Dark Angel
Reviewed by
Gordon Kearns
Please be informed, this review includes key plot elements (Spoilers)
The story opens in the not too far future 2019. Nineteen years earlier, X5-452 (Max) was born (created) at Manticore, a secret government facility near Gillette, Wyoming. Using sophisticated genetic engineering and intense training techniques, an advanced infantry soldier was being developed, an army of superhuman warriors - super-strong, super-fast, super-agile, super-disciplined, and super ruthless. As Lydecker, Manticore's commanding officer, would later say, "They were designed to kill coldly, efficiently and happily. All they needed was a trigger." By 2009 there was a corps of such warriors at Manticore, pre-teen children whose fighting talents were already awesome, and who had already happily killed as part of their training. They were the X-5's. They had no natural parents, having been conceived and DNA-doctored in test tubes, and carried to term by paid young surrogate mothers. They were considered "things"at Manticore - and they carried an identifying genetically imprinted bar code on the back of their necks. The X-5's lived in austere barracks, and were subjected to an unrelenting 24-7 military training regimen. Without blood families, they did evolve into a natural interdependence and tacit camaraderie . . . to the point that one day in 2009, reacting to what they saw as a threat to one of their members (the young Max, as it turned out), they rebelled and crashed out of the compound utilizing their combat skills. Twelve managed to escape to the outside, where they dispersed for their mutual security. Max was one of the twelve.
When the series moved into its second season we learned that Manticore also housed other transgenic creations, like the X-7's, who, utilizing their DNA, were able to communicate ultrasonically, beyond the range of normal human hearing. Also, there were transhumans who contained heavier mixes of animal DNA in their "cocktails" (Max had a dash of cat DNA in her "cocktail") for specific war purposes, such as desert survival or underwater warfare. And then there were the 'nomalies, mutant mistakes, experiments that misfired, who were cruelly consigned to cells in the bowels of Manticore.
The world the twelve escaped into was soon to change dramatically when an act of terrorism (the "pulse") crashed most of the computer systems in the United States, which caused an economic catastrophe and sent the country into an immediate depression. Poverty flourished, as did government and police corruption; and government agencies were able to do as they wished without any responsible oversight to limit them.
So this is the world in which the super genetically enhanced Max existed, in the crumbling city of Seattle, Washington, in 2019. She passed as a normal human being, realizing she was still "Wanted" by Manticore. She had no idea what happened to the "brothers and sisters" she escaped with 10 years earlier, but she was ever hoping to someday re-connect with them, the only family she ever knew. In the meantime, she worked as a bicycle courier at Jam Pony, where she had a few close friends. And these being hard times, she had no qualms about using her enhanced talents for petty thievery, which she considered just a normal way of commerce.
Early on she met the idealistic Logan, who as the mysterious TV hacker "Eyes Only" crusaded against the poverty and corruption of the post-pulse world. Max was no crusader; it didn't suit her necessary anonymously safe life; besides, she wasn't above a bit of outlaw activity herself. She had no particular morality, except a driving compassion for those who were hurting, and for children, and for her few close friends, and would do whatever was necessary to help them in times of need. She joined some of Logan's crusades, not out of altruism, but as a sort of quid pro quo for his help in locating her lost family. Besides, there was an undeniable physical attraction between them which carried throughout the run of the story. It should be noted that for one reason or another they were given little opportunity to act on the attraction, a frustration that also carried to the end.
Season one was mostly a series of self-contained episodes as we came to know Max, her drive to belong, to have roots; and her self-doubts and need to love and be loved; and her fear of love and loving; and her search for answers and reasons and purpose; and her trying to understand the forces that drove her. In season one, her quest carried her into terrifying corners of her own psyche. In the episode Pollo Loco, from which the above screen capture was taken, she faced a dark side of herself that she'd evaded since her escape. A dark side which was, paradoxically, a flip side of her loving spirit. I don't believe there was another episode in the entire series that plumbed and exposed the depth of her soul as stunningly as Pollo Loco. But there were several episodes in season one that revealed how much she was willing to sacrifice for her love of the human heart. In Rising, as an example, she unequivocally offered own life up to rescue her friend - an act from which there was no way to turn back. By the end of season one we knew Max, perhaps better than she knew herself.
In season two, Max would say to the character Ames White, "So you're the new bad guy in my life." And indeed he was. In the course of the series Max had three "bad guys" - Donald Lydecker was her Inspector Javert (Les Miserables) relentlessly pursuing all 12 if the escaped X-5's, but especially Max. Essentially, he didn't want them dead so much as returned to their proper place as Manticore soldiers; although he was willing to kill them rather than let them run free. Late in the first season Dr. Elizabeth Renfro (AKA Madame X) took over as an even more ruthless leader of the Manticore organization. She was even more willing to kill the transgenics if they resisted, but like Lydecker, she preferred their return over their termination. Ames White was the most sinister of all. He represented a government agency seeking to destroy all transgenics. And later we would find he had yet a more sinister personal agenda that drove him.
