The missing link?

I started watching Dark Angel, an over-hyped and long defunct sci-fi show starring Jessica Alba. The premise is that in 2000, the government secretly created a bunch of transgenic super soldiers, who later escaped in 2009, the same time that the U.S. economy collapsed due to an event called "the Pulse." The show, which is set in an economically depressed Seattle ten years later, follows the adventures of Jessica Alba's character Max, one of the escaped super soldiers. It's pretty bad. As I was watching, I noticed that the male lead looked awfully familiar. Who is this tool, I wondered. Finally, I realized that this guy...

is this guy. Gross.

The similarities are striking. Both NCIS and Dark Angel are (or were, in the latter case) not very good shows that lasted far longer than they should have. Both have inexplicably strong fan bases. And Michael Weatherly had a major (and annoying) role in both, which leads me to wonder if he simply gravitates towards bad shows or if his presence alone is enough to cause a show to turn bad. In other words, could Michael Weatherly be the missing link?

Anyway, Dark Angel. Max is a sassy bioengineered super soldier. She has super strength, heals quickly, can run faster than a speeding bullet, etc. However, in the third episode "Flushed," it's revealed that she periodically suffers from seizures due to a tryptophan deficiency (tryptophan is a kind of amino acid that is found in milk). She also has big, poofy lips that are kind of distracting.

Max is in Seattle because she's trying to track down her missing super-siblings, and that's where Michael Weatherly's character Logan comes in. Since he's an expert computer hacker, the arrangement is that he finds information about her siblings and she does, er, legwork for him.

See, because Logan's so good with computers and because he comes from a rich family and therefore doesn't have to work, he occupies his time by taking down corrupt officials and sex slavery rings and the like as "Eyes Only." It's an irritatingly self-righteous venture.

Naturally, Logan gets shot in the back in the pilot episode in a staggering display of competence, giving him even more things to whine about. Max sticks around out of guilt and because he's supposed to be her love interest. Though god forbid that they ever actually communicate like adults about those funny feelings they have for each other.

Max works as a bike messenger for this guy, who we're supposed to believe is a real jerk for trying to run his business in an efficient manner. Because it's just not fair that employees should, I don't know, work for their paychecks. The nerve!

Max also has a sassy black lesbian friend, Cindy, who is absolutely in no way a stereotype. Nope.

Cindy decides that Max must be a junkie and flushes her seizure medication. Max breaks into a hospital to try to get more pills but gets caught and sent to jail. Logan informs Cindy about Max's seizures and, after making her feel sufficiently guilty, thinks it would be a great idea to rub it in more: "Even paying off the right people [to get Max out of jail] would take two or three days. She doesn't have that much time...No meds, seizures get bad enough--she could go into a coma and die."

What a dick!

The dilemma is solved by smuggling Cindy into prison dressed as a hooker, of course.

So far I've watched four Dark Angel episodes, and three of the four involve either Max, Cindy, or both pretending to be hookers at some point. The episode in which nobody got dressed up as a hooker was based on the premise that Max periodically goes into heat because she has cat genes. I really, really wish I was making this up.

But I'm not.