From the beginning, Damages has been slick, beautifully photographed and wonderfully acted. Glenn Close, for one, is superb all the way through. Season one was tense, tricky, well-written and suspenseful. The repetition and flashbacks were a little difficult at first, but seemed to work; the approach felt very new. By the fifth season, the flashbacks seemed contrived and the endless repetition unnecessary. That, along with the many protracted scenes of long stares and needless dialog, made you feel as if a twenty-minute story was being inflated to 45 minutes. The writers/directors were toying with you all the time, as if that were the only purpose of the exercise. Behaviors were not just unexpected, they were unbelievable. The story line twisted around itself to the point of self-strangulation. I would have accepted a "happy" ending or one that ended in tragedy for at least one of the principles, but there was no ending, no resolution -- nothing that felt right. With this frustrating final season, I had to give a "fair-to-middling" rating to what started as a smart, good-looking series. Except for the inevitable cliffhangers, I expect it would have been best to stop after season 2 or 3.
Review of Damages
