History Series / DarkAngel

* MusclesAreMeaningless: It's Creator/JessicaAlba with enhanced strength. While Max's eldest brother Zack is fairly buff, other, more slender X5s like Max are shown to have almost the same level of physical power that he does. "Pollo Loco" writer Doris Egan relates on her livejournal that one of the producers objected to casting Creator/JensenAckles as a supersoldier because he wasn't very muscular and accused the women present of only wanting to hire him for his looks. Egan pointed out that they were following this trope for X5s ("Our heroine is ''Jessica Alba''. Clearly whatever genetic manipulation was going on involves strength that’s not determined by the sheer volume of the muscle."), and the producer obliviously advocated a DoubleStandard. Ironically, it was that same producer who wanted him back for Season 2 after seeing his performance.

* MusclesAreMeaningless: It's Creator/JessicaAlba with enhanced strength. While Max's oldest brother Zack is fairly buff, other, more slender X5s like Max are shown to have almost the same level of physical power that he does. "Pollo Loco" writer Doris Egan relates on her livejournal that one of the producers objected to casting Creator/JensenAckles as a supersoldier because he wasn't very muscular and accused the women present of only wanting to hire him for his looks. Egan pointed out that they were following this trope for X5s ("Our heroine is ''Jessica Alba''. Clearly whatever genetic manipulation was going on involves strength that’s not determined by the sheer volume of the muscle."), and the producer obliviously advocated a DoubleStandard. Ironically, it was that same producer who wanted him back for Season 2 after seeing his performance.

* MusclesAreMeaningless: It's Creator/JessicaAlba with enhanced strength. "Pollo Loco" writer Doris Egan relates on her livejournal that one of the producers objected to casting Creator/JensenAckles as a supersoldier because he wasn't very muscular and accused the women present of only wanting to hire him for his looks. Egan pointed out that they were following this trope for X5s ("Our heroine is ''Jessica Alba''. Clearly whatever genetic manipulation was going on involves strength that’s not determined by the sheer volume of the muscle."), and the producer obliviously advocated a DoubleStandard. Ironically, it was that same producer who wanted him back for Season 2 after seeing his performance.

* TheLostLenore: Rachel Berrisford, for Alec. She was left in a coma after Manticore detonated a bomb on her dad's car, and eventually died.

* TheLostLenore: Rachel Berrisford, for Alec.

* InnateNightVision / SuperSenses: Thanks to their feline DNA, X5s can see perfectly in the dark. They can also zoom in on objects a good distance away.

** Averted. In addition to Max's twin Sam, there's Max and Logan's recurring ally Dr Sam Carr at the local hospital, and young Sam Gilan in "Haven".

After escaping from confinement at a covert military installation code-named Manticore, a genetically-enhanced SuperSoldier X5 prototype called Max Guevara (Creator/JessicaAlba) dwells amidst the decadent, underground street life of 2019 Seattle while making minimum wage at a [[ParKourier bike messaging service]] called Jam Pony and occasionally stealing. Searching for her brothers and sisters who were scattered in the aftermath of their escape from Manticore in 2009, Max encounters one Logan Cale aka "Eyes Only" (Creator/MichaelWeatherly), an idealistic cyber-journalist battling widespread repression and corruption in post-apocalypse America.

After escaping from confinement at a covert military installation code-named Manticore, a genetically-enhanced SuperSoldier X5 prototype named Max Guevara (Creator/JessicaAlba) dwells amidst the decadent, underground street life of 2019 Seattle while making minimum wage at a [[ParKourier bike messaging service]] called Jam Pony and occasionally stealing. Searching for her brothers and sisters who were scattered in the aftermath of their escape from Manticore in 2009, Max encounters one Logan Cale aka "Eyes Only" (Creator/MichaelWeatherly), an idealistic cyber-journalist battling widespread repression and corruption in post-apocalypse America.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Dark-Angel-tv-09.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''Heaven... must be missing an angel...'']]

-->-- From a Creator/SkyOne promo before the show's UK debut. No prizes for guessing the identity of the "she" to which the ad refers.

A dramatic show on Creator/{{Fox}} from the mind of Creator/JamesCameron that ran from 2000 to 2002, set in a future of political, economic, and moral collapse that results when a shadowy terrorist group wipes out America's economy with a massive [[{{EMP}} electromagnetic pulse]]. A genetically enhanced SuperSoldier X5 prototype named Max escapes from military confinement and dwells amidst the decadent underground street life of 2019 Seattle while making minimum wage at a [[ParKourier bike messaging service]] called Jam Pony and occasionally stealing. Searching for her brothers and sisters who were scattered in the aftermath of their escape from Manticore in 2009, Max encounters Logan Cale, aka Eyes Only, idealistic cyber-journalist battling repression and corruption in post-apocalypse America.

