Dark Angel
"411 On The DL"

Airdate: November 14, 2000

Despite the fact that my motorcycle has just been stolen, I make a mad, inspired dash to catch Dark Angel -- I completely forgot to set the timer. Onlookers are amazed when I jump over a 15 foot barbed-wire fence guarded by a feral dog, likewise in the stairwell, when I magically fly sideways through the air like a Wu Shu master to drop kick a faceless military guy brandishing an Uzi.

Hey, wait a second! That wasn't me! That was Max, who appears to have suddenly grown invisible wings. However... I did illegally park my car in front of a fire hydrant and ran up a flight of stairs two whole steps at a time to the second floor of my building. As I burst through the front door of my place, I manage to pick up a ringing phone right before the answering machine is about to click on.

Zach/Sam, the taller, cuter Matt Damon clone.

"Hello?" I wheeze out.

"Are you watching Dark Angel? Bwahahahaha!" comes a voice, literally cackling from the other end. I drop the phone on the floor and flip on my TV. Chuck D's main title theme is already playing. D'oh! I've missed the teaser.

On the phone is a colleague of mine, whose express reason for calling is to make fun of how silly the episode's opening chase scene was, with all its overblown subliminal cuts and close-ups of Alba's pissed off face. During the commercial break and through the opening shots of act one, he fills me in on Max's plight as her beloved motorcycle is taken away from her. Half listening to the phone, and half watching the television but mostly just trying to catch my breath, my eyeballs just about pop out of my sockets when I see the names of one the guest stars:

ROD ROWLAND.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Rodney!" I stand up and wail into the phone.

"Huh?" replies my confused friend on the other end.

"Blank tape! Where the hell are my blank tapes?!"

I abruptly hang up on him and run around like a chicken with its head cut off looking for a videocassette to stuff into my VCR.

What's this fuss all about? Who is Rod Rowland, you ask? Well, he is a personal favourite face to a couple of us within the 11th Hour staff, having been bestowed the honour of October 1999's Unwitting Muse of the Month as well as being named one of The 11 Hottest Guys In Horror and Sci-Fi Today back in our first issue. He can also been seen in the new Schwarzenegger picture, The 6th Day. But Rowland is probably best known to science-fiction fans for his role as Lt. Cooper Hawkes, the in-vitro soldier in the now defunct series, Space: Above and Beyond.

Although this show has been long gone for a good four years, the character of Hawkes, performed wonderfully by Rowland, remains on a list of one of my all-time favourites and I continue to lament its cancellation to this day. When Dark Angel first aired its pilot, the concept and general look of the top-secret Manticore compound reminded me all too much of the In-Vitro Training Facility, in which Hawkes was trained to become a proficient killer from the day he was born.

In the second Dark Angel episode, "Heat", we discovered that all Max ever learned in Manticore was to be a super-soldier -- that she had never even known what a "house" was, until Hannah had rescued her off the road and brought her home. For me, that single line opened a whole new can of worms. The fact that Max can rip out someone's heart at the blink of an eye, but doesn't even know what celebrating a birthday is about, is such a rich prospect! In this respect, her character is so similar to Cooper Hawkes, who was emotionally a six-year-old trapped inside a man's body; naïve about life's basics. Unfortunately, there has yet to be any such development or exploration into the depths of Max's personality, other than new shades of eyeliner each week. As a result, all that Dark Angel has been able to stir up in me thus far, is the idea of how cool it would have been if Fox had decided to put $10 million into making "The Cooper Hawkes Show" instead.

Which is why I felt such jubilation to see Rod's name in the credits. It was somewhat ironic, if not fitting, for Rowland to show up on this series. Perhaps, as one of the twelve escapees from Lydecker's compound? Maybe as Zach, the platoon leader of Max's group; her knight in shining armor back at Manticore, who is the focus of this episode. Sure, Rowland is a little old to be playing a 20 year old, but I had high hopes anyway.

"411 On the DL" resumes Lydecker's ongoing search to exterminate Max. Rather than actively seeking her out himself (because that would require him to actually do something, you see), Lydecker is content to make his men keep tabs on Vogelsang, the private dick who occasionally feeds Max information. Vogelsang demands $15,000 from Max for key knowledge he has on the others like her, including Zach, who may in fact be living in Seattle.

In the supporting character department, Logan's former alcoholic ex-wife, Val (Brenda James) suddenly comes back to brighten his lonely life. Why is she back? To cause a rift in the sexual tension between her ex and Max, of course. But Val is neurotic and has an airy, Julie Hagerty-like voice which makes it difficult to see her as a threat. Meanwhile, Normal fires Jamaican courier, Herbal Thought for smoking weed on the job. In his place, Normal hires a young eager beaver, Sam, (William Gregory Lee) -- a taller, cuter clone of Matt Damon.

This was all very nice and good, but really, there was only one thing that I really cared about -- where was Rodney Rowland!? The anticipation I felt whilst awaiting Rowland's presence on screen pulled the wool over my eyes. It bowled over any of my natural, logical instincts. Instead of seeing the blatancy and obviousness of this new bike courier, Sam, I continued to hold a false hope that the script would not be so predictable, and Rowland would make that quick appearance as the elusive Zach.

When Rowland finally arrives in one tiny scene as Val's deadbeat husband (what a criminal underuse of such talent), I finally snap out of it and start to pay attention to all the things that usually tend to aggravate me about this series. Writer, Doris Egan, chose to go the predictable route and yes, Sam is indeed revealed to be the real Zach. In what I thought would be a momentous event that probably could have been reserved for February sweeps or maybe even the season finale, Max finds Zach all too easily, just as she effortlessly found Hannah in an earlier episode. What ongoing stories are left now?

Unfortunately for Max, her heroic Zach actually turns out to be a gung-ho jerk, still very much caught up in the militant mindset of Manticore. This is an unforeseen, dreary conclusion that sets up a quiet, final moment in which Logan and Max give each other suggestive looks and talk about all the false expectations and letdowns in their lives. Weatherly and Alba are not exactly Tracy and Hepburn, but a hint of chemistry definitely seeps its way into the scene. For all the wrong turns this episode takes, at least this is one decent step in the right direction.

-- Julie Ng

Dark Angel airs at 9pm EST/8pm MNT, Tuesdays on FOX.

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