James Cameron’s Dark Angel: a sinister scenario

I watched James Cameron’s Dark Angel series when it was first shown on UK TV 15  or so years ago. I thought that it was very good indeed despite the violence and a few other things such as gruesomeness and overuse of the evil twin meme.

I got the DVDs recently as part of an exercise to recreate the best of the past. After watching them just for the stories a few times, I came to realise that some elements of the underlying scenario could apply to more people than just the X5 group of genetically enhanced characters featured in the series.

Many aspects of the lives of the X5s will seem familiar to some people, especially those who think of themselves as being different in some way. 

People who feel like the X5s

Such people may have been brought up without caring parents and in Spartan surroundings; they may have been brainwashed and tested to the limits of endurance in childhood; as children, they may have been isolated, essentially hostages and prisoners in a harsh and brutal environment albeit not necessarily a physical one.

Such people may feel that they were selectively bred, raised and trained for a mission – even if they don’t know or can’t remember what it is.

Such people may feel that they have escaped from the past but are separated from others like them. All the time, they are pining for the company of their own kind. Unlike the X5s, they don’t know who their people are.

They may live among the normals, passing as one of them and apparently integrated into society but knowing that they are very different on the inside. Their wiring, abilities, experiences, outlook, requirements and goals are just not the same as those of the normals.

Like the X5s, these people may be flawed.