Dark Angel

The James Cameron produced television scifi/drama that aired for two seasons between 2000-2002 was one of those shows that missed when it was “a thing”. I was still fully into my turn-the-television-around-to-face-the-wall-except-when-I-really-wanted-to-watch-television phase. By the time I finally got in the mood to watch it, there was almost no way to do so easily (YouTube bootlegs were so awful that I didn’t make it fifteen minutes).

For the record, I spend more time playing videogames than I do watching television anymore and my time spent in games has diminished significantly over the past five years. With the exception of X-Files, I basically stopped watching television completely in the mid-90s. Since then, I occasionally get hooked on a single show for a spell, but with increasing rarity. I just don’t find today’s television shows all that compelling in terms of storytelling.

Not finding the series anywhere (I’m not sure who is holding it out of streaming and new Blu Ray/DVD production: Disney reluctance, Fox reluctance or other licensing woes), I broke down and bought used DVDs for both seasons and started watching the series last night.

And you know what? While some of the lingo is a bit dated (2000 slang or what the writers thought slang might sound like in 2019), the first couple of episodes largely stand up to scrutiny. And the characters are largely very progressive for a period of time that I recall as being far from accepting of such things — female agency and acceptance of homosexuality are two areas that come to mind. While there is no doubt that a young Jessica Alba was somewhat sexualized in her role, Max (her character) seems pretty good at putting overeager men in their place. And does so. Frequently.

As I watched the first couple of episodes, the sociopolitical elements did not seem out of place for what might have happened in an alternate universe in 2019.

Does the science hold up considering what we knew then and what we know now? Not…. really… Some of the “science” is outright laughable by today’s standards. But it is a story that is as much fantasy as it is science fiction and I can suspend belief while I watch it because of that.

Does it have a strong female lead? Absolutely — so far. These kinds of strong female leads tend to be written in such a way that, eventually, they appear to still need to be saved by their white knights on a regular basis. And, as I write that, I recognize that Logan comes to the rescue in both episodes three (hunted on an island without a boat, things look dire, Logan gets boat to her and saves the day!) and four (Max is in dire straights because her friends flush her tryptophan down the toilet thinking it was drugs, she ends up in jail and Logan gets her life-saving hormones in jail and, you guessed it, saves the day!).

But that white knight rescue is pay back to some degree from the Pilot. It isn’t a one-way rescue, although the balance is currently in Logan’s favor where I am at in the series. And I think some allowances need to be made for his role as the “Oracle” in the show, as a paraplegic hacker that “sees all” (is Oracle from the Batman comics a female white knight?).

Am I enjoying the show so far? Certainly. Do I regret missing it when it was on the air? Slightly. Is it television high literature? Hardly. But I do miss these kinds of shows being available for general consumption and not being reliant on having the right streaming service to watch (or, in this case, having to purchase the show because it isn’t in syndication anywhere).

Instead of 8-12 episodes of a series that you can binge watch, these seasons were fully 26 episodes long, not reliant on CGI or very many special effects at all, didn’t involve “reality television” gimmicks, had decent non-iterative writing (if a bit schlocky in areas), and seemed to have had good, efficient production values to carry them (okay, with an average of $1.3 million/episode, maybe they were not so efficient, but I don’t have a good frame of reference).

I’m looking forward to see how the rest of the series goes. I may change my mind by the end of it but, so far, I am enjoying myself.