Jessica Alba is impressive as Max, bred and trained as a super-soldier but reclaiming her individual humanity; Michael Weatherly is scruffily attractive as Eyes Only, who sits semi-paralysed in his eyrie above Seattle uncovering crime, corruption and other skulduggeries and sending the woman whom he hopelessly loves out on deadly errands. Jon Savage has real authority as Lydeker, a man who has stretched his conscience to breaking point, but is not personally corrupt. Some of the best episodes here--"Prodigy" for example--are ones in which Lydeker and Max are forced into temporary alliance. Early on the relationship between Max and the other workers at Jam Pony--the courier firm that provides her with a cover identity--is a little forced, but later on the two parts of Max's life are more successfully integrated: "Shorties in Love", for example, is a genuinely touching tale about Diamond, the doomed criminal ex-lover of Max's lesbian roommate. Dark Angel was never a perfect show, but at its occasional best it manages to be simultaneously funny and dramatic.

There are some five star episodes, there are some two star episodes, but overall, this was an average outing.

Jessica Alba is Max, a genetically modified soldier who escaped, along with other soldiers who had been tested on, from the X5 military installation. Ten years later, and she's making her own life as a message courier by day, thief by night. When she meets Logan (Michael Weatherly), who is also an undercover rebel, her modified abilities are used for good.

So we get a series of episodes that show the rebel team righting wrongs. After the spectacular pilot (also incuded in this boxset) the series didn't start off too well. Run of the mill storylines didn't help, and the series didn't live up to the action promised in the pilot.

Alba is also the best thing on offer here. Not only does she looks great, she really brings the compleities of her character out in the open and is very engaging in what is her show. So it's a shame that, apart from Logan, and uber-villain Lydecker, that the rest of the supporting characters can really get on your nerves.

The pseudo youth talk grates, as does any of the characters from the Jampony message service. The supporting characters are weak and annoying, and the Jamaican character borders on racism.

Still, giving up on Dark Angel there would be doing the show a dis-service, because later episodes are much, much better. As the show goes on, other soldiers and people from Max's past in the X5 project come to light. Any episode that contains Zach is brilliant, and thankfully many of the episodes have a main plotline centred around the X5 installation, that makes up for the obligatory light-hearted sub plot that takes place each episode.

Towards the end of the series, things that seemed unconnected come together in a big way, and little bits and pieces from various episodes fill in the jigsaw for what is an astounding and eciting last third of the show.

The action picks up dramatically, and is always quite well done. The acrobatics by Alba are amazing, and there's a good balance between strong characters in strong storylines with decent action fights.