The Secret World of Alex Mack

Plot

Alexandra "Alex" Mack is an ordinary teenage girl living in the industrial town of Paradise Valley with her parents, George and Barbara, and her precocious older sister, Annie. The town largely revolves around Paradise Valley Chemical, a factory that employs most of the adult residents but has a notoriously shady history and staff.

While walking home after her first day of junior high, Alex is nearly hit by a truck from Paradise Valley Chemical, and during the incident, she is accidentally drenched in GC-161, an experimental chemical developed by the factory. She soon discovers it has given her strange powers, including telekinesis, the ability to generate electricity from her fingertips, and the ability to morph into a mobile puddle of liquid. Though Alex finds her powers exciting, they are unpredictable—sometimes her skin glows bright yellow when she's nervous. She confides only in Annie and her best friend Ray, choosing to keep her powers a secret from everyone else, including her parents, in order to protect herself from the chemical factory's ruthless CEO, Danielle Atron.

Series overview

The series evolves from seasons 1–4 from innocent hijinks to darker connotations; seasons 1–2 mostly deal with cheerful misadventures and comedic encounters with incompetent Paradise Valley Chemical staff Vince and Dave. Seasons 3–4 take on a more serious and dark development, in which it is revealed that Danielle Atron had been developing GC-161 as far back as the 1970s and that she may have had fellow scientists and researchers systematically assassinated to cover up GC-161's mutagenic effects on people.

Subplots of the series included Barbara Mack going back to college as a mature student; Alex and her friends being targeted by a school bully; Alex's crush, Scott, turning out to be a fairweather friend; and Louis Driscoll befriending Alex and Ray after moving to Paradise Valley as a new student. Vince, meanwhile, is fired in season 3 and replaced by an asocial Vienna-born scientist named Lars Frederickson. Vince frequently reappears as a guest character, obsessed with getting his job back. While Alex was initially bullied by an older student named Jessica in season 1, Jessica's actress, Jessica Alba, left for other projects, and the character was replaced with Kelly, a preppy but mean-spirited cheerleader, and later Jo (the aforementioned school bully who goes after Alex and Ray).

In season 4, Alex develops a serious relationship with Hunter, a new boy in town. She initially believes he is infatuated with Danielle Atron after discovering what appears to be a love shrine to the woman in his bedroom, but Hunter is revealed to be investigating Danielle's potential involvement in the death of his scientist father by drowning. Alex shares her first kiss with Hunter.

Characters

Main

Alexandra "Alex" Mack (played by Larisa Oleynik) – Alex is an average teenage girl in Paradise Valley. While walking home from school, she is nearly hit by a truck carrying GC-161 and is doused with it, thus giving her extraordinary powers. Among them are telekinesis, the ability to generate electricity from her fingertips, and the ability to liquefy and travel from place to place in the form of a puddle of liquid. She briefly manifests superhuman strength due to her body having an unusual reaction to a new curry recipe her mother had just tried. However, this was only valid in one episode, as her mother never used the recipe again.

Raymond "Ray" Alvarado (played by Darris Love) – Alex's best friend and next door neighbor, and the only one besides Annie to know about Alex's powers.

Anne "Annie" Mack (played by Meredith Bishop) – Alex's older sister, and a scientific genius in her own right. Next to Ray, she is the only one who originally knows about Alex's powers. She administers various scientific tests to ensure Alex's safety. She also hopes to one day present her research, in an effort to stop Danielle Atron.

George Mack (played by Michael Blakley) – Annie and Alex's father. He is a brilliant chemist who works for Danielle Atron at the Paradise Valley Chemical Plant.

Barbara Mack (played by Dorian Lopinto) – Annie and Alex's mother. She is a more down-to-earth woman who works in a public relations firm which represents the chemical plant.

Recurring

Louis Driscoll (played by Benjamin Kimball Smith) – Alex and Ray's abrasive friend, who moves to Paradise Valley from Cincinnati in season 2. At first Alex is jealous of Louis, but they finally become friends. Alex and her gang generally find Louis annoying, with a grandiose personality, but at times he can be a very caring and well-meaning person, such as when he attempts to rescue a young child trapped beneath a cement pipe, or when he helps Alex make a friendship video for Nathan Dean in their class. Louis's father is a businessman and entrepreneur.

David "Dave" Watt (played by John Nielsen) – The seemingly dim-witted truck driver who was driving the truck that accidentally dumped the GC-161 chemical on Alex. As the only witness to the accident, Dave is often forced to serve as a partner to Vince Carter in trying to capture Alex. After seeing Alex using her powers while she was in high school, Dave keeps it a secret from Danielle to protect her as he knew what kind of horrible experiments Danielle had planned for her. In season 4, Dave reveals himself to be much more intelligent than Danielle believes, telling her that he just likes living a simple life, and serving as a whistleblower to George Mack about corruption at the plant. Alex hugs him after learning that he kept her secret to protect her, and George, in gratitude, later promises Dave a job at another chemical plant.

Scott Greene (played by Jason Strickland) – Alex's junior high school crush, an older sports jock who dates Kelly later on. Alex eventually discovers Scott's vapid nature when he steals her photos that she took while working for the school scrapbook.

Jessica (played by Jessica Alba) – Scott's first girlfriend and Alex's first school rival.

Kelly Phillips (played by Hilary Salvatore) – Scott's second girlfriend and Alex's second school rival. Kelly deviously discredits Alex at every given turn, much to Alex's dismay.

