Spotlight on Fandoms: Dark Angel
Dark Angel was a show created by Charles Eglee (Murder One) and James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) that ran on FOX from 2000-2002. If the mention of FOX is any clue whatsoever, you could probably guess that Dark Angel was cancelled due to low ratings - despite a fairly large and vocal fan base - and budget costs. You would then be absolutely correct.
In fact, FOX decided to cancel Dark Angel to make way for quite a few new shows, one of them being Firefly (*waves to Katie's Spotlight post*) as well as Fastlane, girls club and John Doe. Remember those shows? Yeah, me neither. Good job, FOX.
The Show:
In the year 2009, twelve genetically-enhanced children escape from a military facility in Gillette, Wyoming, fleeing their lives as soldiers-in-training for a government program called "Manticore" to find their way in the world outside. Months after their escape, terrorists detonated an electromagnetic bomb, called the Pulse, that destroyed the majority of computer and communication systems in the United States, throwing the country into chaos.
Ten years later, Max is one of the escapees still at large, searching for her brothers and sisters who were separated in the confusion of the Pulse. Living and working as a bike messenger in a post-apocalyptic Seattle, she joins forces with Logan Cale, a former newspaper journalist with a wide network of informants, to find anything she can to track down the other escapees before Manticore recaptures them.
That's season one.
In season two, because of 9/11, the decision was made to scale back the post-apocalyptic, third-world environment of Dark Angel. The feel of the show became a little less dark in tone, as well as having less of a unified plot as it focused instead on the transition of the genetically engineered soldiers into human society, among other things. Halfway through the second season the Familiars were introduced - a thousand year old cult of superhumans attempting to perfect humanity by selective breeding rather than cutting and pasting DNA in the way of Manticore.
The Characters:
Manticore, Employees and Children of
Max Guevara (Jessica Alba): The titular character, an X5 (genetically enhanced and engineered supersoldier), and as strong and snarky as she is beautiful. She's good-hearted beneath the prickly exterior, as well as missing her fellow escapees more than she'd admit to anyone, no matter how obvious she makes it with her tireless efforts to track them down. Her romance with Logan is filled with more pitfalls than anyone deserves - and that's even before the virus that'll kill Logan if she touches him.
Colonel Donald Lydecker (John Savage): Max's commanding officer, the guy who headed up Manticore's training regimes, assigned missions and punishments, and the one responsible for finding and recapturing the escaped X5s - his career depends on it, as well as Lydecker having a twisted sense of responsibility regarding the X5s (he refers to them as his "kids").
Zack/X5-599 (William Gregory Lee): The leader of Max's unit, Zack's a by the book type of guy, though it was he who orchestrated most of the escape. He's not very trusting of humans and is very protective of his fellow escapees, even up to sacrificing himself for them if need be.
Alec McDowell/X5-494 (Jensen Ackles): Alec joined the cast at the beginning of season 2, seeking out a job alongside Max at Jam Pony after the Seattle Manticore facility was burned to the ground. He's been in Manticore his entire life, but not uneventfully, finding himself constantly at odds with his superiors. His and Max's relationship is complicated - he harbors some resentment against Max, both because she got away and because her escape worsened things for the remaining X5s. Max, for her part, hates him for being a thorn in her side through the first handful of episodes and because he reminds her strongly of her sibling, Ben, whom she had to kill rather than let Manticore recapture him (Ben was Alec's clone, hence there being a strong resemblance). He becomes a foil for Max and takes on comic relief with his irresponsible, irreverent attitude.
Joshua (Kevin Durand): The first of the transhumans (a transgenic with animal characteristics), he has no barcode and was the favorite of Sandeman, the man who pioneered the creation of all the transgenics at Manticore. He's doglike and sweet, but can be vicious when his friends are hurt. He escapes when the Manticore facility is burned down and has to live in hiding, with Max trying to help him adjust to his new life. He and Alec also form a sort of bond between them, more comic relief, but also as former-Manticore residents who know what it was like to be there all their lives.
