Dark Angel - The Complete First Season

Rating:
Summary: This ain't "Alias"
Review: Having becomed addicted to "Alias" after viewing the first 2 DVD sets, I decided to try this. What a disappointment. The acting is merely passable -- usually flat -- the dialogue is peppered with cliche urban expressions (What's the dealio?!), and each 45 minute episode ends with a tired moral. My greatest disappointment? That I lost the receipt for the second season set and can't return it.

Rating:
Summary: Very inventive, too bad they had to mess it up.
Review: If you're on a limited budget the first season of Dark Angel is the one to get because the writing and plots are so much better. Set about 15 years from now in Seattle the series centers around an escaped (from a secret government lab)genetically modified young woman,Max,played by Jessica Alba. The U.S. and much (maybe all of it) of the world economy have collapsed because some never defined enemy fried all of the U.S. East Coast Computers with an Electromagnetic Pulse bomb. The country has become a police state and the series has Max and her friends just trying to get by. Many times Max does work for an underground crusader helping people get to freedom or sometimes just getting back at the bad guys.
A nice touch was the sub theme through some episodes of Max and the other escapees being designed to need supplements of tryptophan. Max went through seizures a few times because she ran out of it, One episode had her friend Cindi thinking she was an addict and later learning the truth about what Max really was.

Rating:
Summary: Dark Angel - The Complete First Season
Review: Good theme, acting, picture, sound; a lot better than the second season; this one had a terrible ending like a cut off the season right in the middle and had to end it in a hurry and in any possible way.

Rating:
Summary: Promising series never given chance to take flight
Review: Dark Angel has many of its Cameronisms in place with the first episode: a strong female lead; unusual plot involving some element of science fiction; clever bits of dialogue uttered at the most inappropriate moment and a strong, lean visual style. I never caught the program when it was first run on Fox so can't comment on the advertising or scheduling of the program. The pilot episode comes on strong and, with each succeeding episode, some of that power is displayed to some degree. It seems to me this mixture of The Fugative and Blade Runner should have been conceived as a short series (a la The Prisoner). The premise didn't quite seem to be large enough to run for 5 or even 10 years (another example of this is The X-Files where Chris Carter should have pulled the plug after season 5). Regardless, Cameron's series (created with Charles Eglee)is visually stunning and an interesting show.

Max (Jessica Alba)is a genetically engineered weapon. She, along with a number of other children, were created as the next generation in human soliders through genetic experimentation. Max and 12 other children escaped from the military facility where they had been conceived and raised but, unfortunately, all of them have scattered and disappeared. Max is a reluctant superhero; she wants to find the other children and discover her past in order to uncover who she really is.

She teams up with Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly)a wealthy computer hacker who provides information on immoral acts against humanity via his Eyes Only web/television casts. Cale provides information as he uncovers it about her past and she, in turn, helps him get rid of those who victimize the less fortunate.

Unfortunately, Max is being pursued by the head of Project Manitcore a government operative named Lydecker (well played by John Savage). Lydecker's goal is to discover the whereabouts of the 12 escaped children and terminate them before they expose and and his operation.

Although Cameron only had hands on involvement with the pilot, his fingerprints are on most of the episodes of the first season. The series has a number of interesting twists during the first season and a stellar writing/producing team (including one former Next Generation/Deep Space Nine alum). The production values, sharp writing and direction mark Dark Angel as a cut above your average television program. It's clear that Cameron and co-creator Eglee had a nice, long story arc prepared for the show. Unforuntately, Fox cancelled the program after it's second season leaving many fans hanging as to the conclusion of the series (something Fox seems adept at doing lately).

The DVD transfer looks very good although there are compression artifacts in most of the episodes. These are most noticeable on those episodes set at night or with a darker look to them. The sound is well above aveage. Unless you're particularly picky you probably won't notice these minor flaws. The commentaries, featurettes and gag reel are all nice additions to this terrific boxed set. Sadly, the packaging leaves something to be desired as its in the horrid accordion box style that seems so popular of late.

There's a previous review here that states that there's a number of inappropriate lines delivered particularly one where Jessica Alba as Max makes a comment about guys being the weaker sex to a widow after her spouse has died. Actually, that's not quite accurate. The character happens to be one of Max's best friends and she makes the comment to her friend's husband when he's sick to help lighten her mood a bit. There aren't any pithy comments made when the character eventually dies. Instead, her character tries to comfort his widow. This inaccuracy creates a false impression of the type of show Dark Angel is and the type of characters that populate it.

A lot of creative energy went into making Dark Angel an interesting show combing the conspiracy elements of programs like The X-Files without apeing them. What made Dark Angel most interesting and unique was a heroine who was trying to discover where she came from but didn't set out to be a "superhero". She ends up becoming a reluctant hero at first and that very quality makes Max interesting and compelling as a character. She falls into her line of work of helping others.

Although there were elements of the show that weren't as well developed during its first season as could have been, that's to be expected. The first season of any show sets up the ground rules of the series. We'll never know what potential Dark Angel had simply because the series was pulled before it ever really had a chance to take flight.

Rating:
Summary: Jumped the shark after the pilot episode.
Review: James Cameron's "Dark Angel," starring Jessica Marie Alba, debuted onto the public television circuit with the glitzy, media-permeating fanfare of a P.T. Barnum exhibit. It was intended to be the Fox Network's answer to "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer," but unlike the latter show, "Dark Angel" never lived up to the glimmers of potential which it displayed in the pilot episode.

The lead character, Max Guevera/X5-452 (Jessica Marie Alba), with enhanced feline abilities was interesting enough despite the all-too-familiar "I just want to be normal" superhero formula lurking underneath. Gratuitous shots of Miss Alba -- dare I say "miss" in our enlightened society? -- in a skin-tight leather outfit was undoubtedly a major selling point with the teenage male audience but often cheapened the series to the level of a D.C. comic book.

