Dark Angel: The Complete Second Season (2001)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee
Starring Jessica Alba, Michael Weatherly, Jensen Ackles, Martin Cummins, Kevin Durand

Features:

• Featurettes: "Max Resurrected," "Manticore on the Loose," and "Making the Manticore Monsters"
  
• Bloopers
  
• Running audio commentary on selected episodes from cast and crew, such as executive producers Kenneth Biller, Rene Echevarria and Charles E. Eglee, producers Moira Kirkland Dekker and Janace Tashjian, actor Richard Gunn, writer Jose Molina, and writer/director Jeff Woolnough
  

Released by: 20th Century Fox
Region: 1
Rating: NR
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Get it if you're a fan

Dark Angel tells the near-future tale of Max (Alba), bioengineered government weapon who, upon her escape from Manticore--a government program, teamed up with computer genius named Logan (Weatherly) to fight the corruption of their city and the tyranny of Manticore. At the end of season one, Max was captured by Manticore during the raid to free their other animal-human bioengineered experiments; at the same time, the Manticore recruits escaped and fled into the city. Throughout most of this second (and final) season, Max is tracking down a different recruit or two each week, each based upon different animal physiology. The result is kind of a "freak of the week" plot development, but the overarching themes of trying to take down Manticore, dealing with the wicked Lydecker (John Savage), and finally resolving the relationship of Logan and Max enrich the plot.

The features list is nicely chosen and produced. Approximately one episode per disc has an audio commentary, including the first and last episode of the season. Hearing the actors, producers, and so forth talk about the episodes gives you a fresh appreciation for the vision of the writers and how each episode was meant to fit into the larger story of marginalized youth finding a home in a society not of their creating. We also get three nice behind-the-scenes featurettes, including a really stand-out one, "Making the Manticore Monsters," a look at the special effects makeup that makes the show work. "Manticore on the Loose" is sort of a music video style look at the various transgenics, and "Max Resurrected" is an overview of the first season, a look at what they were hoping for from the second season, and how the storyline is progressing. The bloopers reel, like most features of its ilk, is a mixture of funny and...not, but overall it's a very nice addition for fans of the show. Given that the film has already been shot, I don't know why more production companies don't include bloopers as a feature; it costs them very little to stick 'em on the disc, and fans like to see them.

The audio and video quality are both quite good here, a bit better than you would expect from television. The surreal settings and cyberpunk look of the series shows up nicely here, emphasizing Max's cat-like good looks, as well as the appearance of the less fortunate Manticore transgenics.

Again, I have to say a word about the exceptionally annoying physical layout of the disk case. These long fold-out-style box sets are just begging to slide onto the floor. They're hard to hold, unwieldy, and just generally not as nice to use as the more book-style, paged sets, such as the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season sets. I'd rather just have the individual disc cases than this.

Fans of fantasy and science fiction shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alias, and Mutant X might like this show and should at least give it a shot. It's not so cheesy as you might be afraid that it is, and we all need guilty fun sometimes. If you can deal with the MTV hipness and the frequent melodramatic dialogue, then this one just might become your favorite tool for unwinding.