The Thundermans ran for four seasons and 98 episodes on Nickelodeon, from October 14, 2013 to May 25, 2018. It was created by Jed Spingarn. At its center are 14-year-old twins who share a bathroom, a school and the same annoying little siblings. One is a super student headed for superhero work. The other wants to be a super villain.
That is the whole engine of the show, and it never needed more than that.
Trailer, via N Central Vids.
Hiddenville, and the family that hides there
The Thundermans live in the fictional city of Hiddenville. They have astounding superpowers and they try to live normal lives. Hank and Barb, the parents, attempt not to use their powers. They are not very successful at it. Nora and Billy, the younger siblings, use theirs whenever possible.
The premise is a suburban family sitcom with one variable flipped. The chores are ordinary. The sibling rivalry is ordinary. The homework is ordinary. The difference is that a bad day at school can end with someone through a wall. Comedy, Family, Action & Adventure, Sci-Fi & Fantasy — the genres stack up because the show stacks them, week after week, without much strain.
Kira Kosarin plays Phoebe Thunderman. Jack Griffo plays Max Thunderman. Addison Riecke is Nora. Diego Velazquez is Billy. Chris Tallman and Rosa Blasi are Hank and Barb. Maya Le Clark plays Chloe, recurring in season 3 and main in season 4. Edward Chiodo is credited as puppeteer.
Dr. Colosso, a rabbit in the basement
The best idea in The Thundermans sits in Max’s basement lair. Dr. Colosso is a former supervillain who has been transmogrified into a rabbit. He lives down there and gives Max advice on becoming a villain. Dana Snyder voices him.
A talking rabbit who used to be a criminal mastermind is a gag that could have run out in three episodes. It doesn’t, because the show treats the arrangement as a job. Colosso is a consultant. Max is the client. The basement is the office. The show never explains the transmogrification beyond the fact of it, and it doesn’t need to.
A former supervillain named Dr. Colosso has been transmogrified into a rabbit and lives in Max’s lair in the basement, offering him advice on becoming a villain.
Phoebe trains, Max is tested
The series changes shape in its third season. Phoebe starts training to become a superhero. Dark Mayhem, described as the master super villain, trains Max to become a villain. At the end of the season, Dark Mayhem asks Max to prove himself by taking away Phoebe’s powers.
Max chooses his family. He becomes a superhero instead and helps take down Dark Mayhem.
This is the hinge of the whole run, and it works because the show had spent two seasons establishing Max’s ambition as sincere rather than cute. He wanted to be the next big supervillain. He meant it. When he turns, the turn costs him something, and the show knows it.
The Z-Force, and Phoebe goes evil
Season four opens with Max and Phoebe working as the Thunder Twins. They are selected as candidates for membership in the elite Hero League team called the Z-Force. Halfway through the season, Phoebe accidentally absorbs Dark Mayhem’s powers. The powers turn her evil. Her family saves her.
At the end of the run, Phoebe and Max become the new Z-Force leaders and enroll the Thundermans as members.
That is a real ending. It closes the loop on Phoebe’s dream from the first episode and on Max’s turn in season three. It also promotes the entire family in one move, which is the kind of thing a show does when it knows it is finishing. The Thundermans finished on May 25, 2018, after 98 episodes across four seasons.
The Chloe problem, and the fourth-season stretch
Chloe arrives at the end of season two as the baby sister. She becomes a main cast member in season four. Adding a baby to a sitcom that already had four kids is a load-bearing decision, and The Thundermans carries it better than most. Maya Le Clark’s Chloe gives the older siblings someone to be responsible for, which is useful once Phoebe and Max are training for the Z-Force and need something smaller to come home to.
The fourth season is the show’s most crowded. Thunder Twins, Z-Force candidacy, Dark Mayhem’s powers loose inside Phoebe, a family rescue, a leadership promotion. That is a lot of plot for one season, and the show’s plainest weakness is here: it moves fast enough that some of these turns get one episode where they deserved three.
The show’s plainest strength is that it never condescends. The Thundermans is a kids’ sitcom on Nickelodeon, and it plays its superhero rules straight. Dark Mayhem is a genuine threat. The powers have rules. The family is in actual danger when the plot says so.
What the 8.0 means
The published critical score for The Thundermans is 8.0 out of 10, from a TMDB audience score of 610 votes. That is an audience number, not a critics’ number, and it should be read as one. Six hundred and ten votes is a small sample. It is also a sample of people who chose to rate the show, which means it skews toward viewers who watched enough of it to care.
The score holds up anyway. The Thundermans does the thing a long-running family sitcom has to do: it builds a world with rules, populates it with characters who want incompatible things, and then lets those wants collide for four seasons. Phoebe wants to be good. Max wants to be bad. Hank and Barb want to be normal. Nora and Billy want to use their powers. Colosso wants out of the rabbit.
The show’s limits are real. It is not ambitious television. The effects are what Nickelodeon could afford. The emotional beats are broad. Some seasons are tighter than others, and the fourth season in particular races through material that a slower show would have let breathe.
None of that changes the verdict. The Thundermans is a well-built machine, and it ran clean for 98 episodes. The Max turn in season three is the best thing it ever did. The Z-Force ending is the second best. The rabbit in the basement is the reason anyone remembers either.
In March 2023, a follow-up film titled The Thundermans Return was announced. It was released on March 7, 2024. That the show got a revival five years after it ended says more about its hold than the 8.0 does. Audiences came back for the same reason they stayed: a family with powers, trying to be ordinary, failing in ways that were funny and occasionally serious.
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