Jessica Alba's guardian angel is notorious for being anything but heavenly.

But the 21-year-old, pouty-lipped star of TV's Dark Angel says she wasn't worried it would be hell on earth when the show's executive producer, Oscar-winning Titanic director James Cameron, decided to helm this season's finale himself.

"It was intense," Alba, who stars as genetically engineered super-siren Max, tells the Sun. "It was like a mini-movie. It was crazy, but I loved it. It was pretty incredible."

The finale, which wrapped production last week in Vancouver and will air on the Fox network May 3, marks Cameron's first directorial effort since Titanic four years ago.

"It was like tantric sex," laughs Alba's co-star and real-life fiance Michael Weatherly, who plays cyberjournalist Logan.

"It was gigantic. That's the only word I can think of."

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Indeed, if there's one thing more intense than watching his films -- the Canadian director is responsible for the muscular blue-chip action of Terminator, Aliens and True Lies -- it's working on one of them.

"He doesn't just direct. That's like saying Patton was just a general," Weatherly, 34, says.

"He's not interested if you need to get home to be with your kids. If you need to get home to be your kids, you should look at getting another job.

"If you want to be a part of this creative process, then you're going to have to surrender your life a little bit.

"He gets here before everyone else, which is 6 a.m., to midnight. That's not 18 hours of drinking vanilla lattes and telling people to move the lights over here or there," Weatherly says.

"He's picking up the lights, yelling at the guy who's pulling the cable. I'd say probably 70 percent of what you'll see he shot himself. He just picks up the camera and throws it on his shoulder. Not a lot of people do that.

"It was the most exciting, creative, fascinating thing to watch. He's telling the extras where their eyeline is. He's rubbing dirt on the guy with one line."

Weatherly estimates the average Dark Angel episode involves 15 to 20 camera setups a day.

Cameron would do 100 to 120.

"He's not a guy who lacks passion. He's not directing Dark Angel because of duty or obligation.

"He's an ornery guy who wants this show to live up to the level it exists in his head."

When it debuted three years ago, Dark Angel, which is set in a Blade Runner-ish world filled with genetically engineered human weapons, drew impressive ratings -- largely because of Cameron's name -- and made an instant sensation out of Alba, who landed on magazine covers and became a spokeswoman for L'Oreal.

"It's a hell of a responsibility," she says of her starring role.

"Nobody else has to be there all the time. Everybody else can take a day off if they feel tired or feel sick or they're not up to it. The only one who has to be there everyday is me, so it's a bit of a responsibility."

Alba's life changed, too, when she and Weatherly became a couple -- and fodder for gossip columnists who focused mostly on the 13-year age gap between the two.

For this interview, neither wanted to discuss their personal lives and, when asked if she has trouble separating their professional and personal endeavours, Alba's answer is simply "no."

She's more forthcoming, however about, her disappointment with Dark Angel's creative direction this past season, as the show introduced an ever-growing batch of "transgenic" half-human monsters, thanks to new producer Rene Echevarria (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine).

"He wasn't the original creator of the show and his idea of the show is different from mine and different from Jim's," Alba says.

Cameron became more involved with the show around Christmas, she says, culminating in his directing the season ender.

"He's so ahead of the game," she enthuses. "It's going to be like no other television you've seen."