On the down side, John Savage's memorably ambiguous villain Lydeker from Series 1 (who is alternately the mutants' nemesis and their protector), disappears to be replaced by the melodramatically sinister Agent White. White appears to be just a shoot-to-kill operative of the state but turns out to be another sort of superhuman, a product of an occultist breeding programme going back to the dawn of history. After White's first ruthless killing, Max's reluctance to use deadly force is tested to near implausible limits. The show ends with a rousing and moving finale, "Freak Nation", in which a theme often neglected in this final year--Max's relationship with her fellow couriers at Jam Pony--reaches a powerful climax.

There are a few fundamental problems with series 2. Firstly, it's unbeliavability. It may have been set in the future, but it was a future that could have come to be. Believable, as it were. However, season two brings in human/animal hybrids, and puts the series straight into fantasy.

It seems like they were tryting to copy Buffy The Vampire Slayer - we get monsters, vampires, religious cults. We get what are called transgenics, humans who look half human and take on animal instincts. This just doesn't work. It ruins the Dark Angel world. Genetic humans was fine, believable, they are just enhanced beings. But mix them with animals, and it all starts to get a bit silly. But at least the make up is good.

The second stupid thing the film makers did was separate ourtwo main characters. Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly have a scren chemistry about them, particularly in the first series. However, by series two, Alba has been infected with a virus that will kill Logan if he touches here. they spend the ENTIRE series apart. That's no fun. We want to see them together, not force each other away.

That's another point - the show is overly depressing. No-one ever gets what they want. If something good happens to a character, teh scripters have to weight that down by then doing something bad to that charactrer, seemingly to make up for their moment of happiness. Not only does that mean the show gets very depressing, there is also no hope that things will ever work out.

And finally, the new characters are just plain annoying. Alec, all arrogant, blustering, annoying swagger who needs to get rid of his ego trip, and plain, boring, comic relief Joshua, half dog half human who just gets on your nerves. Baddie this time round, White, is just a sub-Lydecker, who isn't very evil, or menacing, and just comes across as a petulant schoolboy who hasn't got what he wanted. In fact, it makes the characters who were annoying in series one look much better, and its a shame you don't see more of them and Jampony.

But, the few things that have kept the series good are it's marvellous action scenes and fights, and two outstanding episodes where Max battles an evil clone of herself (TWO Jessica Alba's...mmmmm) and any episode with Zach in are excellent.

However, this is the last Dark Angel series because it was cancelled half way through. That meantthe scripters had to wrap up all the storylines - and that's a lot of story! The final five episodes are fast paced excellent affairs, however, tied in with this problem is the fact that the storylines are just too big, and they never get satisfactorily concluded.