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A show about a future of political, economic and moral collapse, where a genetically enhanced Super Soldier X5 prototype named Max escapes from military confines and dwells amidst the decadent underground street life of Seattle. Searching for her brothers and sisters who were scattered in the aftermath of their escape from Manticore, Max encounters Logan Cale aka Eyes Only, an idealistic cyber-journalist battling repression and corruption in post-apocalypse America. All this with Jessica Alba running about in leather pants.
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.
For some fans, the story of Alec (a recently freed clone of Max's serial killer brother Ben) in the second season was far more interesting than the supposed main plot, and it appears that most of the writers agreed. However, the 'stars' and James Cameron appeared to feel otherwise. Dark Angel is famous in fandom for the tensions on-set.
Created and produced by Aliens and Terminator director James Cameron; what causal relationship exists between this series and Cameron's intent to turn the similar anime Gunnm into a live film is unclear. As well as Gunnm, the series has also been accused of excessive similarities with Robert A Heinlein's Friday, also about a genetically engineered woman in a future where the United States has broken up.
Side note: This series got dropped (by Fox) in its second year in favor of Firefly, causing some fan-wars on the internet. The fact that Firefly was also dropped/mishandled by that network is a lesson in Executive Meddling. What's more, the Dark Angel cast & crew were told by Fox that they had been picked up for a third season only two days before it was officially announced that they were cancelled instead.
This show provides examples of:
- AB Negative
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer
- Acting For Two: some X5s have clones, such as Ben's clone Alec (both are played by Jensen Ackles) and Max's clone Sam (both are played by Jessica Alba).
- Aerith And Bob: The names of Max's X5 "family" run the whole gamut: Zack, Max, Kavi, Tinga, Brin, Ben, Seth, Vada, Kavi, Krit, Syl, Jondy, Zane, Jack, Jace, Eva, Alec, Sam, Devon, Jewel, Keema, Lane.
- The Alleged Car: Logan's Pontiac Aztek.
- Ancient Conspiracy: a Cult which has been breeding supposedly superior humans that feel no pain for thousands of years. Their members include government agents, politicians, and even nurses, and they plan for the extinction of the rest of humanity.
- Angsty Surviving Twin - Averted, Alec never even met Ben and isn't impressed by what he's heard.
- Bishonen: He might act male and have a male voice, but with those ridiculously girly lashes and pouty, pink lips, Jensen Ackles certainly qualifies as a rare western example. Alec is called "pretty boy" in Two and the novel After the Dark.
- Backup Twin: Alec is introduced after Ben bites the big one. We got to see Max and Sam together, but not Ben and Alec. Shame.
- Beast Man: Joshua and the rest of the "freaks".
- Becoming The Mask: Alec as Simon Lehane, "The Berrisford Agenda". The My God What Have I Done variety.
- Big Bad
- Black Best Friend: Damn, girl, Original Cindy's got some irreverent observations to make in third person!
- Bloody Murder: Max's poisonous blood.
- Brainwashed: Manticore loves to mess with people's minds. With a laser in the eye.
- Brainwashed And Crazy
- California Doubling
- Cant Have Sex Ever: The show reveled in throwing up literal barriers to Max and Logan getting intimate.
- Cat Girl: The X5s are technically cat girls and cat boys, but don't look like it, they just have the reflexes, the senses, and heat cycles. Other transgenics exist that look the part. External signs or no, knowing that the character is Jessica Alba as a cat girl or Jensen Ackles as a cat boy probably increases the sexy for some people.
- The Chosen One: Max is the one special X5 whose DNA holds the key to thwarting the afforementioned Ancient Conspiracy
- Classy Cat Burglar: Max (and Alec)
- Cloning Blues: Ben/Alec, Max/Sam, younger X7 clones of Max, Zack, et al
- Creepy Child: The X7s
- Colonel Badass: Colonel Donald Lydecker. Villainous version.
- Coolest Club Ever: Crash
- Cyber Punk
- Deadpan Snarker: Max.
