by , 7:00 AM EDT, October 4th, 2000
Last night's television offerings included the first of three presidential debates in addition to the usual fare. Since we are sure that every Observer was busy watching those debates, we thought we would let you know about a new show on the Fox network called Dark Angel starring Jessica Alba. The show is set in the year 2019 with Max (a coincidence? Probably not...), the title character played by Ms. Alba, as a genetically engineered warrior who escaped the governments training center at the tender age of nine. Ten years later she is still looking for other escaped comrades and trying to stay low.
What does this have to do with the Macintosh? Your Editor spotted an iMac in the office of a private-eye in the show. It was an early iMac, the one that still had the metallic shield/casing going around the inside of the plastic casing. How do we know this? The plastic casing was off except for the front white plastic, leaving the iMac to sit on the desk in all its naked glory. Not bad for a 21 year old computer written off as a failure by the mainstream press in 1998. The same goes for a white 22" Cinema Display that was being used by another character in his computer control room. The show's producer at least had the sense to use an ugly, yet different GUI on the system. For those keeping score at home, neither the PC that was hooked up to the Cinema Display, nor the naked iMac played an important role in the show.
But seriously folks, despite our love of the Macintosh and any exposure we can get for the platform, someone in charge of "computing" for the show should have done a better job managing the set. We know there is a huge crash that will cause a massive depression in our future (according to the show), but who really thinks that a 233 MHz iMac is going to be of use in the year 2019? We won't even touch the beige mini-tower that was connected to the Cinema Display.
Small, minimal black (or Snow!) boxes half the size of a cigar box should have been used as props, and there shouldn't be a CRT anywhere in sight.
Wait, does picking apart a Sci-Fi show's use of computers in the future mean that we are geeks? You bet it does. MacGeek and proud! If the producers of Dark Angel would like to hire us as consultants for accurate computer props, drop us a note. :-)
In the meanwhile, we will keep watching the show and let you know how they do.