful blonde, to protect Chuck by posing as his girlfriend. Drama, action, and comedy ensue. The producers describe "Chuck" as an "action-comedy-drama" series. Originally NBC's lead-in to short-lived but monumentally popular "Heroes," "Chuck" has retained the look and feel of the warm-up act for the bigger talent; but the network has failed to deliver the headline act that would save poor "Chuck" from its life constantly on the threshold of cancellation. Critics complain that "Chuck," although clever and loaded with potential, never quite satisfies the requirements of action or comedy or drama, let alone hitting the trifecta. The series has survived largely on the strength of its cute-power and a core of exceptionally loyal fans who know how to use Twitter and Facebook.

Superman & Lois is a TV show that premiered on The CW in February 2021. The show is based on the characters from DC Comics and focuses on the life of Clark Kent, also known as Superman, and his wife, Lois Lane, as they navigate their roles as parents and journalists in Smallville. The show's premise is centered on the challenges that the couple faces while raising their two teenage sons, who are discovering their own unique abilities.

"Trauma" survived almost a whole season in NBC's primetime line-up, but it ultimately became a victim of the Jay Leno scheduling brouhaha and its own penchant for taking itself much too seriously. The promotional materials for "Trauma" declared, "Executive producer Peter Berg delivers"¦the first high-octane medical drama series to live exclusively in the field where the real action is." The promo went on to describe "Trauma" as "an adrenaline shot to the heart," but viewers tended to characterize it as a sedative shot to higher consciousness, complaining that characters were stereotypic and plots were contrived. For all of its melodrama, "Trauma" did set valuable precedents for other, better-written medical dramas: The plots promoted paramedics and nurses over physicians as the true wonderworkers of emergency medicine, and the paramedic team included an openly gay character whom the writers treated with considerable insight and sensitivity. Held against TLC's "Life in the ER," "Trauma" betrayed its promise of realism, but it occasionally showed the promise of medical dramas focused on real caregivers instead of over-educated biochemists.

"Stargirl" is a television series based on the DC Comics character of the same name. The show follows high school student Courtney Whitmore as she discovers a powerful staff that once belonged to a superhero named Starman. With the help of her stepfather, Pat Dugan, who was once Starman's sidekick, Courtney becomes the new Starman and begins to gather a new group of young heroes to fight evil in her small town.