- Dead Person Impersonation: Alec as Simon Lehane. The type where he killed the other person.
- Depending On The Writer: Max and Logan are destined to be together and nothing can stop The Power Of Love TM, or Max and Logan are wrong for each other and should spare themselves the heartache of being Star Crossed Lovers. Seriously, watch "Fuhgeddaboudit" and then "Hello, Goodbye". You'll get whiplash.
- Alec's jerkiness or scatter-brainedness also goes up and down like a yo-yo, but his happy go lucky nature is implied to be a facade anyway.
- Max's power level, especially in first season, similarly varies wildly - sometimes she can deal with a whole bunch of cops, other times two fairly dozy security guards can take her down.
- Doesnt Like Guns: Max refuses to use guns since her sister Eva was shot during their childhood.
- Dystopia: Crime and poverty are up. The police are supposedly more Big Brother-y (they have hoverdrones), but frequently in the pay of the crooks. Finding a job is hell. Seattle, at least, is divided into sectors and you need a sector pass to move freely. Everything looks dirty, except the mansions. There are still rich people and they still have mansions. But, as Max points out in the Pilot, although it's a depression most people aren't that depressed. Rap/hip-hop culture is also up.
- Estrogen Brigade Bait: Alec
- Extraordinarily Empowered Girl
- Face Heel Turn: Brin
- Fake Memories: Zack, "Some Assembly Required"
- Fan Preferred Couple: Max and Alec, despite the pseudoincestuous aspect noted below.
- Fantastic Racism: Mostly on the part of ignorant humans towards transgenics. There are flaming Xs involved. Also the Familiar breeding cult thinks everyone else is inferior.
- Fantastic Slurs: "Trannie" for transgenics. Where have we heard that before?
- Framing The Guilty Party: A gangster commits murder by defenestrating his victim, thus making it look like suicide. Logan conspires with the coroner to put a cap in the corpse's head, then has Max plant the murder weapon on the gangster as he attempts to leave the country.
- Friday Night Death Slot
- Genetic Engineering Is The New Nuke
- Government Conspiracy
- Handsome Lech: Alec
- Heel Face Turn: Alec
- Hey Its That Guy: Nana Visitor AKA Major Kira Nerys from Deep Space Nine as Madame X
- History Marches On: 2009 came and went, and no computers got fried.
- Hive Mind: The X7s
- I Love You Because I Cant Control You: Mia is a transgenic with hypnotic powers. One of the things that draws her to her human boyfriend Doug 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?"
- The Immune: The transgenics were made to survive the breeding cult's virus, which only members of the cult were supposed to be able to survive. Max doesn't even feel ill when exposed, unlike other transgenics, and both the post-series novels and the writers' aborted Season Three plans state that her genetic code can be used to immunize regular humans. The cult aren't too happy to discover this.
- Its Not You Its My Enemies: Alec's reason for telling Asha to forget about the possibility of a relationship with him.
- Lovable Traitor: Alec
- Magnificent Bastard: Donald Lydecker and Madame X
- Mining Accident On Troy: Alec's cover as Simon Lehane.
- Mix And Match Man: All the transgenics have DNA culled from various humans and animals (which animal depends on the type) so that they have peak physical and mental abilities. As far as is known, none looks exactly like any human donor.
- Monster Of The Week: Season 2 only
- The Most Dangerous Game: "Pollo Loco"
- Nakama: Max, Original Cindy, and Sketchy. The X5s of her unit also count in a way, since they aren't biological siblings even though they call each other brother and sister and share a common origin. Later Max and Joshua, and Alec and Joshua. That's not a 'Max, Alec, and Joshua' until Max comes to terms with Alec being a constant reminder of having had to kill Ben.
- Neuro Vault: Episode "The Kidz Are Aiight". The X5s were taught how to do this at will. Zack buries the locations of his siblings in his mind so that Manticore torturers can't extract the information.
