REVIEW: Damages

FX's Damages starring Glenn Close and Rose Byrne (Sunshine, 28 Weeks Later) has been a guilty pleasure during the slow television times this summer when favorites such as Lost, 24, Heroes and Gray's Anatomy were off the air. Thank goodness, Nip/Tuck will be returning next week on Tuesday, and apparently will now be set in Los Angeles for Season 6.

The first season of Damages had its finale on Tuesday October 23rd and was a satisfying conclusion to an extremely well-written and acted television show. Although the legal drama can be a cliched stalwart of the television landscape, Damages manages to avoid the pitfalls of other entries in the genre by 1) generally avoiding the sexual escapades of the main characters 2) eschewing courtroom scenes with adversarial over-written exchanges between well-coiffed, too-pretty attorneys and 3) eliminating single episode stories.

Instead, Damages had a story arc which lasted the entire 13-episode season. It involved a complex corporate malfeasance case worth hundreds of millions of dollars against Arthur Frobisher, played with gusto by Ted Danson. The inimitable Glenn Close, who is probably my favorite actor of all time, plays Patty Hewes, a fearsome defense attorney who is representing Frobisher's employees in a civil action to obtain restitution for his looting of the company's assets and the collapse of their retirement accounts. The main protagonist in the story is not Patty Hewes but Ellen Parsons (played by Rose Byrne) who plays a brand new attorney who gets her dream job working for her legal hero while she and her handsome medical school fiance juggle demanding careers, ambition, complicated family members and their relationship.

Unfortunately, FX has already renewed two really atrocious series in Dirt and The Riches and these decisions may be delaying a decision to renew Damages for a second season although the latter is much more critically acclaimed (although as ratings-challenged) as the othertwo shows. The producers had originally announced they had a commitment from Glenn Close for 5 seasons with the show, so I hope FX executives and give us the opportunity of many more years of Damages.

GRADE: A.