Dark Angel:: The Complete First Season
October 2003 Reviewed by: Doug Schneider Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

There were two primary reasons that the futuristic Dark Angel drew attention when it debuted in 2000. The first was James Cameron’s involvement. Since Titanic, the Hollywood mega-director hadn’t made any feature films, opting instead to work on projects like this one. The second reason, admittedly, pertained mostly to guys: Dark Angel’s star, Jessica Alba, was (and still is) hot! She’s a combination of elegant beauty, pouting sexuality, girl-next-door innocence, and butt-kicking toughness. Still, Dark Angel has more to offer than Cameron and Alba, since the show’s premise is much better than most of what we see on TV these days.

The first episode, simply called "Pilot" (for obvious reasons), hits the ground running in the year 2009 -- it’s a flashback to a prison escape involving a group of kids with shaved heads. Dressed in white gowns, the children are seen fleeing from a mysterious black-clothed military force. The sides of good and evil are quickly drawn, and next we’re launched ten years into the future to ransacked Seattle, where Max (Alba) works as a bicycle messenger and lives with squatters in a permanently unfinished apartment complex.

Max is no ordinary woman, and the United States is not what it used to be. In her spare time Max performs gravity-defying leaps, has uncanny strength and agility, and can fight off would-be attackers like a world-class martial-arts champion. Max was one of those escaped kids, and part of a human experiment to create perfect soldiers using "the best DNA money can buy." In 2019 her background comes in handy, because the United States has become a third-world country, the result of terrorists setting off a nuclear device high above the earth, which laced the cites below with an electromagnetic pulse that destroyed all computer systems and electronically stored wealth. Poverty, corruption, and crime abound, and the only one holding people accountable is Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly), a rich cyber journalist who crashes the airwaves with exposés on the city’s worst culprits. By the end of the first episode, Max and Logan have paired up, and together they help bring justice to the city. Think Superman mixed up with one of Charlie’s Angels.

That initial jammed-packed episode sets the stage for the multitude of story scenarios that follow -- 20 more in this six-DVD box set, making up the entire first season. For the most part Dark Angel is well written -- decent weekly stories spiced up with humor and Alba’s sex appeal. You can watch each self-contained episode without necessarily seeing them all, although, obviously, it makes more sense to try to watch them in succession. Max’s whole story unfolds week by week as she tries to uncover and learn about her own past.

Overall, production values for the series are quite high, and there is an obvious effort to make this show more film-like than a typical TV series. Dark Angel’s effects are impressive for television, yet won’t have you mistaking this for an SFX-laden Cameron-sized feature film. TV budgets reduce many of the special effects to something less than awe-inspiring -- many computer-generated graphics are used, and they are not always that realistic-looking. As well, the creators have done some odd things that constantly remind you of the time it really is. Computers and cameras are all current-day models, as are the vehicles. Perhaps there was a conscious effort to minimize the hassle (and cost) of trying to create items more appropriate to the future, or perhaps the studio wanted to cash in on ad revenues by product placement of real products that you can find in stores today. I suspect the latter. And although the setting is supposed to be Seattle, it is obvious from the first episode that they were not trying too hard to conceal that they were really in modern-day Vancouver, Canada. Very Canadian places like Chapters and Scotiabank can be seen prominently in the background.

Despite the few wrinkles, Dark Angel is for the most part a good-looking effort, but the picture and sound quality on this DVD set let me down. During the first episode there were a lot of digital distortions, including "swimming" colors and other odd artifacts. That seemed to ease up in later installments, but overall I just didn’t find that Dark Angel looked all that good. The sound quality was worse. I found myself having to turn up the volume far more than normal, yet still had trouble hearing some dialogue. I can’t say exactly what the problem is, but there are 21 episodes shoved onto six discs, and perhaps that’s just too much to try to cram in and maintain quality.

The extras, contained mostly on the sixth disc, get higher marks. There are features about the creation of the concept for the series, the cast selection, and the filming for weekly episodes. None of the features are that in-depth, but they’re still pretty interesting, and certainly worth watching if you’re into this series. The only really clunker include is the "Bloopers" section -- little outtakes of flubbed lines, mistakes, and accidents. Perhaps they were funny on the set, but nothing here will make you fall over laughing. Finally, although not all the episodes have additional commentary, some do, and I suspect diehard fans will find it interesting to listen to.

Quality issues about the video and sound aside, Dark Angel: The Complete First Season gets a strong recommendation. The series only aired for two years, and this set gets you halfway there. And even at the full $59.98 list price, you get a lot of viewing time -- 21 episodes -- and, of course, almost all the Jessica Alba most guys could ever want to look at. I consider that a deal.

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