Extraordinary (Disney+) is Disney’s Encanto for grownups. Or Derry Girls with superpowers. There’s a bit of The Boys’ cynicism in there, too, and a dash of Sex Education’s youthful exuberance. Twenty-five-year-old Jen (Máiréad Tyers) is powerless – literally – in a world in which everyone acquires a superheroic skill when they turn 18. Sure, some are more impressive than others – you might get the gift of flight, invisibility or superspeed, but then again you might get the ability to turn “absolutely anything” into a PDF, or a bum that is also a 3D printer – but everyone has one ability. Except for our hero. Not only that but she is grieving, has a rubbish job (at a costume hire shop run by an ancient crone who hasn’t yet aged past 12) and a disastrous love life. And in this world, when a casual hookup wants to leave, they can just fly out of the window while you’re in the loo.
Jen does have one good, if drippy, friend – her flatmate Carrie (Sofia Oxenham). Though this does mean that her other flatmate is Carrie’s useless, sponging boyfriend Kash (Bilal Hasna) – a drain on both their resources, except for the odd occasion when his power to turn back time comes in handy. Carrie herself can channel the dead. In this version of reality, however, in which the background to every walk down the street is pleasingly filled by the sight of spontaneous fires, telekinesis at work and so on, her gift fits her for nothing better than a job at a local solicitors’ firm helping to settle inheritance claims via posthumous testimony in between making the bosses’ tea and coffee. “I’m basically an appliance.” It’s quarter-life crises all round.