- Never Found The Body: Lydecker, after "Proof of Purchase". He survived, as seen at the end of "After the Dark".
- No Name Given
- Not Blood Siblings: Subversion, Max and Zack are only siblings in the sense of being from the same unit at Manticore, but she's still squicked when he makes a (Brainwashed) move on her. Doesn't stop fans from shipping Max/Zack or Max/Ben.
- It's debatable whether Max/Alec shipping falls under this trope. They aren't unit mates, but Max and Ben are.
- If you aren't willing to do your brother, why would you be willing to do someone who looks entirely identical to him?
- If he looked like Jensen Ackles?
- Not Wearing Tights
- Only One
- Only One Name
- People Jars
- Photographic Memory
- Phlebotinum Rebel: Series premise
- Rage Against The Reflection: Alec, in "The Berrisford Agenda". Ben also has a moment where he glares at his reflection, but doesn't punch it.
- Raised By Wolves: The X-6 teenagers seen in "Bag 'Em" display this, having been released into the world in 2020 after spending their whole lives in Manticore.
- Alec, despite being in a similar situation, was much more worldwise because he had been trained for infiltration and assassination missions. Still, flashbacks in "The Berrisford Agenda" show that while he could converse normally about most things while undercover, he had no clue about romance until he experienced it firsthand. Which is funny because in the present day he's a Handsome Lech.
- Replacement Goldfish: The Colonel Lydecker kept some of his dead wife's DNA alive in Max, though she is not an exact clone - "More 'inspired by'. You have her eyes". Creepy.
- The Resolution Will Not Be Televised: Since the show ended mid-plot, two novels ("Skin Game" and "After the Dark") were published to finish the story, in addition to a prequel novel ("Before the Dawn") which the final novel resolved a plot thread from.
- Room Full Of Crazy - Ben had written words from Manticore indoctrination sessions, like Duty, Discipline, and Mission, all over the walls and boxes of his apartment.
- Sassy Black Woman: A core cast member named Original Cindy. Please see Totally Radical, below.
- Scannable Man: All the transgenics except Joshua, who was first
- Serial Killer: Ben
- Shooting Gallery: with Eyes Only targets, for Zack when he was Brainwashed And Crazy
- Sitting On The Roof: Max, Ben, Alec, Logan, etc. have done this on the Space Needle.
- Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism: More cynical, but with fair amounts of humor.
- Smug Snake: Ames White and Lydecker's subordinate Sandoval
- Star Making Role: For Jessica Alba
- Stoic Spectacles: Alec when pretending to be Simon Lehane
- TearJerker
- Super Soldier: What the X5s and most of the Manticore "mutants" were designed for
- They Just Didnt Care: the shaven-headed Rastafarian in the first season episode 411 on the DL
- Not every dread is a Rasta, and not every Rasta is a dread. Whether you wear the locks or not it is still possible to believe.
- Third Person Person: Original Cindy and Diamond
- Tomboyish Name: Max, obviously. And her twin Sam and sister Jace. And an X-6 who chooses the name Ralph, which Max points out is a boy's name.
- Totally Radical: Watch with the sound off. This is an incredibly beautiful, very cinematic series, whose dialogue tries so hard to be Young and Hip that it may actually cause brain damage.
- Twenty Minutes Into The Future
- Tyke Bomb: The X5s again. Abused TykeBombs.
- The Unmasqued World: by the end of the series, the existence of transgenics is known to the public and the identities of the X5s who could pass as humans are exposed. This leads to Fantastic Racism.
- Voice Of The Resistance - Eyes Only. This is a Streaming Freedom video bulletin. It cannot be traced, cannot be stopped, and it is the only free voice left in this city.
- Wunza Plot: And often enough, They Fight Crime.
- You Are Number Six: Max is 452, Sam is 453, Ben is 493, Alec is 494, Zack is 599, Tinga is 656, etc.
- You Fail Biology Forever: The genetics technobabble on this show is hilariously bad. May be combined with They Just Didnt Care.
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