Robyn Russo (played by Natanya Ross) – One of Alex and Ray's neighborhood friends. Though she possesses a sardonic sense of humor and is fun to be around, she suffers from low self-esteem and can be very depressing, sometimes expressing grim opinions of death and nihilism. Robyn often wears black and dresses more goth as the series goes on. She has a hamster named Donald that dies, sending her into an intense grieving period. Robyn eventually discovers Alex's powers in the series finale, initially not believing Louis when he tells her.

Production

Thomas W. Lynch, who had created the programs Night Tracks and Kids Incorporated, said the idea for the series was based on an incident from his own childhood. Lynch's father, a nuclear physicist, worked with radioactive material in the family's garage and the chemical spilled out of its container. Lynch said, "Today, they would've shut the whole block down. It cracked me up—the idea that that stuff was right there. What if I ate it? What would happen to me?" For the fictional chemical GC-161 in the show, Lynch said he came up with the GC part of the name while doing DNA research, while the 161 came from the number eight.

Though the character of Alex Mack was initially conceived as a boy, Nickelodeon had the writers change the character to a girl.

The series was filmed in Valencia, Santa Clarita and the Santa Clarita Valley. The Mack home and Paradise Valley Chemical Plant interiors were filmed in a converted warehouse used as a soundstage. The junior high scenes were filmed at Charles Helmers and James Foster Elementary Schools. Castaic Middle School was used for senior high scenes. The house, used for exterior shots, is located in the Westford Place neighborhood of Valencia.

Near the end of the series' run, Lynch presented star Larisa Oleynik with a package deal that included a fifth season of the show and a feature film, but Oleynik turned the deal down. Said Oleynik, "I have absolutely no regrets about that. It was an incredible thing he was offering me and I knew that at the time, but I was a little burnt out."

Television airing

The show premiered on Nickelodeon (part of SNICK line-up) in 1994 and ended in 1998. Internationally, it also aired on YTV in Canada, Kabel 1 in Germany, SVT in Sweden, France 2 in France, Viasat 3 in Hungary, Rai 1 in Italy, Fox Kids in Latin America, Channel 4 in the UK, NHK in Japan and was in the children's weekday lineup for much of the mid-to-late 1990s on the ABC in Australia. Repeats of the show aired in 2003 on The N, but it was soon replaced there. The show aired occasionally on TeenNick's 1990s-oriented block, The '90s Are All That.

Cast reunion

The Secret World of Alex Mack 20 Year Reunion was recorded in 2018 and released as a TV movie on YouTube and Vimeo. Initially a live convention interview, the reunion featured numerous cast and crew members from the original TV series, revelations about their lives post-series, and discussions of a possible reboot or sequel. It was revealed that many of the cast members had gone on to various endeavors, with moderate success: Larisa Oleynik (Alex) had gone on to earn mainstream adult roles in shows such as 10 Things I Hate About You, while other cast members had largely left acting. Alexis Fields (Nicole) had gone on to a career in interior design, John Marzilli (Vince) had adopted a son who attended the cast reunion, and Darris Love (Ray) became involved in acting and music.

Home media

A single VHS volume containing two episodes titled "In the Nick of Time" was released by Sony Wonder in the United States in 1996.

The show's first season (consisting of 13 episodes on two discs) was released by Genius Entertainment on DVD format on October 2, 2007. The set is noteworthy for giving Jessica Alba top billing on the package, most likely in an effort to sell more copies, even though she actually only appears in a supporting role, and only in a few episodes. This was then released in Region 2 on April 2, 2012, and in Region 4 on June 6, 2012.

The first and second seasons are available through Amazon.com's Instant Video section, through iTunes and on Paramount+.

Mill Creek Entertainment released the complete series on DVD for the very first time on August 1, 2017.

DVD boxed set controversy

The UK release of the series' DVD boxed set received a rating of '15' from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), a rating considered restrictive, particularly since the series was initially aimed at preteens. It was eventually revealed by the BBFC that the '15' rating was applied to the boxed set because of a season 1 episode called "Annie Bails" where Alex is seen climbing into a clothesdryer. According to the BBFC, "The presentation of this behaviour is comic and no negative consequences are shown which would warn young viewers of the potential dangers of hiding in such appliances. While fatal incidents of children trapped in washing machines or fridges are rare, there remains sufficient cause for serious concern. The distributor indicated that they would be happy to accept a higher certificate rather than cutting the episode. The TV series is rather dated and would not have much appeal to a young audience when compared to current children's TV programmes. In addition, as the work was being targeted at an adult 'nostalgia' market, children would not be the natural audience."

Book series

A book series aimed at young readers was released along with the series. The first and last books of the series are novelizations of the first and last episodes, respectively. The rest of the series consists of completely original stories, tied into the main series through the mentioning of various plot points from the TV episodes. There were 34 books in total, all released as mass-market paperbacks from Simon & Schuster. Authors Diana G. Gallagher and Cathy East Dubowski were the predominant authors of the series, although other authors were recruited in-between to write certain titles.

The following titles were included in the series (in order, published between the years 1995 to 1998; note that the exclamation point at the end of each title was a stylized and intentional punctuation):

Alex, You're Glowing! by Diana G. Gallagher

Bet You Can't! by Diana G. Gallagher

Bad News Babysitting! by Ken Lipman

Witch Hunt! by Diana G. Gallagher

Mistaken Identity! by Diana G. Gallagher

Cleanup Catastrophe! by Cathy East Dubowski

Take A Hike! by Cathy East Dubowski

Go For the Gold! by Diana G. Gallagher

Poison In Paradise! by Diana G. Gallagher

Zappy Holidays! by Diana G. Gallagher

Junkyard Jitters! by Patricia Barnes-Svarney

Frozen Stiff! by Diana G. Gallagher

I Spy! by John Peel