"Damages" Pilot (2007)

User Rating:

8.3/10   

Director:

Allen Coulter

Writers:

Todd A. Kessler (creator) &
Glenn Kessler (creator) ...

TV Series:

"Damages" (2007)

Original Air Date:

24 July 2007 (Season 1, Episode 1)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

Hot-shot, high-states, New York City attorney Patty Hewes hires a new associate, the bright, ambitious...

Plot Keywords:

Law | Female Lead | Trial | Murder | Female Lawyer

Cast

Glenn Close	...	Patty Hewes
Rose Byrne	...	Ellen Parsons
Zeljko Ivanek	...	Ray Fiske
Noah Bean	...	David Connor
Tate Donovan	...	Tom Shayes
Ted Danson	...	Arthur Frobisher
Philip Bosco	...	Hollis Nye
Michael Nouri	...	Phil Grey
Anastasia Griffith	...	Katie Connor
Tom Aldredge	...	Uncle Pete
Donnie Keshawarz	...	Andrew Vida
Marlyne Afflack	...	Felicia Marquand
Maya Days	...	Detective Rosario Ortiz
Casey Siemaszko	...	Detective Dan Williams
Robin Thomas	...	Martin Cutler

Runtime:

54 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:TV-MA

Company:

Bluebush Productions

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: During the dirt bike rider scene, the shadow of the filming crew can be seen on the ground.

Soundtrack:

When I Am Through With You

John Grisham on the small screen

Glenn Close sure knows how to pick her TV roles: after receiving Emmy nominations for her guest appearance on Will & Grace in 2002 and her one-season stay on The Shield in 2005, she scored once again by sticking with The Shield's network, basic-cable F/X (the same that's behind Nip/Tuck), and accepting one of her best roles ever, that of ruthless lawyer Patricia "Patty" Hewes, star of the juicy legal drama Damages.

Starting as it intends to go on, the series kicks off with a bloodied woman ending up in a police station. She refuses to reveal anything about herself, leaving the investigators with the ungrateful task of figuring things out. At this point, a flashback takes us six months back in time, and that's when the real story, the John Grisham-like narrative, begins.

The woman is Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), a promising up-and-coming lawyer who has just graduated and receives an offer from Patty's firm, Hewes & Associates. After two interviews, she is hired, and Patty's right-hand man Tom Shayes (Tate Donovan) introduces her to their newest case: they are going after Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), a businessman suspected of defrauding his employees and causing them to lose everything they had. He is defended by the more than qualified Ray Fiske (Zeljiko Ivanek), but Patty is tougher than her looks would suggest and will stop at nothing to win the case.

The first episode of Damages rests heavily on two elements: the plot and the central performance. As far as the first is concerned, there is little to complain about, given co-creator Todd A. Kessler used to work on The Sopranos. More specifically, he contributed to the second season of the mafia masterpiece, i.e. the storyline involving the FBI's attempts to build a case against Tony Soprano. Therefore he knows how the intrigue should present itself and serves up a mouth-watering course of mystery and conspiracy. If there's anything to nag about, it would be the apparent lack of immediate coherence between the time shifts (they make more sense in later episodes) and the fact that there is a little too much going on for a single chapter, even one that is 54 minutes long.

Which leaves us with Close. Quite simply put: she's perfect - cunning, determined and merciless, pretty much an update of her Oscar-nominated effort in Dangerous Liaisons. She dominates the entire show, even though it must be said everyone else does an above-average job, with stuff worth writing home about coming from Ivanek and Danson: one gives a new meaning to the adjective "oily" (just listen to his voice), the other shakes off his beloved Sam Malone smirk and gives a truly chilling performance as the program's main villain.

Created by a Sopranos writer, starring Glenn Close and Ted Danson, plays out like a televised John Grisham novel. In other words: watch it.