EXTRAORDINARY Series One
Finding your power
★★★ 1/2
UK/US Disney+, streaming now Creator Emma Moran
Cast Máiréad Tyers, Sofia Oxenham,
Bilal Hasna, Luke Rollason
Watching this super-powered comedy, at first it’s difficult to wrap your head around the fact that it’s a Disney show; E4 or BBC Three feel more like its natural home. Creator Emma Moran’s first instinct seems to be to reach for cringe comedy, or taboo subjects.
The list of Things Considered Intrinsically Hilarious includes wanking, tampons, tit-flashing, the IRA and the clitoris (well, men’s inability to locate it). Though the series calms down a bit later, it initially seems – like a rebellious teen – so anxious to be edgy that it ends up looking juvenile.
Then there’s its vague similarity to an E4 classic. It’s set in a world (a very everyday Britain) where on passing 18 you can expect to develop a power. Some are classics (flying, super-strength). Others are more outlandish (a 3D-printing arse). To the frustration of 25-year-old Jen (Máiréad Tyers), her power still hasn’t emerged.
There is a faint whiff of
Misfits here. As in that show, the consequences of such fantastic developments are local and inconsequential, when they could be global and far-reaching. Take Kash (Bilal Hasna), partner of Jen’s BFF Carrie (Sofia Oxenham), who can rewind time, but rarely uses the power for anything more serious than undoing arguments.
To Moran’s credit, she plays with such concepts ingeniously; Carrie’s ability to channel the dead, for example, allows her to both mock Hitler and be chatted up by Charles II. There are clever background details to enjoy too: a riff on Stonewall posters reading “Some people can see through walls…”; a graffiti artist doing a Spider-man. If you can maintain concentration long enough to spot them, that is – the score’s needle-drops are cool (the likes of Devo, Wet Leg and The Magnetic Fields all feature) but so incessant that your brain may switch to auto-shazam mode.
Where the series really succeeds is in its relationships. For all her flaws, Jen is very likeable, and scenes where she falls out with Carrie, or talks to her dead dad, are quite affecting. The major triumph is an oddball romance subplot, which sees Jen gradually developing feelings for her cat. Y’see, Jizzlord (Luke Rollason, all Tom Baker eyes and perpetual bed-hair) is actually a shapeshifter who got stuck in feline form; essentially an amnesiac, he must now re-learn how to be human. Cat-lovers in particular will be charmed by this Mork-esque naif, who remains very keen on milk, chewing cables and being brushed.
The more elements like these come to the fore, the more you reconsider whether the show did find an appropriate home. Beneath its scabrous exterior Extraordinary is, at heart, about learning to accept yourself, realising the value of friendship, and being open to finding love in the strangest places. What could be more Disney than that? Ian Berriman
Máiréad Tyers says if she could have a superpower, it would be to “always have better internet connection”.
The major triumph is an oddball romance subplot