There's a rule in television that if you take a successful show, and reverse the basic concept of it, the new show you created will also be a success. For example, "American Idol," a show about judges helping to discover unknown singers. And "The Masked Singer," a show about well known celebrities trying to stay unknown.
Here, Disney takes the Nickelodeon show "The Thundermans," about a family of superheroes hiding out in a suburban setting and flips it with "Villains of Valley View."
The concept actually works pretty well, as the early scripts are pretty cute and seem to follow a logic that makes them fit the reality of the series. And the performances by the main cast are at least as good as their heroic Nick counterparts, with. James Patrick Stuart as the Dad, occasionally showing some of the humor of Robbie Rotten from "Lazy Town" (remember him?), Lucy Davis as Mom, both sweet and savage, The two teen sibs - Isabella Pappas as Amy and Reed Horstmann as Jake, constantly at each other's throats (just like Phoebe and Max Thunderman were) and the kid sib, Colby, played by Malachi Barton.
Of course there has to be someone who is in on the secret, and that's their neighbor and Amy's good-hearted classmate, Hartley, as portrayed by Kayden Muller-Janssen.
The fun of the series is in the fact that the family is used to being overtly nasty, and now has to give it all up just to fit into society! The potential for fun and mayhem is as high as any for this kind of series, and promises some of the wildest concepts of any live action Disney comedy. So far, so bad!
