Nice guys finish dead in the first season box set of the FX Network TV show Damages while the bastards appear to come out ahead. This ambitious, intelligent, glossy looking thirteen episode television series set in New York City about a tenacious plaintiff’s attorney out to convict a billionaire for bilking his own corporation is just what you would expect from the same network that airs Nip/Tuck. Actually, Damages is only half as exciting as Nip/Tuck, but the half that is exciting is hypnotic. Indeed, the bottom line here is if you enjoyed Damages, then you owe it to yourself to buy the box set. Moreover, anybody that has seen the series once should eyeball it again in spite of its shortcomings, because it boasts a wealth of detail and nuance that you cannot savor adequately until you’ve gone over the same ground twice.

Principally, Damages stretches its storyline pretty thin about busting a bad guy billionaire in a plot that resembles the Enron controversy. Personally, I’d never have given this dynamic series a glance had I not watched the box set for this review. Furthermore, television shows about attorneys on either side of the courtroom have never stimulated me. The problem is that legal shows are largely dialogue-driven with people wearing out their vocal chords. Of course, it doesn’t help matters that I know zilch about legal terminology. Happily, Damages doesn’t wallow in legal terminology to the extent that you need to buy a legal dictionary to decipher terms. Unfortunately, while this Glenn Close & Ted Danson legal thriller is smart stuff, it isn’t as smart as it could be. Between the compelling pilot episode and the finale when everything is wrapped up in a nice neat package with a preview of the forthcoming second season, this series relies more on its schizophrenic story structure and soap opera stratagems rather than solid, substantial plotting. This undermines the show’s overall impact. This is really a shame since two of the people behind the program—executive producers Todd Kessler and Glenn Kessler—cut their teeth on HBO’s The Sopranos and Robbery Homicide Division.

The labyrinthine story is told from the perspective of young, recent law school graduate Ellen Parsons (Aussie actress Rose Byrne of Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and Troy) who is looking for her first job. Essentially, Damages qualifies as a tale of initiation. When she agrees to work for high profile attorney Patty Hewes (Glenn Close of Jagged Edge), Ellen has no idea about the vortex of intrigue that she is about to be sucked into that will turn her life upside down. The theme of Damages is that you should NEVER trust anybody. No sooner has Ellen gone to work for Patty than we discover that Ellen is a murder suspect in the stabbing death of her own fiancé, David Connor (newcomer Noah Bean), in the pilot episode. Damages chronicles Ellen’s initiation into high stakes litigation and her evolution from a lady with little savvy to a lady with a lot of savvy. The show also charts Ellen’s life from being an innocent bystander to a murder suspect. The Rose Byrne character here shares a lot in common with the Charlie Sheen character in the 1978 Oliver Stone movie Wall Street.

Mind you, I don’t know enough about legal issues, but Patty Hewes seems like she ought to be disbarred based on her Machiavellian machinations with everybody in her legal practice as well as her adversaries. Hewes spends the entire first season searching for ways to get hundreds of Arthur Frobisher’s ex-workers a settlement. White-haired Arthur Frobicher (Ted Danson of Cheers) and his attorney Ray Fiske (Zeljko Ivanek of Live Free or Die Hard) engage in a duel of wits with Patty as the price of a settlement slides up and down the million dollar scale. At the same time, Frobicher has an ex-employee inside Patty’s office who keeps the billionaire informed about any progress on her end. Damages focuses on Patty’s efforts to bust Frobisher and Ellen’s efforts to exonerate herself of a crime that she could never have committed. Too much of what happens in between smacks of Lifetime soap operas. Everybody has a family and those family members do crazy things that frankly aren’t as exciting as either the Frobisher case or Ellen’s murder case. Although people that are a part of the fabric of the Frobisher case do die in the course of the litigation, the case itself is not that fascinating. What is interesting is Patty’s unscrupulous methods of playing all parties off each other to win in the end.

The characters in Damages are more provocative than its plot threads. Close wears the character of Patty Hewes like a second skin. Not surprisingly, she won an Emmy for Best Actress in a Dramatic Series for her incarnation of Patty Hewes. White-haired Ted Danson is deliciously dastardly as the evil Frobisher. The scene that introduces him on a motorcycle dirt track tournament is imaginative. At times, he struggles with his inner demons about whether he should have important people murdered to thwart Hewes’ law suit against him. Meanwhile, talented Rose Byrne goes full circle from immature heroine to mature heroine. As her fiancé David, Noah Bean perishes in the pilot, but he returns for the television series. In some episodes, Noah is alive and thriving, while in others he is sometimes dead and bloody in his bathtub. Indeed, there is nothing straightforward about this drama.

Extras
The Damages box set comes with a load of bonus special features that provide insight into the show from all quarters. The pilot episode has an in-depth commentary track from the executive producers and Close herself. You’ll learn about the fractured nature of the shows that jump back and forth in time, juxtaposing characters in the past and the present like Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

Bottom Line
Trust me; if legal thrillers get you into a lather, you’re in for a Close shave from Damages.