Terminator Creator James Cameron’s Only TV Show Aired 26 Years Ago, And Put a Beloved Actress on Everyone’s Radar

James Cameron has been one of the most successful filmmakers in history, with three of the highest-grossing movies in history. Cameron didn’t have a great start in Hollywood, starting off with a B-grade horror movie, Piranha II: The Spawning. However, in 1984, Cameron exploded in popularity with The Terminator, and he made his name as a director on the rise. Between Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Cameron changed the face of sci-fi action movies, and then he started breaking records. Titanic became the highest-grossing movie of all time, and he beat that movie’s record with Avatar. Cameron has three movies that have broken $2 billion at the box office, proving his dominance as a Hollywood director.

That might make it easy to forget that Cameron turned his attention to television a short time after Titanic shattered box office records. On October 3, 2000, Dark Angel began airing on Fox, and with it, Cameron introduced the world to a young actress who used the role to catapult herself into Hollywood stardom.

James Cameron Produced Dark Angel 26 Years Ago

James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee co-created Dark Angel, a science fiction action drama that aired for two seasons on Fox. The series starred Jessica Alba as Max Guevara, a genetically enhanced runaway super-soldier who escaped from a covert military facility as a child. The series took place in a dystopian near-future Seattle, where Max tried to live a normal life while hiding from the government agents searching for her and her brothers and sisters, who also escaped. The show was heavily promoted using Cameron’s name thanks to his previous success in the Terminator and Alien franchises, as well as his massive success with Titanic. The pilot was a huge success, reaching 17.4 million viewers and receiving positive reviews.

The entire cast was impressive, with some big names before they were stars. Alba played Max, a super-soldier who worked as a bike messenger but someone who ended up fighting for her life and proving to be a perfect television action star. Michael Weatherly played cyber-journalist Logan Cale, the second main character. This was three years before he became a massive TV star as Tony DiNozzo on NCIS. In Season 2, Jensen Ackles joined the cast as Alec, four years before he started work as Dean Winchester on Supernatural. Add in names like Kevin Durand (The Strain) and Ashley Scott (Jericho), and there is some serious talent involved.

However, the same reason for its success was the reason for its downfall. With Cameron involved, the budgets kept rising, and the budget for each Season 2 episode was an estimated $1.3 million. That made this a very expensive series for Fox, and the show was almost cancelled before the second season. Cameron helped save the show, and he even stepped in to direct an episode, both for experience and to show Fox the show deserved to live on. Cameron said the show was renewed for a third season, and when he was ready to go make it, Fox called and said they decided to cancel it. That was the last scripted TV show that Cameron worked on, as he returned to feature films after that.

Dark Angel Made Jessica Alba a Star

Jessica Alba was only 19 years old when the first season of Dark Angel premiered. She was a former child star who had guest roles on several shows as a teenager before James Cameron chose her from over 1,000 candidates to play Max in the sci-fi action drama. This role made Alba a star. In the show’s two seasons, she earned a Golden Globe nomination, won a Teen Choice Award, and took home a Saturn Award for Best Actress. As just a teenager when she started playing Max, it was a lot of success that came very early in her career, something Jensen Ackles said made her hard to work with at times.

Alba began to find more success thanks to Dark Angel. Her career really took off in 2005 with the critically acclaimed Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller comic book adaptation Sin City, the Marvel Comics movie Fantastic Four, and a lead role in the thriller movie Into the Blue. Since that time, Alba has split her time between starring roles and supporting performances, although her career has slowed down in recent years. She has only appeared in one feature film in 2024, with a second Italian movie on the way this year.