FX's Damages, starring Glenn Close and Rose Byrne, is a brilliantly-written drama about high stakes litigation. The first season focuses on a class action lawsuit against wealthy CEO, Arthur Frobisher (played by Ted Danson). Each episode features scenes from the present, showing that Byrne's character, Ellen, got arrested and may have murdered her fiancé, and scenes from the past, showing step by step how the firm is building its case against Frobisher. Scenes from the past and present intertwine cleverly to allow the viewers to pick up clues and make links.
The DVD set offers the 13 episodes of the first season of the Golden Globes-nominated series (two more seasons were ordered by the network). Sadly, there are commentaries for only two episodes (the pilot and episode 11) but each offer a good behind-the-scenes take thanks to the selection of cast and crew making the commentaries. It's interesting to hear Glenn Close and the others discuss how they tried to create a sense a menace, tension and confusion during the pilot. There are also other good tidbits like how they worked around the fact they lost access to the apartment they wanted to use in the pilot.
Fans of the series will enjoy "Willful Acts: The Making of Damages," a featurette that gives each actor a chance to talk about their character. "Trust No One: Insight from the Creators," another DVD extra featuring Todd and Glenn Kessler allows us to know more about how they came up with Close's character. The third, and last, featurette is named "Understanding Class Action: Interactive Guide." This extra is a bit dry but offers short interviews with Law professors to explain lawyer lingo and how litigation works.
There are deleted scenes on the three discs. However, these offer very little to chew on content-wise. The official press release for the DVD talks about bloopers but it seems those were not included in the final product, unless they are hidden as easter eggs (I surfed the web and didn't find a site that listed easter eggs for this DVD set).
The Damages DVD is a must buy for fans who want to rewatch and make sense of everything and find the clues that were hidden since the first episode. Personally, I hadn't had the chance to watch the series during its first run. Watching the 13 episodes, featurettes, and deleted scenes, back-to-back was a delight! The acting is stellar (Glenn Close won a Golden Globe for her performance as Patty Hewes), the writing is excellent, the editing of the scenes from the past and present adds to the intrigue. If you are looking for a brilliant series to fill in the void caused by the writers' strike (at the moment I write these lines, the strike is almost officially over but it will be a few weeks/months before all your favorite series come back), Damages is it.
SPECIFICATIONS
LINKS
Damages The Complete First Season DVD (buy the dvd)
Review by Izzy
Thanks to Total Assault for providing a review copy.
