Many people, especially teenagers of the early 2000’s, will remember how Jessica Alba rose to fame in the role of Max Guevara, the Dark Angel. The US network FOX picked up the cyberpunk TV series in 2000 with its gothic and female empowerment theme, and it became a breakthrough role for nineteen year old Alba.
James Cameron had the idea of a post-apocalyptic Seattle set in 2019, where terrorists detonate an electro-magnetic pulse weapon in the atmosphere above the USA, which destroys electronic devices almost completely. However, a month before, 12 children escaped from a secret military facility called Manticore where they create genetically enhanced super soldiers and loyal assassins. Known as the X5 series, the children gave themselves names and spread through the forest to safety. Our main character was known as X5-452, now her name is Max.
Max grows up in Seattle and as an adult, she works as a bicycle messenger for Jam Pony, which gives her easy access to different sectors so she can secretly search for her siblings. Since Manticore never stopped searching for them, she has to find her siblings before Colonel Donald Lydecker, the CO of Manticore does and brings them all back to the facility.
Her closest friends are her co-workers, Cindy (Valerie Rae Miller, Reaper), Sketchy (Richard Gunn, Hemlock Grove), and Herbal (Alimi Ballard, Numb3rs) who don’t know who she really is and what she can do. But this isn’t her only secret because of her DNA she is half human and half cat, which means not much sleep and rather jumping from one building to the next to steal from the rich.
One night, she breaks into Logan Cale’s apartment (played by Michael Weatherly, NCIS) who comes from a wealthy family and was unaffected by the Pulse due to the creation of the Hover Drones, which fly above the city. Logan, who is bound to a wheelchair after an accident, catches her and offers her a deal. However, Max isn’t aware he is the cyber-journalist and hacktivist Eyes Only who brings down everyone who was involved in the terror attack. He hacks into the TV cable network for 60 minutes, so long that he “cannot be traced and cannot be stopped”, as he says in his messages.
The season one plot sees Max help him catch bad guys and he helps her find her siblings, which isn’t exactly a happy reunion. Zack was the leader of the X5 and feels responsible for his siblings as much as Max does. He starts working at Jam Pony under an alias and calls himself Sam. After Max finds out of his real identity, they both team up with Logan to find the others.
They find Tinga, who is now Penny, married, and a mother. After her location is compromised and her husband infected, she chooses between her safety and her family’s safety. After handing herself over to Lydecker, they run tests to see if she can pass on her X-gene to her son, but she doesn’t survive. Max and Zack also find Ben (Jensen Ackles, Supernatural) who unlike Tinga turned out to be a serial killer. At the end of the first season, Max and Zack are captured, but gives his life for Max.
Season 2 takes place months after the Manticore building was blown up and their existence was exposed to the world. Logan thinks that Max is dead and fights the remaining people responsible for her death. Little does he know, Max got Zack’s heart and was transferred to another facility with the remaining X5’s who did not escape 10 years ago. There she meets Ben’s twin (Jensen Ackles), Alec.
Max is desperate to escape when she meets Joshua, who is half human and half dog. She escapes with Alec and Joshua, but Max has a virus which would be deathly for Logan—and Alec is there to make sure she infects and kills him. Meanwhile, Max tries to resume a normal life with work and taking care of Alec, who doesn’t want her help initially because he blames her and the other X5 for how Manticore has treated them after their escape 10 years ago. The addition of Alec makes for some great scenes, especially ones with both Logan and Alec since they don’t really hate one another but they never really become friends either.
Naturally this kind of series has some twists, and for Dark Angel it sees Zack still alive with artificial organs and no longer remembering Max.
The second season continues on with Max searching for the real meaning of Manticore and its founder Sandman who was previously part of an ancient breeding cult. Max was personally created by Sandman inspired by Lydecker’s wife and containing her DNA, along with an ancient language implanted into her skin to stop the cult.
Unfortunately season 2 was also the series finale even though they had already a storyline for season 3. As the DVD commentary explains, they planned to reveal the mythology of the show.
The season would reveal that thousands of years ago, Earth passed through a comet’s tail, which deposited viral material that killed 97% of the human race. The members of the breeding cult, who passed on the genetic immunity wanted to make sure that when the comet returns only their members would survive, because they think they are the chosen ones. Sandman thought otherwise and wanted to share that immunity with the rest of the world through Max, who’s DNA has the immunity serum. One of their ideas was to put the antibody into a common cold virus and immunise humanity.
After the shows cancellation, a video game came out as well as a trilogy of novels in which the story was continued and ended with the immunisation.
Are you hooked now? Then get searching for Dark Angel with its DVD’s and the books, Before The Dawn, Skin Game, and After The Dark.
