Dark Angel - Season 1 (Box Set) (DVD)

Dark Angel is not a TV series many are familiar with, it was mainly shown on Sky 1 and only ran for two series between 2000 and 2002.

The show introduced Jessica Alba as a lead actress and was cancelled before the Third Season was made. Many fans campaigned to get it released on to DVD, the result is the box sets of the two series.

Season 1 has 21 episodes spilt over 6 discs. Each disc has either three or four epsiodes ...
...also a trailer for the Dark Angel game, but it looks exactly like every other game ad.


The people who feature regularly work well together, in particular Max and Logan's chemistry is clear, and you are waiting for them to act on it, but it is best that they don't as it adds something to your anticipation of series two.
In terms of the sets and set design it is all very dark, Max and the other X5's are usually wearing ... more

Dark Angel is not a TV series many are familiar with, it was mainly shown on Sky 1 and only ran for two series between 2000 and 2002.

The show introduced Jessica Alba as a lead actress and was cancelled before the Third Season was made. Many fans campaigned to get it released on to DVD, the result is the box sets of the two series.

Season 1 has 21 episodes spilt over 6 discs. Each disc has either three or four epsiodes on it with seven episodes in each DVD box.

At first it appears that Max is a normal young woman living in a troubled world, after an electromagnetic pulse the USA has been reduced to a third world country. She is a bike courier, and loves her motorcycle. But it very soon becomes apparent she is not your typical early twenties woman,has a bar code on her neck which she does her best to keep hidden and is searching for people who she last saw at the age of nine. The bar code is her identifyer from when as a child she was part of a secret government experiment called Manticore, to create a race of super soldiers.
Logan Kale is apparently the archtypal spoilt little rich boy living in a penthouse apartment pad for by his trust fund, but he is also Eyes Only, an investigator trying to expose corruption in the city without exposing himself to the danger. But after an attempt to secure a witness goes wrong he is left paralysed and comes to rely on Max to help him.
Max's work collegues at Jam Pony are the other regular characters, there is Sketchy, a slightly spaced out seeming guy who seems to stumble in and out of trouble, and relationships without have a clue whats going on around him.
Original Cindy, the feminist lesbian who is Max's best friend at work, she is always there for Max though she has no idea just how unusual her friend truely is.
Their boss at Jam Pony is Normal, a geek whos favourite phrases are those which concern the business and thus make him money.
But Max is still being chased by her past, the former head of Manticore, Col Lydecker is still searching for the kids who escaped all those years ago, he catches a few lucky breaks and starts to close in on Max.

Other characters who make apparences Zach is another Manticore escapee, and was Max's unit leader, Bren another former child soldier has developed an illness which could have consequences for all the X5 escapees. Tinga another of the X5's is one who has managed to create herself a normal life, she has a husband and a family so for her Lydeckers appearence in her life is the last thing she needs, her son seems to have inherited some of her abilities.

There are some extras on the sixth disc but much of it is explanation of how and why the sets were designed like they are, the cast and crew interviews are reasonably interesting but not riveting so I really wouldn't bother to watch them unless you have time to kill, thankfully though the interview segments are short. There is also a trailer for the Dark Angel game, but it looks exactly like every other game ad.

The people who feature regularly work well together, in particular Max and Logan's chemistry is clear, and you are waiting for them to act on it, but it is best that they don't as it adds something to your anticipation of series two.
In terms of the sets and set design it is all very dark, Max and the other X5's are usually wearing black or dark colours and the interiors of the homes (Max's flat/squat and Logan's penthouse) are both dark but in the case of Logans place shows very effectively the difference between the social classes. I find it quite amusing that there are many Smart cars featured in the show, they are cars which I thought at the time looked so futuristic (although ugly) and yet they are now common on the roads only 12 years early since the show is set in 2020.
There are also episodes which feel as though they have no real plot or direction but were put there when the writers had run out of other ideas, usually ones which feature more heavily the Jam Pony characters, but in general they are well paced and the action is reasonably believable (if you can accept a genetically modified solider you wont have any trouble with the action scenes!).

The series being a creation of James Cameron you can be reasonably assured of its quality, and the casting is in my opinion very good, Jessica Alba at the time was a relative unknown and very much becomes the character so much so that when I first saw her in another film I found it hard to believe her character in that, also the use of Micheal Wetherly as Logan was brilliant, you can believe in him as the rich computer geek with a conscience, but at the same time he is attractive enough to make the chemisty between Logan and Max feel that it could be real. The peripheral characters at Jam Pony and the other X5's are as characters well rounded enough but there is room for them to be built upon in the future.

The box set costs about £20 on Amazon but I bought mine in the sales a couple of years ago for £10. 

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