Dr Elizabeth Renfro (Nana Visitor): Government figure who has Lydecker's balls in a vise from the moment the X5 children escape. She makes it pretty clear that he's through if he doesn't get them back and takes over the Manticore program while he's out hunting them down. She's completely ruthless and sees them as even less human than Lydecker does.
Eyes Only and Jam Pony
Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly): Having faked his own death to become a cyberjournalist in hiding, he's got an off-shore bank account keeping him funded while he spreads truth and justice through cable-hacked broadcasts as "Eyes Only", usually spilling dirty government and political secrets that inform the public of what's really going on. When he meets up with Max (as she's stealing from his apartment) they quickly forge a professional relationship - she steals for him while he uses his vast information network to find her siblings. Unsurprisingly, they have a lot of UST, which occasionally seems like the focus of the show rather than anything else.
"Original" Cindy McEachin (Valerie Rae Miller): Max's roommate, best friend, and drinking buddy. She's pretty awesome, despite the way that she's sometimes more of a caricature than a person - tough, ethnic chick who is also a lesbian? Yeah, but she's also very loyal to her friends, the ass-kickingest girl without superpowers, and not afraid to speak her mind or stand up for what's right.
Calvin Simon "Sketchy" Theodore (Richard Gunn): Sketchy is Max's co-worker at the bike messenger company, Jam Pony. He's the dorky comic-relief of the group for the most part, usually getting into trouble that Max has to bail him out of.
Reagan "Normal" Ronald (J.C. MacKenzie): Normal is the manager of Jam Pony and a dyed-to-the-bone conservative (he has a framed picture of George Bush Sr on his wall even). He takes a dim view to the kids around him and their lack of work ethic, mostly spending his on screen time telling them to get on with their jobs or, in the second season, talking about how terrible transgenics are and how he'd willingly turn them over to the government as per his civic duty, all the time unknowing of the transgenics he's employed. All the same, he's not a bad guy, just a little too tied to his ideals.
Other Characters:
Ames White (Martin Cummins): One of the Familiars, which means he's stronger than most transgenics, faster and even tougher, having a disturbingly high tolerance for pain. He's also an NSA agent and uses his power to hunt down transgenics - Max in particular - to weed them out as inferior copies of Familiars. Pretty much the bad guy for most of season 2.
Asha Barlowe (Ashley Scott): A member of S.1.W., a rebel group attempting to uncover government corruption and working to help those oppressed by the strict military regime, she works with Logan (who she believes is just a representative of "Eyes Only") and eventually falls in love with him, though he never really sees her, stuck on Max as he is.
Why You Should Watch It:
It's a good post-apocalyptic science fiction series, though it delves into melodrama a little more than I'd like sometimes. There are some amazingly good episodes scattered among the monster of the week stuff, and though the effects are sometimes also really cheesy (*cough*), they do well with what they have. The characters themselves are pretty diverse and most of them get at least one time to shine on their own.
Also, it's filled with the pretty. I mean, it focuses on a group of people genetically engineered for human perfection, right? The rest of the cast does pretty good on that account too, really. Shh, shallowness is totally a valid reason.
And it's just two seasons long - 21 eps each one, that's not bad, right?
The Extras:
Both season are available on DVD and I highly recommend them. They've got commentary and interviews and gag reels!
Dark Angel: Season 1 on DVD at Amazon.
Dark Angel: Season 2 on DVD at Amazon.
Also there are three related novels - one prequel, which gives some background on Max pre-series but after the escape from Manticore, and two post-series, which tie up a lot of the loose ends left over from the finale.
Pre-Series:
Dark Angel: Before the Dawn novel at Amazon.
Post-Series:
Dark Angel: Skin Game novel at Amazon.
Dark Angel: After the Dark novel at Amazon.
The Dossier is a compilation of information that Logan dug up as Eyes Only - it's kind of frighteningly in depth, but fleshes out a lot of background for the Dark Angel world. The soundtrack is very heavy on the Hip-Hop/R&B, which isn't bad, but I've never bothered to track the whole thing down.
Miscellaneous:
Dark Angel: The Eyes Only Dossier book at Amazon.
Dark Angel Original Soundtrack CD at Amazon.
