Damages – Season 1Starring: Glenn Close, Rose Byrne, Ted Danson
I had heard many good things about this show, but when I finally watched the entire Season One (13 episodes) this past weekend, I was blown away: This is good. Unusually good.
Good actors, good concept, well filmed.
But the best part – to me – was the non-linear plot line: The pilot opens with a pretty sensational event four months into the future … and then just jumps around for the entire series.
Without giving much away, some scenes are repeated but one sees them differently depending on where you are in the series. Hard to describe, but very well done. It keeps you guessing until the end and … Season Two is (I’m guessing) foreshadowed in some weird scenes in Season One.
Glenn Close is brilliant in this – a total bitch of a top-gun lawyer – and the supporting characters are solid, as well.
I don’t know if the show creators can keep this type of WTF? for more than one season; I look forward to the next installment to see what they do.
This is one of those shows that I could write almost endlessly about – it’s that remarkable – but I’ll leave it with what I said above: Can’t wait to see Season Two.
Why are all the really inventive TV shows on the premium channels?
Think Mad Men, Damages, Weeds* and so on.
Network TV gives us a relentless spew of reality shows (cheap to produce, like game shows – I understand that part of the equation) and such.
Yet the runaway hits – the Emmy winners (that bring in ad dollars!) – are those that are different, that take chances.
Yet the networks keep trying to find another sitcom to replace Friends (Big Bang Theory anyone??).
See my review of Damages – incredible TV.
Why isn’t there more of this?
* Update: I just tossed out those three shows in the stream of writing, but without even thinking that hard, here are other solid shows that have been/are currently on non-network channels: Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Southland, 24, The Wire, Breaking Bad, One Big Love, Six Feet Under, Cougar Town, Sons of Anarchy, Sopranos, Monk – and this is just a cursory list. What has network TV given us (besides sitcoms/reality shows)? Many flavors of the very long-in-the-tooth franchises that are Law and Order and CSI. Whoopie.