Eventually, Logan calls her to the highest part of her being and she becomes his samurai, taking on the ruthless power brokers of the new millennium. Max and Logan's odyssey leads them closer to the secret of her past, deepening and complicating their relationship in the process.

* WunzaPlot: And often enough, TheyFightCrime.

At the beginning of the second season, Max frees more of Manticore's experiments, and the show goes from being focused on Logan and Max to more of an ensemble show. For some fans (especially those coming back to watch it for Creator/JensenAckles after seeing ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''), the story of Alec (a recently freed [[CloningBlues clone]] of Max's SerialKiller brother Ben) in the second season was [[EnsembleDarkhorse more interesting than the main plot]]. Fans of the first season and the original characters resented the dramatic transformation of the show's format and the focus on new characters.

At the beginning of the second season, Max frees more of Manticore's experiments, and the show goes from being focused on Logan and Max to more of an ensemble show. For some fans (especially those coming back to watch it for Creator/JensenAckles), the story of Alec (a recently freed [[CloningBlues clone]] of Max's SerialKiller brother Ben) in the second season was [[EnsembleDarkhorse more interesting than the main plot]]. Fans of the first season and the original characters resented the dramatic transformation of the show's format and the focus on new characters.

* ILoveYouBecauseICantControlYou: Mia is a transgenic with hypnotic powers. One of the things that draws her to her human boyfriend Dougie is that she can't influence him that way, due to the brain anomaly that makes him narcoleptic. "What fun is being in love if everything's easy?"

* TheLostLenore: Rachel Berrisford, for Alec.
* KnightTemplarBigBrother: Zack, who will quite literally kill even a civilian like Vogelsang the private eye if he thinks they're an exposure risk to the rest of his unit, and prevents Max from having information on their siblings' whereabouts for their own good.

* NotBloodSiblings: Subversion; Max and Zack are only siblings in the sense of being from the same unit at Manticore, but she's still {{squick}}ed when he makes a ({{Brainwashed}}) move on her. Doesn't stop fans from {{shipping}} Max/Zack or Max/Ben. Or Max/Alec. Although Alec isn't from Max's unit, he's a clone of Ben, who is.

* ExtraordinarilyEmpoweredGirl: The show revolves around a heroine with superpowers.

* GeniusCripple: Logan and his Stephen Hawking-esque friend Sebastian both fit this trope.

** One of the ongoing plotlines of Season 1 was Max trying to reunite with the eleven siblings who broke out of Manticore with her in 2009, or at least determine what happened to them. As of the end of Season 1, we had seen Zack, Brin, Tinga, Ben, Krit and Syl, we knew that Jondy and Zane were okay and had worked as a bartender and a mechanic respectively but didn't actually see them, and the other three hadn't been named or their status described at all. With all of Manticore's transgenics released in Season 2 and needing to be helped or dealt with, the focus shifted away from Max's unit entirely. While Zack reappeared for an episode (and Tinga and Ben were dead), the current whereabouts of Brin, Krit, Syl, Jondy, Zane and the unnamed three remained a mystery. See "What Happened to the Mouse" below. Although Krit and Syl had been planned to be brought back in the last two episodes, but their actors were unavailable, so Biggs and Cece were invented instead.

** The series starts in 2019, the same as ''Film/BladeRunner''. Lydecker's name sounds similar to Deckard and both of them have a job hunting down Replicants/transgenics. Alec's [[TheLostLenore Lost Lenore]] is named Rachel, like Deckard's love interest Rachael and both couples have scenes revolving around playing the piano, but which one of them is bio-synthetic is swapped. Alec quickly masters the piano due to his genetically engineered skills and plays a piece by Music/FredericChopin, and ''Blade Runner'''s Rachael was originally to find herself inexplicably able to play the piano in one scene, performing Chopin.

** The series starts in 2019, the same as ''Film/BladeRunner''.

* SyntheticPlague:

* BreedingCult / SuperBreedingProgram: The purpose of the Familiars.

* DisappearedDad: The father of Gem's baby was a male X5 she was paired with in Renfro's breeding program, and Gem tells Cindy it was not romantic. If he's still alive, he clearly didn't want to stick around.

* TomboyishName: Max, obviously. And her twin Sam and sister Jace. And an X6 who chooses the name Ralph, which [[HypocriticalHumor Max points out]] is a boy's name. Max, however, could be short for Maxine, like Chris from Christina, Sam from Samantha and Alex from Alexandra, whereas Ralph isn't usually short for anything.