By the second season, we do have an understanding of Max and her fellow transgenics from the first season, so the story changed from individual episode plots to a whole season arc as Max and her friends moved inexorably to their destiny, for better or worse. In the first episode Max is responsible for the explosive destruction of the Manticore facility, which released all the X-series transgenics, along with the 'nomalies in the basement - some grotesque in human terms - into the world. This is the group Ames White seeks to eradicate. And, of course, this is the group that normal world couldn't accept. As they appeared on the scene, they became part of a growing circle around Max, which expanded her world view, as well as her protective heart. The cynical X-5 Alec (as in "smart alec") was mostly a thorn in her side. And the part dog Joshua became her dearest friend. Gradually, she realized she was more like them than the "regulars" (as the character Mole described normal humans).
In the season finale (which turned out to be the series finale), Max's existence as a transgenic was exposed for all to see, and she will say to the motley group of transgenics surrounding her in Terminal City, "I can't stop anyone from leaving . . . but I'm through running and hiding and being afraid. I'm not going to live my life like that any more.
"Aren't you tired of living in darkness? Don't you want the sun on your face . . . to have a place of your own . . . where you can walk down the street without being afraid?
"They made us and trained us to be soldiers . . . to defend this country. It's time for them to face us and take the responsibility . . . instead of trying to sweep us away like garbage. We were made in America and we're not going anywhere.
"So they call us freaks. Who cares? Today, I'm proud to be a freak."
Max was, well, different. She was pretty, bright, and articulate. She fit in nicely with people. But she wasn't one of us. She had no parents. She had no childhood. She was a powerful, trained killing machine. And though she lived an unspectacular deliberately anonymous life, she was hunted like an animal in the forest. And in the end, to regular people, she was considered a freak of nature ("They don't even have souls"). For lack of a better word, she was an alien in the world of normal humans. Logan, who loved her dearly, was ever frustrated by her lack of ideals, and she was ever frustrated by his constant "blah, blah, woof, woof" crusading. As I indicated earlier, her only morality was compassion for others (she once saved her nemesis Lydecker's life because she "Couldn't just stand there and let them kill him"). Exceptions to the rule exist in life. And the test of us and our precious moral codes is the degree of tolerance we abide for the exceptions to the rule - the aliens in our world. It is a matter of abiding, because to write them into our codes is an acceptance of deviation from the rule; and that would never do. After all, if we allow one person to deviate, it would give license to everyone. But most of us have enough of the alien in our own hearts that abiding those few deviants shouldn't be that big a deal.
Max wasn't the only such alien protagonist in the movie/tv literature. For my part, I love them; they make the world an interesting place in which to live because they give us the opportunity to see it from a different perspective than the usual formulae. Buffy Summers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was one of them. And Sara of A Little Princess (1986). And the replicants in Blade Runner. And Eric in The Boy Who Could Fly. And Janet Frame in Angel at My Table. And Enid in Ghost World. And Donny Darko. And Tim Sullivan in The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. And Ayla in Clan of the Cave Bear. And Sarah Jane and Peola in Imitation of Life. And Tia and Tony in Escape to Witch Mountain. And Mildred in The Worst Witch. And Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. And Chihiro in Spirited Away. And the mutants in X-Men. And Mr. Spock, Data, and The Doctor in the Star Trek series.
Dark Angel had a devoted fan base, and they were sorely disappointed when the show wasn't picked up for a third season. Most looked on the final episode as a cliff hangar crying for resolution. I'm not so sure about that. For me, the story arc of season two played out to a satisfying resolution. We would never find out if new Freak Nation would survive. But I felt that just the decision to stand tall for what they were was a fitting story conclusion. As in most good stories, we never know if the protagonists really did live happily ever after. That's grist for a whole new story.
I loved Jessica Alba's moving portrayal the alien Max. She was accompanied by an excellent cast, including Michael Weatherly as "Eyes Only" Logan Cale; Valerie Rae Miller as Max's dear friend and confidant "Original" Cindy; J.C. MacKenzie as Normal, the self-centered boss of Jam Pony (who came through for his friends at the end); Kevin Durand as Joshua; Jensen Ackles as the tragic Ben in the first season and Ben's cynical clone Alec in the second season; and Richard Gunn as the lovable klutz Sketchy. The three villains were appropriately evil and menacing. John Savage played Donald Lydecker; Nana Visitor was Madam X, Dr. Renfro; and Martin Cummins was Ames White.
The series was created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee with various writers and directors, including Cameron himself who directed the series finale Freak Nation.
or go to
An Explanation; Being Things; Childhood; Heroes; The Inner Spirit;
Elves I Have Known
Other Essays at Large: Movie Classics; Class of the Millennium;
My Book Reviews; My Stories
From Dorothy's Corner: For Dorothy
Comments: GKEARNS@prodigy.net