Dark Angel

Plot synopsis:
=== Season one ===
In 2009 a genetically enhanced nine-year-old female supersoldier designated as X5-452 (Geneva Locke) escapes along with eleven others from a secret U.S. government institution codenamed Manticore where they were born, raised, and trained to be soldiers and assassins. On June 1, 2009, months after X5-452's escape terrorists detonate an electromagnetic pulse weapon in the atmosphere over the U.S. which destroys the vast majority of computer and communication systems, throwing the country into chaos.
Ten years later in 2019 the now 19-year-old X5-452 (Jessica Alba), who calls herself Max Guevara, struggles to search for her Manticore brothers and sisters. In a recovering United States which is now barely more than a Third World nation she tries to live a relatively normal life and evade capture by Manticore, who wish to recover their lost asset. Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly), an underground cyber-journalist with the alias Eyes Only, attempts to recruit her to help fight corruption in the post-Pulse world. She initially refuses but accepts after Cale is rendered a paraplegic attempting the assignment he was recruiting her for. A romantic interest buds between the two. While assisting Cale, Max also makes a living as a bicycle messenger at Jam Pony, a courier company, along with her friends Original Cindy (Valarie Rae Miller), Herbal Thought (Alimi Ballard), and Sketchy (Richard Gunn). Other X5s are periodically introduced, most significantly the unit leader Zack (William Gregory Lee). The Manticore hunt for the escaped X5s is led by Colonel Donald Lydecker (John Savage). Near the end of the season Lydecker is betrayed by his superior, the even more ruthless Elizabeth Renfro (Nana Visitor), and he defects from Manticore. He aids Max and Zack in an assault on Manticore headquarters. Max is badly wounded and captured. Zack, who has also been captured, commits suicide to provide Max with his heart, as she needs an X5 heart transplant to survive.
=== Season two ===
Cale exposes Manticore to the world. Renfro decides to burn the facility to cover up the evidence and is killed in the process. Aided by Joshua (Kevin Durand), a transgenic with canine DNA, Max escapes the facility and frees the other transgenics including Alec (Jensen Ackles), a fellow X5, who later joins Jam Pony. When Max is reunited with Cale he immediately becomes ill and almost dies. Max discovers that Manticore has infected her with a virus specifically designed to kill Cale, and the two must avoid all physical contact to keep him alive. Max learns that Joshua was the first transgenic created by Sandeman, Manticore's founder. Over the course of the season, it is revealed that a millennia-old breeding cult has bred their own super-soldiers who rival the Manticore-produced transgenics. Ames White (Martin Cummins), a government agent tasked with eliminating the freed transgenics, is revealed to be a member of the cult. When a strange message written in Max's genetic code makes an appearance on her skin it is revealed that Sandeman is a renegade from the breeding cult and Ames White is his son. White is still loyal to the cult and hates his father's transgenic creations with a passion. Believing that Max is a threat to the breeding cult's plans they attempt to kill her, but she escapes to Terminal City, an abandoned part of Seattle where hundreds of outcast transgenics have been hiding. When the police begin to surround Terminal City Max convinces the other transgenics to stand their ground rather than run. The series ends with the military surrounding Terminal City as the residents raise their newly designed flag from one of the buildings, and wait for a possible invasion.

Tags: psychedelic, sci-fi, violence, flashback

Review:
I would really implore that this continues even if set from a few years later, or another version of Dark Angel is made with the original cast, particularly Jessica Alba.
Jessica Alba is perfect for this role and with the popularity of Arrow, The Flash, DC Legends of Tomorrow, Spergirl and various others, I am positive that Dark Angel in this day and age would be welcomed back with open arms by great deal of people, myself included.I've recently been watching them again and they thrill me every time even though I've seen them all before.
Of course Jessica Alba as Max is a great reason to watch this series, but so is Jensan Ackles.
For those hoping it will come back you are out of luck because it has been years now since it was canceled, but i still haven't given up hope of a feature film sometime in the future.Bottom line: If you are looking for a short entertaining show and you like Alba, this one's for you..
I have to say she did a really good job here.Come on James Cameron, make us happy and start another Dark Angel series.Find someone who looks like Jessica Alba and make it happen, just have a try and I am sure people will like it.Don't do things just because of money.
