'No Ordinary Family': Stephen Collins says the end is now

According to star Stephen Collins, ABC's "No Ordinary Family" is in the midst of shooting its first-season finale, set to air on Tuesday, April 5.

Collins says the show's 20-episode run (a bit shorter than the more normal 22) ends with a bang.

"We, all of us, on this show," he tells Zap2it, "feel like it's hit its stride, which, of course, makes all the ongoing questions of whether we're going to get picked up or not that much more hair-raising. If the show was going nowhere, it'd be like, 'Ah, fine, let it go, who cares if it gets picked up?' But I feel like we're firing on all cylinders.

"I don't know how they did this, but the finale is such a deft piece of writing. It answers so many questions and creates so many situations ... I'm not kidding when I say this, if this show goes on, people are going to be going, 'Oh, my God, I can't wait until next year.'"

"No Ordinary Family" stars Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz as Jim and Stephanie Powell, the parents in a family of four that all received superpowers after crashing in the Amazon. Jim's a police artist, and Stephanie is a scientist at GlobalTech, where her boss is senior executive Dr. Dayton King (Collins).

As the show has progressed, it's been revealed that Dr. King is intimately connected to the research that produced the superpowers, and it's in Stephanie's best interest to stay in King's good graces to figure out his plans.

In next Tuesday's episode, former "Battlestar Galactica" co-stars Lucy Lawless and Tricia Helfer appear as, respectively, the mysterious Mrs. X and her minion, Sophie, who target Jim and his best pal, George (Romany Malco).

At the same time, Stephanie contemplates taking a dangerous risk in a bid to retain King's trust. She may suspect his motives, but Collins says his character only has good things at heart -- at least from King's perspective.

"He's definitely got the big picture in mind, Dr. King," says Collins. "He's going to feed the world and heal the world, and if a couple of dozen people have to die horrible deaths in the service of that, that's a very small price to pay when you look at things like Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean, come on, it's just simple math.

"Listen, if he gets rich in the process ... I think Dr. King fully expects that he'll win a Nobel Prize someday. He's got his eye on the ball. There are big problems in the world, and if he solves them -- if people want to get in his way, OK, but it's really shortsighted of them."

While King obviously is gaining wealth and power -- and saving the world, of course -- Collins says there's more to it.

"He's got personal reasons why he's doing what he's doing," says Collins. "However, sure, he wants money, and he loves power, but it's also revealed over the last couple of episodes, there is someone higher up at GlobalTech. That person has been hinted at, and we get more than a glimpse of that person.

"So, yes, he wants money and power, but his basic motivation, when all is said and done, has been much simpler than that."

As for the big finish, Collins says, "There's an element about King's motivation which is revealed in the finale which, to me, is just fascinating. It's a game-changer, and yet it fits in with everything I've been doing."