Having spent a decade playing a TV reverend on 7th HEAVEN, actor Stephen Collins is no stranger to prayer. Which is certainly good news, because if the actor who can currently be found every Tuesday night at 8PM on ABC playing the nefarious Dr. King on NO ORDINARY FAMILY hopes to see a second season, prayer is more than likely going to come in handy.
“7th HEAVEN was just a fantastic stroke of luck and from year three to about year ten we always knew we were coming back the next year, which never happens in a business in which job security is virtually non-existent,” explained Collins when asked what it’s like to have his latest show so perilously perched on the proverbial renewal/cancelation bubble. “Having said that, I think that if NO ORDINARY FAMILY goes into a second season, by the end of the season we’ll be looking at a show that everyone will be saying has to be around for 5 or 6 years. It’s always about getting to that second season.”
Unfortunately, in the increasingly competitive landscape that is network television, getting to that second season is a helluva lot easier said than done. Particularly when you’re a highly touted freshman drama that has — like pretty much the entirety of ABC’s new roster — seen steady declines in viewership throughout the course of the season. A fact made all the more disappointing to loyal fans of the show who have stuck around to marvel as NO ORDINARY FAMILY quietly transformed itself into one of the week’s most enjoyable, not to mention family-friendly, hours of television that ABC has to offer.
“I’m in awe of the writers and really feel like Jon Feldman, Ali Adler and Zack Estrin have kind of hit a stride over the last 10 episodes, so I’m just praying to get another shot.” admitted Collins. “In network prime-time there is almost nothing like it, a series that at its center has a nuclear family that isn’t a comedy. MODERN FAMILY is a brilliant show but it’s a very wonderfully delicious 9 o’clock comedy. Our show is really about an old-fashioned family of four just trying to get through the day together and I love that about it. We’re just having so much fun going to work and I hope the network will see its way to giving us another year because I think the return for them will be really good.”
Of course, should the unthinkable occur and ABC takes the short-sighted approach by cancelling the series (Added Collins “It’s always tricky, none of the ABC falls shows are out and out hits, so I pray that they don’t cancel everything, but that’s easy for me to say.”) fans will be pleased to discover that NO ORDINARY FAMILY’s showrunners are crafting a finale that serves as both a season and [shudder] series finale.
“I don’t know how the writers did this, but they really manage somehow to do both. Not only does the finale offer up a fabulous cliffhanger leading into season two — just fabulous — it answers a bunch of questions that people have wanted to know the answer to. Most particularly about what’s been going on with Dr. King and Global Tech,” teased Collins. “The finale also creates a sort of desperate set of conditions that are game changing in the sense that should we get it, season two will be very distinct from season one. It will be simpler in that the family is still going to be out there having to deal with their powers, but the context is just so interesting.. I wish I could tell you more… it’s just so cool.” 
NO ORDINARY FAMILY airs Tuesday at 8PM on ABC (CTV in Canada)