About
Dark Angel is an American biopunk/cyberpunk science fiction television program created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee. Dark Angel premiered in the United States and Canada on the FOX network on October 3, 2000, but was canceled after two seasons.
The show chronicles the life of Max Guevara (X5-452), a genetically enhanced super-soldier, portrayed by Jessica Alba as an adult, and Geneva Locke as a child. The program is set in Seattle, Washington, USA, but was actually filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada at Lions Gate Studios.
Overview
In the year 2009, a genetically enhanced, 9-year-old female (to whom creator James Cameron refers as “transgenic”) super-soldier who calls herself Max Guevara (Jessica Alba) (also known as X5-452, a truncation of her barcode tattoo on the back of her neck: 332960073452), escapes along with eleven others like her from a secret government institution. At the institution, codenamed Manticore, they were created and subsequently raised and trained to be soldiers and assassins. On June 1, 2009, months after Max’s escape, terrorists detonate an electromagnetic pulse weapon in the atmosphere over the U.S., which destroys the vast majority of computer and communication systems, throwing the country into utter chaos.
The first season begins ten years later in 2019, as it follows the life of the now 19-year-old Max as she struggles to search for her Manticore brothers and sisters. In a United States which is now barely more than a Third World nation, she tries to live her life, evade capture, and learn to trust and love. She is aided by Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly), an underground cyber-journalist with the alias Eyes Only; Zack, a fellow X-5; her roommate for a time, Kendra (Jennifer Blanc); and her friends Original Cindy (Valarie Rae Miller), Herbal Thought (Alimi Ballard) and Sketchy (Richard Gunn) at Jam Pony, a courier company where she works as a bicycle messenger. Other X-5’s are periodically introduced as well. One or two times a year, Max comes into ‘heat’ and experiences wild sexual urges as a result of her feline DNA.
In the second season of the show, the tone changes as Max brings down Manticore and frees the soldiers. She is helped in her escape by Alec (Jensen Ackles), in an attempt to facilitate the assassination and capture of Eyes Only and Joshua (Kevin Durand), a transgenic with canine DNA. She later learns that Joshua was the first transgenic created by Manticore’s founder Sandeman. Max also finds out that Manticore produced soldiers for speciality environments such as desert and arctic conditions and consequently look vastly different from normal humans. A major theme in the second season is the discovery of an even more deadly enemy in a millennia-old breeding cult similar in structure to the Illuminati. This has resulted in humans even more formidable than the Manticore-produced transgenics, and even some with strong telekinetic powers. Ames White (Martin Cummins), a government agent introduced early in the second season trying to eliminate the loose transgenics, is revealed to be a member of the cult. When a strange message written in Max’s genetic code makes an appearance on her skin, it is revealed that Sandeman is a renegade from the breeding cult. Ames White is Sandeman’s son, which essentially makes him “related” to Max and her transgenic brethren. However, the series was cancelled before the producers could play with this dynamic.
Synopsis
Max was bio-engineered in a government lab called Manticore in Gillette, Wyoming sometime around the turn of the 21st century. As with all of their creations (except Joshua, the first one), Max has a barcode on the back of her neck, with her identifying number sequence. The number as stated on the official website is (332960013452), but on the show it is (332960073452). She is an X-5 model and is thus referred to as X5-452. Max and her unit, her “brothers and sisters,” named themselves back at Manticore, and sometime after she escapes, she assumes the surname Guevara after Che Guevara. Also in the last episode of season two (Freak Nation), it is revealed that offspring of an X5-X5 coupling produces a child with no barcode sequence.
Max and her unit were trained to be soldiers using harsh and brutal techniques, supervised by Colonel Lydecker (John Savage) designed for their special abilities. The genetically engineered supersoldiers had a design flaw though. They were missing the essential tryptophan amino acid in the brain resulting in seizures. This led to the removal and death of some of their unit. When they learned this, and Max began to get the shakes, their protective unit leader, Zack (X5-599) (William Gregory Lee) decided they should escape, and led them through a snow-filled forest as they were being chased by Lydecker’s men. During a flashback, it is shown that Zack (X5-599) separated up the unit into pairs. Max was paired up with Jondy (who is never seen in the program as an adult). Max got separated from Jondy when she fell into a frozen pond (having been trained to hold her breath underwater for long periods of time) allowing her to avoid the search party.
Several months after her escape, terrorists detonated an electromagnetic pulse in the atmosphere over the U.S., on June 1, 2009. This destroyed the vast majority of electrical systems, not only knocking out all the vital electrical systems but also wiping clean all the electronic data, “turning all those ones, and zeros into just plain old zeros” throwing the United States into chaos. This made it a third world country overnight, which let corruption and crime flourish and eventually leading to a stricter martial control of the population.
By the year 2019, Max is living in Seattle, Washington, illegally squatting in an abandoned building, first with Kendra (Jennifer Blanc) and later with Original Cindy (Valarie Rae Miller) her best friend that she works with at Jam Pony (a bicycle messenger service). Other friends from there include Herbal Thought (Alimi Ballard) and Sketchy (a.k.a. Calvin Theodore) (Richard Gunn). She works at Jam Pony in order to be allowed to move around the city by means of a ’sector’ pass and so she can scout locations to steal from. She lives her secret life as a cat burglar, in order to fund the expensive search for her 11 escaped “brothers and sisters.”
It is during one of these burglaries that she meets Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly), and realizes that he’s the cyber-journalist “Eyes Only.” Interested in finding more about his highly skilled mystery visitor, he discovers who she is using security footage, and invites Max back to his apartment. Once there, and being well versed on his government conspiracies, he confirms his suspicions (sees her barcode) that she is one of the escaped X-5s from Manticore. Max and Logan make a pact: he will help her find her missing siblings, if she will help him take down bad guys. Logan also helps to protect Max from Lydecker, who’s been looking for the escapees since their breakout.
Soon into the series (10 years after the escape), Max meets up with Zack. More siblings are found, and often with tragic consequences. By the end of the first season, a plan is developed to take down Manticore, one with Lydecker who defects from Manticore after an attempt to assassinate him, and the death of Tinga, one of “his kids.” The plan is to destroy the genetics lab, crippling Manticore’s ability to produce more soldiers. During their raid, Max gets critically injured, and is assumed dead, but she is actually recaptured.
The plan while successfully executed, including completely destroying (with explosives) the DNA lab but fails to totally destroy Manticore. Instead, a new, larger Manticore facility is established an hour outside of Seattle, Washington. Eventually, Max escapes but not before destroying Manticore allowing numerous transgenics to escape, creating the eventual public knowledge of their existence. Max reunites with Logan, only to discover that she’s become a carrier to a deadly virus that was genetically targeted for Eyes Only.
Max’s problems are further compounded when the government starts hunting down and destroying the escaped Manticore soldiers, led by Ames White. White is both a government agent, and a member of a secret ancient breeding cult similar in structure to the Illuminati which spans millennia. He’s particularly focused on Max, who is revealed to have been created without junk DNA and for a special purpose.
Max befriends one of the new escapees, the first Manticore creation, Joshua (Kevin Durand) who seeks his “father” Sandeman, their mysterious creator, and a renegade member of the breeding cult. Max also teams up with Alec (Jensen Ackles), an X-5 who’s genetically identical to her dead unit-mate Ben, and a magnet for trouble. They spend a lot of time covering up, taking out, or protecting the more unusual of the Manticore Alumni. Eventually, they join the other transgenics in the toxic section of Seattle, called Terminal City, and make a stand for their rights against the hostile humans.