Reading what other people have commented on the show, it seems this series is a rather mixed bunch, trying to cater to many audiences but apparently satisfying only few.Female viewers are offended because Max is pretty and portrayed as such a sex object in every turn, but love the series because watching a girl kick (male) butt strokes their egoes.Male viewers are offended because almost all the male characters are useless, impotent losers who (deservedly) get insulted and their asses kicked, but love the series for the action, and the hot lead character.Pschah.The series has an intentionally controversial message - with nothing substantial to say.
Actually, it may be that Dark Angel is entirely ironic, in which case it's still bad but at least perversely interesting.If you want to watch a well-written sci-fi series that was cancelled, check out Firefly..
Mainly talking about the BAD characterizations, weak, useless males, and the girls who are each and every one 'sassy'(You know they're 'sassy' because they insult the male characters every time they open their mouths), which gets so bad that at one point, the main character decides that the wife of a man dying of some awful disease, needs to hears terrible jokes about guys being the weaker sex.But the show is also crippled by the sources of it's cribbed ideas(Johnny Mnemonic!) and it's stupid premises(An EMP device has destroyed everything electrical in the place where the show's set, and for some reason, we have no idea at all about how to fix that, even though we created all that electrical stuff basically from scratch in the first place, learned about electricity, engineering and manufacturing, etc).Not surprising it was canceled.
After all, one of the writer-producers declared proudly that he didn't like Science-Fiction and that it therefore was going to help him make a great Science-Ficiton show.Sorry, but that sort of speech is usually followed by a dud, because it is very difficult to excel at something you don't even like.Dark Angel met all those expectations and more.But what really killed this show was Jessica Alba.
James Cameron has created an excellent character in this test-tube genetically modified human being, trying to escape the entrapments of its genesis and the actress Jessica Alba (who I had never heard of before the series)has done a sterling job in her interpretation of the character of 'Max'.
They don't.Dark Angel suffered from about the second or third episode into the second season, and the television networks did well to drop it like the proverbial plague.
Even "The Simpson" has better acting, and they're all celluloid!I think Cameron should have made Dark Angel a movie rather than a television series.
Dark Angel is about a future of political, economic and moral collapse, a genetically enhanced superhuman prototype named Max escapes from military confines and dwells amidst the decadent underground street life of Seattle, WA to avoid government agents who want her back into the fold.
To give you an idea of what sort of person I am, these are some of the other TV series I thought or think were/are excellent: NYPD Blue, Charmed, Profit (short lived 1996 US TV series) and some of the films I really like: The Godfather Part 1 and 2, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Titanic (James Cameron's version), The Bourne Identity Finally I would just like to finish by saying that I cannot overpraise James Cameron's "Dark Angel" and hopes that he produces a 3rd series or that he takes it to the big screen..
She is perfect for the role, and the show is more interested in her filing the shoes of a strange character rather than showing off cleavage which, Alba has since done frequently.the one problem I have with Dark Angel is a certain lack of excitement, Every time Max gets into trouble she gets out pretty easily because she is so much smarter and tougher than her enemies, but I guess that is what makes the show so quirky.
This is one big budget series,which has great landscapes,story and fx.Jessica Alba plays the leading role and she is HOT.After having watched the pilot episode when it came out on video, I couldn't wait for the series to start,and now I think it is one of the best series I have seen.
It is made by James Cameron, and that explains a lot.So if this series comes to your country then try to watch a few episodes and see if you like it,I guarantee that you will..
I think the jury is still out on this one, but it will be an uphill battle for this show, despite some good numbers for the two hour debute."Dark Angel" is the kind of sci-fi I should like, in that it deals with a plausible future and what could be an appealing central character.
Dark Angel is very popular in england, and we are all upset that we don't know what happens after max Jessica alba puts the flag up what Joshua made.I personally am very upset that they didn't make a season 3.dark Angel is a great film and should carry on with the film.my mum and dad are also disappointed because we all feel that we have wasted our money on box set 1 and 2 because we will never know what the ending is.
This show may have survived its hackneyed scripts and boring premise had it cast a great actress as its lead.This show was going to live or die by the acting ability of the lead actress to make us forget the bad lines and get us interested in her character.Instead we got Jessica Alba...Jessica Alba who seems to think that pouting is the highest form of acting.Jessica Alba who seems to think grimacing is what expressiveness is all about.Jessica Alba who is so needful of acting lessons she even dragged down Michael Weatherly's acting into the cellar.Shame on James Cameron for thinking that a Hot Chick is all that was needed for this show.Someone with talent and soul is what was needed..
