With Titantic racking up record after record, it comes as little surprise that Television would embrace any project that James Cameron would come up with for a weekly romp. Premiering Tuesday, October 3, 2000, Dark Angel brought Jessica Alba away from her teeny bopper image on Disney to a whole new genetically-enhanced human prototype named Max.
As with most experiments gone awry, Max is hunted by her former military handlers through the edgy, underground street life of 21st Century America. Max is aided in her quest - both to avoid capture and reunite with her "siblings" scattered in the aftermath of their escape - by Logan Cale, an idealistic cyber-journalist battling repression and corruption in post-apocalypse.
The show was a hit pretty much from the beginning, mixing scifi with action so fludily one would think they were at the movies! Hey, with James Cameron at the helm that really comes as little surprise. The cast picked for the show is pretty cohesive with melding of the first season unusually well done. The show hasn't really been the ratings winner that television execs had hoped for but it had a decent run with twenty episodes in the first season.
Sci fi fans may find the drama and action to be a bit too much for fans of the genre but there are still many qualities within this show that will appeal to those who love the future. Set in 2019 it is a vision that could actually come true one day.
The complete first season includes all 20 season episodes plus the pilot over six discs:
A complete synopsis of every episode can be found at http://www.darkangeltheseries.com/theseries/doc_showinfo.htm
The Disc:
Fox usually does a really good job with their TV to DVD productions when it comes to the look. Perhaps this being a fairly new television show has something to do with it, but Dark Angel with its dark colors and settings looks absolutely stunning. The transfer ultimately remains at the standard 4:3 setting but for this setting things look really good.
The show's broadcast Dolby 2.0 surround soundtracks are all we get here but even so the action packed sequences sound really thrilling for this limitation. Also included are Spanish and French Dolby 2.0 surround dub, along with English and Spanish subtitles and English Closed Captions.
Extras here come in the way of several episode specific audio commentary tracks including: Commentary by Charles Eglee & David Nutter on pilot episode,
Commentary by Charles Eglee and Renee Echevarria on "Rising",
Commentary by Charles Eglee, Renee Echevarria, and Charles Woolnaugh on "And I Am a Camera" and
Commentary by Michael Weatherly and Jessica Alba on "...And Jesus Brought a Casserole". Some of these are entertaining, while others are not so entertaining.
More interesting are the Audition Tapes showing us a little bit of what goes on behind the startup of a series. There's also the much loved Gag Reel which is pretty humorous I must admit.
bottom line:
With a really nice set of extras and a transfer that is really well done, Dark Angel makes its best effort for a DVD set to overcome a show that is only marginally better than average. For real fans of the show though, this is quite a nice set.
3.5 out of 5
By - Brian Gray
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