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Damages—The Complete First Season

As early as the 1920s, a trend in movie titling began. There was The Son of Tarzan, Son of Zorro, Son of Sinbad, Son of Dracula, Son of Kong... In watching FX's recent first season of Damages, I couldn't help but think of it as "Daughter of Murder One." That's a complement, as the 1995-1997 ABC series was a breakthrough legal thriller that dared to tell one core story (a murder trial) in a season-long arc (hit shows like 24 would follow the lead; Lost is practically a series long arc of one core adventure). Though Damages comes in the shortened cable form of a thirteen-episode season (like British television's more concise, focused and economical model), it too focuses on a single season-long trial and its immediate repurcussions.

Damages is a star vehicle for Glenn Close, who previously garnered Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for starring in Season Four of FX's The Shield. Damages resulted in a Golden Globe win for Close in her tailor-made character of Patty Hewes, a high-powered civil litigator. Like Murder One's Richard Cross (Stanley Tucci), Hewes is a slippery one, devious to be sure, but not all bad and usually acting from her own moral justifications (when not, she's not immune to guilt). Close does riveting work that's both credible and unique; she makes Hewes the charismatic, intimidating "star" of the New York City legal scene that Close is to the New York acting community.

Like Murder One, Damages is as much a mystery melodrama as it is a thriller. The pilot infamously begins with young lawyer Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne of Troy), bruised and bloodied, fleeing the scene of a murder. Immediately flashing back to the day Parsons seizes an interview opportunity at Hewes and Associates, the series soon settles into alternating timelines: one telling the story of Parsons learning the ropes during Hewes' class-action case against corrupt, Ken Lay-like CEO Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), and one following Parsons' incarceration and murder defense. Eventually, the past timeline meets up with the present timeline, and the story races to its climax.

Close gets great support from Byrne and Danson (the guy is at the top of his form lately), as well as a host of familiar character actors: Zeljko Ivanek, Tate Donovan, Philip Bosco, Peter Riegert, Michael Nouri, Garret Dillahunt, Casey Siemaszko, and fresher faces like Noah Bean, Anastasia Griffith, and Peter Facinelli (Can't Hardly Wait). In terms of the plot, that would be telling; series creators Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman put a premium on giving every episode at least one major plot twist, and though the season loses a bit of steam in its last leg before the big finish, it's generally a satisfyingly suspenseful ride made juicier by its willingness to take its characters to the darkest of places.