They add a comic side to the series that it didn't need and doesn't work well as it takes away from the dark thriller side to it.Generally the writing is good but it is full or holes and doesn't stand up if you take a long hard look at the series, also some episodes are very weak or a little silly.
Jessica Alba is Max Guevera, a top secret genetically-engineered but mentally deficient hotty who after escaping captivity lives as a bike message courier in Seattle of a post-apocalyptic world of 2009, while searching for the other government experiments that have escaped,running up against the "evil" Manticor corporation, and learning of her past piece by piece along the way.
If you talk to some of the actors they would be glad to come back and start Dark Angel again.This is suppose to be in future but a lot of thing happening in the series is happening now.
I don't know if you catalog Dark Angel as being full-fledge Sci-Fi series as besides some expectation there aren't really future elements in it, however, I think it actually a good thing and benefit the series.
The characters are really fun to watch (well most of them) and I really like the combination of the series sometimes being light and funny and other time more serious.I heard a lot of criticism about Jessica Alba acting, and I admit she wasn't great at the first couple of episodes but she did decent and she vastly improved in the second season (also not forget she was only 18 at the time, still a young actress).
Season 2 was indeed different with the introduction of mix human-animal, the breeding cult and the transgenic-humans relationship but it kept its main elements.In the end, the series had some drawbacks, maybe the scripts wasn't 'smart' enough for everybody, but it just being picky, some really, really minor continuity problem (that you can't even call secondary plots) but on the other hand the series had a lot of reference to previous episodes, a lot more then I've seen in other series.
It's not all bad though: the "will they/won't they" between Max and Logan Cale turned out to surprisingly effective and watchable - in fact, it is by far the best part of the show.So does "Dark Angel" deserve another series.
10 years later we follow the life of one of the escaped kids named Max, who works at a bike messenger company, but when night comes she turns into a cat-burglar to make what money she can and has plans to buy a better motorbike when one night she burgles the place of an underground cyber journalist named Logan Cale, who broadcasts on T.V about all the bad people who are destroying America even more.
Max tries to find the others like her so she teams up with Logan, who is set to save the world.Great cast, great story, it's extremely funny, i totally love the show but they canceled it.
My favourite episodes are all from Season 1 where we begin to get to know Max (Jessica Alba, her younger brother Joshua Alba makes an appearance at the end of season 1 as Krit), Logan (Michael Weatherly) and Donald Lydecker (John Savage, my new favourite bad guy).Rating?
James Cameron's Dark Angel is an excellent show because it features innovative characters, a unique storyline, and an underlying message of encouraging us to accept people are different.
Each episode of Dark Angel has Max fighting the bad guys and saves the day.
Dark Angel is such a cool show - it's one of my favourites now - I watch it every Monday (I live in New Zealand...)!!Screen Goddess Jessica Alba (90210, Never Been Kissed) plays Max, a genetically-enhanced super-girl who escaped from Manticore (where her and all the other genetically-enhanced super-kids were being trained) as a kid - now she lives in the dark side of Seattle (I think) as a messenger.The year is 2019 (or something) and they States is a 3rd world country, and the town Max inhibits looks pretty crusty.
The fighting looks pretty real.But when Max goes jumping over fences or jumps onto something really high up,the show gets an "F" in reality and graphics.And another thing I have always been interested about is how Logan can drive a car and not be able to walk or feel his legs-hhhhmmmm very interesting indeed!But hey!The show is good and the whole super-charged up people isn't really THAT unbelievable.[Hey we have cloned sheep haven't we?]All in all..The show is good.I hope this show stays around for awhile but I have my doubts it will.The show seems to on every other week now instead of every week!I think its because they writers are having a hard time coming up with new material for the show now.But I think I lot of people like this show and are watching it and want to see more of it![Like me!]So I hope the writers get out of their slump pretty soon!.
I think Jessica Alba was picked for the part for a lot more reasons than good looks, she's a great actor and everything I aspire to be.
Jensen Ackles had always been one of my favorite characters, Jessica Alba was perfect for the job of Max. I would have liked more of William Gregory Lee, he's also a great actor, I remember him from Xena.
1 all-time beauty, stars as Max in this futuristic action/sci-fi series, set in a dystopian future.