The overarching plot involving genetically-engineered super soldiers whose DNA had been artificially created, inserted as fertilized eggs into the wombs of surrogate mothers, born under military supervision, raised in an experimentation compound and then escaped as children was laughably cliché, but still interesting. This was tacked onto a futuristic environmental setting in which a dystopian Seattle has been devastated by an electromagnetic pulse. These two premises were mildly compelling, and the show was at its best when exploring them, but the moment it would veer into alternative plotlines, it would fall from an average weekly thriller to a stinking pile of fungus.

The ensemble cast which populated the show on a weekly basis was by far the worst failing of this short-lived series. The supporting characters were often teenage stereotypes painted in broad, one-dimensional strokes for the sake of political correctness (i.e. Original Cindy) and used the most annoying hip-hop slang. The point of using slang is to make communication quicker, not to use it so much in a sing-song fashion that basic communication itself becomes stupidly incomprehensible. Apparently, middle-aged creators James Cameron and Charles Eglee were trying so hard to make a hip show that appealed to teenie boppers that they didn't realize being too trendy is just as detrimental as being too normal.

Coupled with the annoying overuse of rat-tat-tat Ebonics, a constant "battle of the sexes" theme existed throughout the series which would have been wickedly amusing if it hadn't usually lacked wit and reverted to simplistic invectives. Max saying lines such as, "Girls kick ass, [because] it says so on a T-shirt" was humorous. Max saying lines such as, "Guys are the weaker sex" to a grieving widow who has just lost her beloved husband isn't humorous, even in a morbid sense. A twisted sense of humor can be sickeningly funny, but, if an episode writer is not careful, it often can just be sickening. There is a very fine line to toe. The Dark Angel writers should have remembered Mel Brooks' famous advice, "If I cut my finger, that's tragedy. If a man walks into an open sewer and dies, that's comedy."

For the lackluster action scenes in which Max displayed her "dizzying" superpowers, the Dark Angel crew often utilized a simple fast-forwarding technique. This is an effective trick if executed correctly, but instead it often came across as sped-up footage from a shaky hand-held video camera. In retrospect, far more interesting combat effects could have been created using wire stunts ala the deified choreography of Yuen W. Ping.

Ultimately, the corniness of "Dark Angel" became more and more insufferable; the weekly episode writing didn't improve; the characters became so posh they were borderline snotty. Midway through the first season its Nielsen ratings began to slip. Seeing no quality improvement, viewers abandoned "Dark Angel" like rats from a sinking ship. By the second season, the once-promising series had degraded to having Max slaying Buffy-like monsters and encountering freakish beings that seemed borrowed from the X-Men comics. If only the series writers had aimed for a wider demographic audience other than middle school teenagers and focused less on being devastatingly hip, "Dark Angel" might have lasted a few more seasons.

Tsk! Tsk!

Rating:
Summary: Truly different!
Review: Dark Angel was an original show. It was set in Seattle in the not distant future where terrorists had set off an electromagnetic device in the atmosphere which had caused computers in the US to lose all their data (turn all those 1's to 0's). In effect, it turned the US into a 3rd world country overnight.
Prior to the 'pulse' as it was called, the government had been experimenting with genetic engineering, & had created supersoldiers, a group of which had managed to escape as children. One of these is Max, & it is she that our story is about.
This first series I really enjoyed. It's definitely sci-fi, but it retains a thread of realism - you find yourself thinking that governments would indeed do all this stuff, & it's technology is on par with what's available, so it doesn't seem outside the realms of posibility. It was made prior to 9/11, so the premise of the pulse doesn't seem impossible as it once did either (although I couldn't say whether it would be scientifically possible).
All in all, I thought it was innovative & entertaining, & it's great to see a woman in an action hero role!

Rating:
Summary: Thank God For DVD
Review: I missed Dark Angel when it was initially broadcast. At the time I thought the basic premise was unoriginal and thought that James Cameron should do better. I bought the dvd set on a whim and settled down to watch the pilot. I have rarely been as impressed with a pilot- the series landed on it's feet from the first moments with the breakout of manticore. It is exciting, funny, dramatic and sad. It says a lot about how our whole world can turn upside down in a heartbeat without anyone noticing. All I can say is that this show should never have been cancelled but you can continue to enjoy it with the DVD's. Buy the set. If you enjoy action-adventure-science Fiction which has good plots and appealing characters- get this set you won't be disappointed. Peace

Rating:
Summary: One of the true greats
Review: This season will probably never be matched by the first season of any other show, simply because it's plot took off from the start and they had such a well-rounded cast. The combination of different races and cultures as well as their image of the post-Pulse world made the show so much more believable. The JamPony crew sets the comic relief for the show, making me immediately brighten up as soon as I saw any employee, and the Manticore/X5 storyline keeps you glued to the screen, not to mention the Eyes Only situation. All in all, this was much more than your average TV show and should never be forgotten.

Rating:
Summary: Can't get enough Dark Angel
Review: I f*ckin' love this show. Watching the "Pilot" episode again made me remember of how much I still remember about the show. I remembered everything from the show except for a few of the details. Why the f*ck did it have to get canceled? It's a great show even if you didn't see it when it was still airing. God how I miss seeing it on TV. It should've never been canceled. Buy it even if you were not a fan to when it was airing and you'll be thinking the same as me and many others. Great f*ckin' show.

Rating:
Summary: never enough Dark Angel
Review: I can't get enough of this show, I wish it had never ended. The DVDs are wonderful, if you're a fan of the show or not, you'll love them!