Dark Angel/Headscratchers

• Why did Lydecker not recognize Max in "Prodigy" when Sam was still working for Manticore?
  • It could be that Lydecker didn't have access to the twins. Which is backed up by him being absent in Alec's flashback. Also, Sam's mission started around the time the series did IIRC, so she wasn't hanging around Manticore all the time for him to see anyway.
    • But Sandoval worked with Alec, and he was subordinate to Lydecker. Also, it was originally going to be Lydecker in those flashbacks if the actor had been available, Lydecker was in charge of the twins assigned to the Phoenix project in The Eyes Only Dossier, and Alec recognized him in "After the Dark". Even discounting these, it would be stupid of Manticore not to give pictures of the escapees' twins to Lydecker as they aged so that he would know what the escapees would look like. That's why this belongs in Just Bugs Me, because if it's not a continuity error, it's the result of stupidity.

• How did Alec manage to keep Rachel's locket?
  • Maybe Manticore doesn't do cavity searches when its soldiers come back from an assignment.
    • You're forgetting this was when he was brought in by force. He never had the locket before that.
  • Or the writers just don't give a shit about these details.
  • Knowing Manticore and their love for mind games, it's possible someone was aware that he took the locket and just let him keep it as an ever present reminder of what happens when he defies protocol.
  • Knowing the way Alec worked the system when he was in Manticore,maybe he traded some of his hoarded 'vitamins'for it.

• Why did Max recognize Jace in "Female Trouble" but not Zack in "411 On the DL"?

• What happened to Max's seizures and heat cycle in Season Two? If Manticore fixed those, it should have been stated onscreen. The heat cycle at least might not be something that always happens once or twice a year despite recurring like that in Season One, but the seizures were always a potential threat.
  • Either the seizures and heat happened off-screen, the "fixing" was done off-screen, or more likely, the writers decided it wasn't interesting anymore and gave up on the ideas.
    • The novel "Skin Game" mentions that Max still struggles with going into heat twice a year and still needs tryptophan, but that leads to different Just Bugs Mes. It would be a prime storytelling opportunity to have Max go into heat around Alec, since a male X5 would probably be ultra-receptive to a female X5 in heat. One is reminded of the largely dropped love triangle idea, and wonders what the original storyboard of "Radar Love" might have been like. It would also be a prime storytelling opportunity to see Alec have seizures, exposing a vulnerability beneath the devil-may-care facade.
  • In a somewhat related note, how does the whole Tryptophan thing work? If you can't make seratonin because you don't have the enzymes, overloading your system should just make you sleepy.
    • I'm sure they wouldn't be alive if they couldn't make seratonin, all that's been stated is that they're deficient.

• It makes no sense for Alec to tell Max "you're just a girl" in "Fuhgeddaboudit", because he's trained with female X5s his whole life, in a gender-undifferentiated environment, and knows they're just as dangerous as the males. Not to mention having faced Max twice before this. I think this is a case of the episode writer forgetting that the character does not have a typical background.

• If Manticore can resurrect Zack after he put a bullet in his brainpan, why is Ben's snapped neck going to stop them?
  • Who says it did? Why do you think Lydecker was so adamant to leave Max for them to take? They'd done it before.

• Why is this series endorsing underage drinking? I know the legal drinking age in Canada, where the show is shot, is 18. But the series takes place in America! Max would have only turned 21 towards the very end of the show (possibly after), making it illegal for her to be drinking in (almost) EVERY EPISODE. This goes for all of her Manticore siblings, too, who were approximately the same age. I'm just going to ignore the other characters, and assume that they are slightly older.
  • Showing someone underage drinking through Fridge Logic =/= "endorsing" underage drinking. You're making a much bigger deal out of it than it should be.
  • Besides, the show takes place in a post-pulse US a decade or so later, with sector passes and a thriving black market. Either the law could have changed by then, or the characters don't feel the need to follow every law in broken(ish) country with a semi-corrupt government. After all, Max steals for a living and squats in her apartment. It really says more about the world she lives in than about what real-life young adults should do.

• Why do Lydecker and Manticore have such a hard time finding the rogue X5s if their body temperature is above average and they are easily spotted using heat sensors? If it had been established early on it would make perfect sense considering all their animal DNA and high metabolism (if limiting plot possibilities), but added so late in the series just makes Manticore seem ineffectual and stupid.

• This isn't about the show itself, but it Just Bugs Me: Someone on the IMDB page for the episode "Gill Girl" said it was an "error" for the gill people to breathe water, which would make them fish, and also echolocate, which would make them mammals (dolphins). They are Mix-and-Match Critters for crying out loud!!! They have the DNA of both fish and dolphins! At least it's been corrected since then.