I think "Dark Angel" connotes someone (Max, Jessica Alba) who lives in a "dark world" of corruption but who is an "angel" in disguise, helping others and fighting evil with her genetic-engineered powers.
You gotta love a show that has a lead girl character "Max" who rides a motorcycle, her sidekick named "Original Cindy", a bike delivery boss named "Normal", and a co-worker named "Herbal Thought.""Dark Angel", while it has a thread of right and goodness running through it, as a necessity for viewers to sympathize with the characters, is really just good science-fiction entertainment.
We cheer petite and feminine "Max" while we secretly wish we were 21 again with her as our girlfriend.Besides the science-fiction, "Dark Angel" has a great mish-mash of true "characters", much as did "Taxi", "Mash", and "Northern Exposure", all great and long-running TV series.
However, as good as "Dark Angel" is, I believe they will rather quickly run out of innovative plots, the series will be renewed for the 2001/2002 season, and will end after its second season.
The stunts are amazing - watching Jessica Alba perform sommersaults, kick the crap out of Manticore agents, save her friends and rob from the rich to make a quick buck!Heartbreak: Logan and Max: the perfect couple who are continually put at risk because of who they are, forcing a little bit of a bumpy relationship.From the genius James Cameron, Dark Angel is not to be missed under any circumstances!.
The lead character Max Guevara (Jessica Alba, from Flipper and Idle Hands), lives in Seattle, searching for the other "escapees".Great images, a story clear, great performance (don´t miss Original Cindy...
This TV series has just started in the UK on the 17th Jan 2001, and I can say I wouldn't want to miss an episode,because I think that if James Cameron is behind the creation of  films like Aliens etc last then I'm sure with the help of Fox,cast & crew behind Dark Angel and viewers ratings I'm sure it has a future on screen...
Max (Jessica Alba) is 'Dark Angel' a genetically engineered soldier, which we initially learn from flash backs to her childhood.
I wasnt going to add a comment until i saw what awfully bad comments many other people have made, Dark Angel is one on James Camerons best!
Fox's television series "Dark Angel" is my favorite dramatic television series and, to me, second only to "Seinfeld." Jessica Alba (beautiful, sexy, talented) stars as Max Guevara (a.k.a. X-5 452), a genetically enhanced woman who is hiding from her creators.
The chemistry between the two characters is sizzling and in the third episode we are getting to see more interaction between Max and her female friends.My only criticism of Dark Angel is some of the dialogue.
And Jessica Alba's beauty is both dark and angelic.
Oh sure, Jessica Alba looks very good, but is this enough to make Dark Angel worth watching?
I don't think anyone else could have played Max as well as Jessica.I found the story lines really interesting because I've never seen anything like it before.I love the background of the characters and how all of them are complex in a way.Max's Jam Pony co-workers are hilarious and bring relief to the "darkness".Some of the effects were a little off I do admit and sometimes the acting wasn't as good as it could be but overall I wish the series would have continued.Because it is a entertaining show if you give it a chance..
Dark Angel has become my one of my favorite shows, I was hooked from the very first episode, Jessica is great.
Jessica Alba is excellent as the role of Max and although some of you slate her as a step forward for her career, you will notice that she has been acting for years previous to Dark Angel and will be for a long time to come.
And Jessica Alba(play Max in the series) is doing the act so great to.
Things didn't really get much better in the second year, but there was some clear improvement, not with the plotting, but with the star.This show had to live or die with Jessica Alba, its butt kicking, genetically enhanced super soldier who longed to be just a regular girl.
Yes, Jessica Alba has only one expression and it is pout with her Angelina Jolie lips and the guy who plays Logan is a one note character, but what keeps me watching Dark Angel are the scenes with Max's Jam Pony coworkers and the scenes where she's kicking ass!
6 August 2006 Hi Folks,I just finished watching the complete second season of James Cameron's: Dark Angel.
I wish only that James Cameron's: Dark Angel series would continue, I want more of MAX and crew.
Fox just plain sux The series Dark Angel was the most well acted and best series I have ever watched in my life.
DA presented many previously rather unknown actors such as Jensen Ackles, Michael Weatherly and, of course, the leading lady Jessica Alba, who have since then continued their acting careers in prime movies and TV-series.The main reason, why I got reeled in, was the undefined "thing" going on between Max and Logan.