Pictures taken from DarkAngelFan, Dark Angel 2019, Jensen Ackles Fans, Michael Weatherly Fans, Ashley Scott Haven and Eyes-Only-Online. Yeah, I dunno why I feel the need to credit, I'm just OCD like that at the moment.
In fact, FOX decided to cancel Dark Angel to make way for quite a few new shows, one of them being Firefly (*waves to Katie's Spotlight post*) as well as Fastlane, girls club and John Doe. Remember those shows? Yeah, me neither. Good job, FOX.
The Show:
In the year 2009, twelve genetically-enhanced children escape from a military facility in Gillette, Wyoming, fleeing their lives as soldiers-in-training for a government program called "Manticore" to find their way in the world outside. Months after their escape, terrorists detonated an electromagnetic bomb, called the Pulse, that destroyed the majority of computer and communication systems in the United States, throwing the country into chaos.
Ten years later, Max is one of the escapees still at large, searching for her brothers and sisters who were separated in the confusion of the Pulse. Living and working as a bike messenger in a post-apocalyptic Seattle, she joins forces with Logan Cale, a former newspaper journalist with a wide network of informants, to find anything she can to track down the other escapees before Manticore recaptures them.
That's season one.
In season two, because of 9/11, the decision was made to scale back the post-apocalyptic, third-world environment of Dark Angel. The feel of the show became a little less dark in tone, as well as having less of a unified plot as it focused instead on the transition of the genetically engineered soldiers into human society, among other things. Halfway through the second season the Familiars were introduced - a thousand year old cult of superhumans attempting to perfect humanity by selective breeding rather than cutting and pasting DNA in the way of Manticore.
The Characters:
Manticore, Employees and Children of
Max Guevara (Jessica Alba): The titular character, an X5 (genetically enhanced and engineered supersoldier), and as strong and snarky as she is beautiful. She's good-hearted beneath the prickly exterior, as well as missing her fellow escapees more than she'd admit to anyone, no matter how obvious she makes it with her tireless efforts to track them down. Her romance with Logan is filled with more pitfalls than anyone deserves - and that's even before the virus that'll kill Logan if she touches him.
Colonel Donald Lydecker (John Savage): Max's commanding officer, the guy who headed up Manticore's training regimes, assigned missions and punishments, and the one responsible for finding and recapturing the escaped X5s - his career depends on it, as well as Lydecker having a twisted sense of responsibility regarding the X5s (he refers to them as his "kids").
Zack/X5-599 (William Gregory Lee): The leader of Max's unit, Zack's a by the book type of guy, though it was he who orchestrated most of the escape. He's not very trusting of humans and is very protective of his fellow escapees, even up to sacrificing himself for them if need be.
Alec McDowell/X5-494 (Jensen Ackles): Alec joined the cast at the beginning of season 2, seeking out a job alongside Max at Jam Pony after the Seattle Manticore facility was burned to the ground. He's been in Manticore his entire life, but not uneventfully, finding himself constantly at odds with his superiors. His and Max's relationship is complicated - he harbors some resentment against Max, both because she got away and because her escape worsened things for the remaining X5s. Max, for her part, hates him for being a thorn in her side through the first handful of episodes and because he reminds her strongly of her sibling, Ben, whom she had to kill rather than let Manticore recapture him (Ben was Alec's clone, hence there being a strong resemblance). He becomes a foil for Max and takes on comic relief with his irresponsible, irreverent attitude.
Joshua (Kevin Durand): The first of the transhumans (a transgenic with animal characteristics), he has no barcode and was the favorite of Sandeman, the man who pioneered the creation of all the transgenics at Manticore. He's doglike and sweet, but can be vicious when his friends are hurt. He escapes when the Manticore facility is burned down and has to live in hiding, with Max trying to help him adjust to his new life. He and Alec also form a sort of bond between them, more comic relief, but also as former-Manticore residents who know what it was like to be there all their lives.
Dr Elizabeth Renfro (Nana Visitor): Government figure who has Lydecker's balls in a vise from the moment the X5 children escape. She makes it pretty clear that he's through if he doesn't get them back and takes over the Manticore program while he's out hunting them down. She's completely ruthless and sees them as even less human than Lydecker does.
