Dark Angel - The Complete First Season

One of TV's more interesting tough-girl action shows, Dark Angel is a distinctive blend of the personal, the adventurous, and the politically aware. Cocreators James Cameron and Charles Eglee present a complex scenario of biological super-science and social collapse in which their gene-manipulated heroine and hacker-journalist hero can genuinely make a difference. In this first season they also provide an adversary who is a lot more than just a conventional villain.

Jessica Alba is impressive as Max, bred and trained as a super-soldier but reclaiming her individual humanity; Michael Weatherly is scruffily attractive as Eyes Only, who sits semi-paralyzed in his eyrie above Seattle uncovering crime, corruption, and other skullduggeries and assigning deadly errands to the woman he hopelessly loves. Jon Savage has real authority as Lydeker, a man who has stretched his conscience to the breaking point, but is not personally corrupt. Some of the best episodes--"Prodigy," for example--are ones in which Lydeker and Max are forced into temporary alliance. Early on, the relationship between Max and the other workers at Jam Pony--the courier firm that provides her with a cover identity--is a little forced, but later on the two parts of Max's life are more successfully integrated: "Shorties in Love," for example, is a genuinely touching tale about Diamond, the doomed criminal ex-lover of Max's lesbian roommate. Dark Angel was never a perfect show, but at its occasional best it manages to be simultaneously funny and dramatic. --Roz Kaveney

Movie Details

Cast: Jessica Alba, Michael Weatherly, Alimi Ballard, John Savage, Jennifer Blanc, Richard Gunn, J.C. MacKenzie, Valarie Rae Miller
Running time: 1075 mins.
DVD Aspect Ratios: 1.33:1

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DVD Features:

Available subtitles: English, Spanish

Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)

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"

Commentary by Michael Weatherly and Jessica Alba on "...And Jesus Brought a Casserole"

Featurettes: Dark Angel, Genesis, Seattle Ain't What It Used to Be, Creating an X-5

Audition tapes

Gag reel/bloopers

James Cameron's Dark Angel video game trailer

Number of discs: 6

DVD International release dates:
North America: Mar 25, 04