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Order this DVD from Amazon.com
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Dark Angel
The Complete First Season
(Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment)
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| DVD Release Date:
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May 20, 2004
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| Length:
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1,075 mins.
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| Rated:
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NR
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| Format:
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Full Screen (1.33:1)
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| Audio:
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English Dolby Surround, French Dolby Surround, Spanish Dolby Surround
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| Subtitles:
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English, Spanish, Closed Captioned
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| Extras:
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Select Episode Commentaries, Featurettes: Dark Angel, Gensis, Seattle Ain't What It Used To Be, Creating and X-5, Audition Tapes, Gag Reel/Bloopers, James Cameron's Dark Angel Video Game Trailer
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Season One of producer James Cameron's Dark Angel is available on a six-DVD set that includes 21 episodes, special features and episode commentaries. In Dark Angel, we are introduced to the city of Seattle in the year 2019. The United States has been devastated by an electromagnetic pulse that has destroyed the country's political, economic and physical infrastructure and has rendered the country to near Third World status. The entire country is riddled with crime and corruption and in this chaos, there lives a genetically-engineered woman named Max Guevera (Jessica Alba). Max was just a child when she led a group of her genetically-engineered siblings to escape their military creators and years later, we find Max alone, working as a bicycle courier and hiding from her creators, including the cold-hearted Colonel Donald Lydecker (John Savage). Max tries robbing and eventually befriends a wealthy political activist named Logan Cale - also known as 'Eyes Only' (Michael Weatherly) and together they fight crime, fight the sexual tension between them, search for Max's genetically-engineered siblings and try to expose Manticore, the company that raised Max and many other young soldiers. Most episodes put our hero and heroine in a situation where Max uses her superficial brawn and Logan uses his superficial brain to solve some sort of problem or stop some sort of criminal. Some of the other main characters in the series include Max's bike courier friends Original Cindy (Valarie Rae Miller) and Herbal (Alimi Ballard), her boss Normal (J.C. MacKenzie), her roommate Kendra (Jennifer Blanc), and her genetically-enduced brother Zach (William Gregory Lee).
Amongst the episodes that include a commentary are the Pilot episode (Executive Producer/Creator Charles Eglee and Director David Nutter), the episode called "Rising" (Executive Producer/Creator Charles Eglee and Co-Executive Producer Rene Echevarria), the episode called "And I Am a Camera" (Executive Producer/Creator Charles Eglee, Co-Executive Producer Rene Echevarria and Director Jeff Woolnough) and finally the episode entitled "...And Jesus Brought a Casserole" (Actors Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly). After listening to each commentary, the one recommendation that immediately comes to mind is to watch the entire season before you listen to anything. Some of the commentaries commit what I see as a cardinal sin and give away surprises in upcoming episodes (which ruined a few things for me as I did not follow my own advice). The commentaries are really nothing special. The ones that include the producers and directors are rather dry and lifeless. The commentary by Alba and Weatherly is a bit more energetic and slightly more interesting but they seem to revert to a custom that I am starting to notice in many commentaries - whining about how cold it was, how hard the day was, how tired they were, and so on and so forth. Listening to them talk about how uncomfortable their one sex scene was? That was interesting. Listening to them whine is not. This is my advice to all actors who are going to complain about the weather or about how hard you work on your commentary - we don't care. The commentaries for these episodes are nothing to write home about.
The Special Features on the final DVD include, firstly, a 22-minute documentary on the series called "Dark Angel - Genesis". This gives us a decent history and background into Dark Angel and the making of Dark Angel. It includes interviews with much of the cast and crew, including James Cameron. It is a decent feature and is an informative behind-the-scenes look at the show.
Next up is the featurette called "Seattle Ain't What It Used To Be". This feature is almost six minutes long and is basically the crew and Mr. Cameron explaining the tricks they used to turn Vancouver into a post-apocalyptic Seattle. It is short and sweet.
"Creating and X-5" is seven minutes long. The X-5's are the classification of Max and her genetically-engineered siblings. It just gives us a background on how these children were created and some of their different powers.
Next is "Audition Tapes to Final Scene Comparisons", which is exactly what the title says. The audition tapes of Michael Weatherly, J.C. MacKenzie, Aumi Ballard, Valarie Rae Miller, Jennifer Blanc and William Gregory Lee are shown with the actual scene from the episode, using picture-in-picture to show us both the audition and the actual scene.
Finally, there is just over five minutes of Bloopers and a trailer for "James Cameron's Dark Angel" Video Game.
Overall, I would say I have mixed feelings about Dark Angel. I have really enjoyed watching a few television shows on DVD - 24, Alias (Season 1 and 2), The Shield - but out of all of the shows I have watched, I would have to rate Dark Angel at the bottom. It was not a terrible show. In fact, a handful of episodes were quite good. However, the season did not have the suspense, the interest or the sense of urgency of the previously mentioned television shows. The characters of Dark Angel were not nearly as compelling as Jack Bauer or Sydney Bristow. In fact, the only character in the show that I would say has any sort of likeability or emotion associated with him is Weatherly's Logan Cale. John Savage as Lydecker was okay too. But too often the other characters - including Max - were too bitter, too sour and too snarky to care about them. I really didn't feel anything for Max and her search for her brothers and sisters or her attempts to expose Manticore. It just wasn't there for me. I can't blame Jessica Alba for this. Besides her tight leather outfits that showed off her beautiful bosom, too often, I just don't think she was given much to work with. And besides the weakness of the characters in the show, I also found that many times, the stories and the dialogue of the individual episode were weak and had not enough imagination or originality. In general, the episodes were predictable (well, any chance of surprise was ruined by the commentaries giving away a few of the good surprises) at times, boring and often not very memorable.
I will say that I do not regret watching all twenty-one episodes of Dark Angel. If there is one word I could use to describe season one, it would be 'okay' (not very imaginative on my part!). But it did not leave me wanting more and it did not leave me craving for season two. As the show went on, I realized I just did not care about the too many of the stories or the characters. The show really had a good concept but seemed to be a victim of poor writing. Dark Angel might be worth one viewing but the fact that the show lasted only two seasons on television before being cancelled pretty much speaks for itself.
| The Movie: |
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6/10 |
| The Extras: |
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5.5/10 |
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