Eyes Only and Jam Pony
Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly): Having faked his own death to become a cyberjournalist in hiding, he's got an off-shore bank account keeping him funded while he spreads truth and justice through cable-hacked broadcasts as "Eyes Only", usually spilling dirty government and political secrets that inform the public of what's really going on. When he meets up with Max (as she's stealing from his apartment) they quickly forge a professional relationship - she steals for him while he uses his vast information network to find her siblings. Unsurprisingly, they have a lot of UST, which occasionally seems like the focus of the show rather than anything else.
"Original" Cindy McEachin (Valerie Rae Miller): Max's roommate, best friend, and drinking buddy. She's pretty awesome, despite the way that she's sometimes more of a caricature than a person - tough, ethnic chick who is also a lesbian? Yeah, but she's also very loyal to her friends, the ass-kickingest girl without superpowers, and not afraid to speak her mind or stand up for what's right.
Calvin Simon "Sketchy" Theodore (Richard Gunn): Sketchy is Max's co-worker at the bike messenger company, Jam Pony. He's the dorky comic-relief of the group for the most part, usually getting into trouble that Max has to bail him out of.
Reagan "Normal" Ronald (J.C. MacKenzie): Normal is the manager of Jam Pony and a dyed-to-the-bone conservative (he has a framed picture of George Bush Sr on his wall even). He takes a dim view to the kids around him and their lack of work ethic, mostly spending his on screen time telling them to get on with their jobs or, in the second season, talking about how terrible transgenics are and how he'd willingly turn them over to the government as per his civic duty, all the time unknowing of the transgenics he's employed. All the same, he's not a bad guy, just a little too tied to his ideals.
Other Characters:
Ames White (Martin Cummins): One of the Familiars, which means he's stronger than most transgenics, faster and even tougher, having a disturbingly high tolerance for pain. He's also an NSA agent and uses his power to hunt down transgenics - Max in particular - to weed them out as inferior copies of Familiars. Pretty much the bad guy for most of season 2.
Asha Barlowe (Ashley Scott): A member of S.1.W., a rebel group attempting to uncover government corruption and working to help those oppressed by the strict military regime, she works with Logan (who she believes is just a representative of "Eyes Only") and eventually falls in love with him, though he never really sees her, stuck on Max as he is.
Why You Should Watch It:
It's a good post-apocalyptic science fiction series, though it delves into melodrama a little more than I'd like sometimes. There are some amazingly good episodes scattered among the monster of the week stuff, and though the effects are sometimes also really cheesy (*cough*), they do well with what they have. The characters themselves are pretty diverse and most of them get at least one time to shine on their own.
Also, it's filled with the pretty. I mean, it focuses on a group of people genetically engineered for human perfection, right? The rest of the cast does pretty good on that account too, really. Shh, shallowness is totally a valid reason.
And it's just two seasons long - 21 eps each one, that's not bad, right?
The Extras:
Both season are available on DVD and I highly recommend them. They've got commentary and interviews and gag reels!
Dark Angel: Season 1 on DVD at Amazon.
Dark Angel: Season 2 on DVD at Amazon.
Also there are three related novels - one prequel, which gives some background on Max pre-series but after the escape from Manticore, and two post-series, which tie up a lot of the loose ends left over from the finale.
Pre-Series:
Dark Angel: Before the Dawn novel at Amazon.
Post-Series:
Dark Angel: Skin Game novel at Amazon.
Dark Angel: After the Dark novel at Amazon.
The Dossier is a compilation of information that Logan dug up as Eyes Only - it's kind of frighteningly in depth, but fleshes out a lot of background for the Dark Angel world. The soundtrack is very heavy on the Hip-Hop/R&B, which isn't bad, but I've never bothered to track the whole thing down.
Miscellaneous:
Dark Angel: The Eyes Only Dossier book at Amazon.
Dark Angel Original Soundtrack CD at Amazon.
Pictures taken from DarkAngelFan, Dark Angel 2019, Jensen Ackles Fans, Michael Weatherly Fans, Ashley Scott Haven and Eyes-Only-Online. Yeah, I dunno why I feel the need to credit, I'm just OCD like that at the moment.