Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5140 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-06-02
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 6
• Formats: Box set, Full Screen, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 6
• Running time: 506 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The second and last series of Dark Angel, the inventive James Cameron show about mutants during a future Depression, has some real strengths, as well as having one or two bad ideas that partly explain its much-regretted cancellation. Among the strengths are Alex, the thoroughly unreliable mutant charmer whose flirtations with heroine Max complicate her doomed love for Logan, the crippled newshound whom she cannot now even touch--she has been infected with a deadly virus tailored specifically to kill him. The distrust this sows between the doomed couple does not always avoid soap opera clichés, but often produces fine performances, especially from Jessica Alba as Max.

On the down side, John Savage's memorably ambiguous villain Lydeker from Series 1 (who is alternately the mutants' nemesis and their protector), disappears to be replaced by the melodramatically sinister Agent White. White appears to be just a shoot-to-kill operative of the state but turns out to be another sort of superhuman, a product of an occultist breeding programme going back to the dawn of history. After White's first ruthless killing, Max's reluctance to use deadly force is tested to near implausible limits. The show ends with a rousing and moving finale, "Freak Nation", in which a theme often neglected in this final year--Max's relationship with her fellow couriers at Jam Pony--reaches a powerful climax.

On the DVD: Dark Angel's Series 2 release is ungenerous with special features, giving us an interesting but short documentary in which James Cameron, producer Charles Eglee and various designers describe how they created this rundown future Seattle with a mixture of location shots, set dressing and CGI, as well as a preview of the Dark Angel game. --Roz Kaveney

DVD Description
Sub-titles are: English for the Hard of Hearing, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish.

Special Features
4:3 Full Frame
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround English
Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround

Customer Reviews

The End for Dark Angel?
Dark Angel, the hit TV series by James Cameron, was discontinued after its second season, much to the fans' dismay.

In the year 2019 the U.S. has become a third world country in the wake of the Pulse - an electromagnetic shockwave unleashed by nuclear terrorists in 2009. This is Max's world, a broken world, an unforgiving place even for a genetically engineered soldier like her. On the run from her creators and constantly in search of her past, Max joins forces with the idealistic cyberjournalist "Eyes Only." She's a revved-up girl trying to make a run-down world a better place.

Season Two picks up several months after the first season. Max, believed to be dead by her friends, is given a life saving transplant and incarcerated within the Manticore compound. No-one can get the better of Max for long though, it isn't long before Max has found a way to escape, destroying Manticore and releasing the other transgenics.

Max soon realises the universal truth - that people are afraid of what they don't understand. As more and more of her fellow 'transgenics' become the objects of hate with the city of Seatle, and are hunted down by the ruthless NSA operatives who seek to destroy all evidence of Manticore's existence. Max assumes responsibility for releasing the transgenics into the 'real world' making it her own personal mission to ensure their safety from those that would seek to harm them.

Cult TV at tis finest
It says a lot when James Cameron puts his talent behind something other than big budget block busters. With Dark Angel he has created not only a star of Jessica Alba but a glimpse of what it might be like in the near future. Its about time Dark Angel was released on DVD as it gives fans the chance to enjoy all the best bits over and over again as Fox TV seemed to have cancelled the show after only two series. Such a waste to a great program which everyone should own.

The end of the story for Max and the post-Pulse transgenics
Watching the second season of "Dark Angel" knowing that the show would be cancelled it becomes easier to see that there the fundamental dynamic of the series was just changed way too much. After all, gone is John Savage's villainous Lydeker, who had at least a proprietary interest in the transgenics. In his place is a Snidley Whiplash type, Agent White (Martin Cummins), who wants to kill all the transgenics, not so much because of orders from the government but because of a much larger ancient conspiracy (e.g, "Exposure") having to do with the whole eugenics vs. transgenics argument (pretend there is one). Instead of the super-soliders from the X-5 series trying to blend in with humanity and avoid being killed by their creators, we know have transgenics of every description, which far too often becomes a "freak" of the week. While in the case of Joshua (Kevin Durand), the first transgenic, this has some nice payoffs, the rest of it is just becomes a bit much and you need a program to keep all the transgenic clear in your mind.

Then there is the whole romantic relationship between Max (Jessica Alba) and Logan (Michael Weatherly), which starts off the second season with him thinking she is dead. Then he gets the good news, she is alive, but the bad news: she has been given a virus that is genetically programmed to kill Eyes Only. You have to admit, it terms of keeping apart two people who seriously want to get together, this is a rather creative way, and there are a couple of very good episodes dealing with their romantic problems (e.g., "Borrowed Time," "Hello, Goodbye"). We are supposed to then throw X-5 Alex (Jensen Ackles) into the mix as a love triangle, but I can never believe Sam would be unfaithful to Logan, let along want to go the kissing cousin route. I prefer the problems with the X-6s ("Bag 'Em") and the X-7s ("Designate This").

Perhaps the best proof of how the show was matching steps forwards with step backwards is in the supporting cast. With Alex and Joshua becoming the third and fourth most important characters in the show after Max and Logan, that meant reduced roles for Original Cindy (Valarie Rae Miller) and Norman (J.C. MacKenzie). The latter is reduced to on-going homoerotic shtick with Alex, especially in the Manty Coro bits, and the former is reduced to popping in to episodes for brief moments of clear thinking and moral support. This is underscore by their return to prominence in the series finale, "Freak Nation" (raise your hand if the final scene reminds you of a line from CSN&Y's "Deja Vu").

Perhaps the problems with Season 2 of "Dark Angle" is that making things bigger and going the whole "X-Men" route with the public outcry to get the wicked mutants, is just pretty much a complete flip on the more intimate and secretive world of post-Pulse Seattle we got in Season 1 (and if you listen to the commentary track for "Freak Nation" you can learn what further changes were coming in Season 3). It seems strange to fault a show for moving in new directions, given how often they become stagnant, but all these changes might just have been too much too soon. Then again, the fault might be audiences were not particularly open to so many changes. You certainly cannot say that watching Alba as Max got tiresome (just her comic book refusal to ever kill any of the homicidal maniacs after her and her buddies).

Ironically, FOX's reasoning for cancelling "Dark Angel" was that they did not want to do two futuristic science-fiction shows (i.e., costly sets and special effects), and decided to go with the highly anticipated sci-fi western "Firefly" from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creator Joss Whedon. Of course, "Firefly" never had the ratings of "Dark Angel" and never made it to double figures on episodes. If you missed "Dark Angel," then it is certainly worthwhile checking it out on DVD. The second season is not as good as the first, but still way above average in terms of science fiction shows. James Cameron directed the finale, which marked the first (and so far only) time he has dealt with human actors as a director since "Titanic." The DVD also includes some featurettes and a gag reel, but the chief attraction in the extras are the few but definitely above average commentary tracks.