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List Price: $49.95 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 1340
Released: January 29, 2008 |
| Our Price: $20.75 |
| Used Price: $19.46 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Hot new legal thriller on FX! Set in New York's world of high stakes litigation, Damages follows the lives of Patty Hewes, the nation's most revered and most reviled litigator, and her bright, ambitious protégée Ellen Parsons as they become embroiled in a class action lawsuit targeting Arthur Frobisher, one of the country's wealthiest CEOs. As Patty battles Frobisher and his attorney, Ellen learns what it takes to win at all costs, and that lives, not just fortunes, are at stake.
Description of Damages: The Complete First Season:
Smart, sleek, and more than a little wicked, the Golden Globe-winning series Damages proves that legal programs don't have to follow a well-worn formula in order to prove completely addictive. In fact, the show (from Todd and Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman, whose credits include The Sopranos) steers clear from nearly all courtroom drama clichés over the course of its 13 episodes, and hews closer to classic film noir with the slowly-spun web of deceit that is woven around fresh-scrubbed lawyer Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne). After joining the legal firm headed by uber-powerful litigator Patty Hewes (Glenn Close, who won a Golden Globe for her performance), Parsons lands a career-making case--a class-action lawsuit against millionaire Arthur Frobisher (Golden Globe nominee Ted Danson)--but discovers that digging deeply into the case not only reveals layers of corruption, cover-up, and potential scandal, but places her own life in jeopardy as well. Smart, mature writing and note-perfect performances, most notably by Danson as the perverse and complex Frobisher, but also by Tate Donovan, Zeliko Ivanek, Peter Facinelli, Philip Bosco and Peter Reigert, make Damages a genuine pleasure for law and mystery show fans, but also those craving a challenging series that delivers water cooler chat material in every episode. The three-disc set includes all 13 episodes as well as deleted scenes; among the featured extras are two choice commentaries, one with Close, the Kesslers and Zelman, and the other with Ivanek and the creators, both of which are chock-full of production and technical insights. A 30-minute making-of featurette, discussions about the characters by the creators, and a guide to class-action lawsuits rounds out the fine supplemental features. --Paul Gaita
Damages: The Complete First Season Reviews:
I wanted to love this series. But in the end I couldn't. 
2009-12-06 - You know how The Wire: The Complete Series starts out slow but in the end everything comes together and you realize that you've watched the greatest show on television? This is the opposite case. Call it the True Blood: The Complete First Season (HBO Series) effect. Every episode is exciting and drives the show forward. Every episode has something cool that keeps you watching to the next one. And the title sequence? VERY cool.
Yet when it's over, you'll feel like you've just wasted 13 hours. It's not so much that the whole thing falls apart at the end due to the stupid denouement of the major mystery (although the answer as to why Rose Byrne comes into a police station all bloody with a dead boyfriend in her bathtub is very stupid) but also because once it's over all of the missteps in the piece become glaringly obvious. When you are watching it, you just enjoy Glen Close and Ted Danson at their crazy manipulative best. Glen Close is in pure bunny-boiling evil form (and she does kill the dog) and Ted Danson is like a version of Sam gone to pot without conscience. The games that these two (and Danson's lawyer) play to one up each other are particularly amusing and convoluted.
Sadly, once it's over the plot holes become way too obvious. A simple malfeasance case is probably too dull to sustain an entire show, but in one episode, Glen Close manipulates one of her own witnesses to lie in deposition in order to ruin her case and make the Danson camp think that they are winning. In another episode Close kills a dog which I believe might be problematic even for lawyers. And Ted Danson openly talking to one of the people suing him in order to manipulate the lawsuit is just dumb all around. And if we enjoy watching Glen Close be evil, why do the writers think that we need to see her crying like at the end of Dangerous Liaisons
But really, the entire thing falls on Rose Byrne's tiny shoulders and Rose Byrne is just not up to the task. Yes, she's supposed to be a naive lawyer just out of law school but most of the time she comes off as utterly stupid. When her assistant ruins all of her appointments and messes up her day, she has to wait the entire episode to fire him. And it's supposed to be some kind of fall from grace when she's no longer a nice person. Partially it's the problem of the scripts. She is supposed to be naive, but most of the time the scripts make her act like an utter idiot. But mostly, it's Rose Byrne's fault. When Glen Close is telling her that she admires her because she is very shrewd, well there's nothing all that shrewd about her. Even though, it's obvious that she's been hired in order to get to a witness, there's nothing about her acting that suggests that she's anything other than a vacant and pretty face to be manipulated. This is Mary Sue characterization at it's worse. She has nothing to offer, yet everyone claims that she offers the world. And if this is a woman who comes from hardscrabble circumstances who clawed her way to the top of her law school class and can turn down a 130K starting salary, we SHOULD believe that she's actually intelligent and shrewd and just as much of a force of nature as Glen Close. She SHOULD be Glen Close's chaacter in process.
Instead she's just dumb. Sure, it's fun watching Glen Close push her around and play with her like a tiger playing with a bunny rabbit; but if the script is telling us that she's this amazing lawyer learning how to be a manipulative powerhouse, then that potential should be obvious. Yet it's not. And that's why overall, this thing fails.
I'd recommend buying it if you watched a few episodes and liked it, but be prepared to be disappointed. Fortunately it's TV, not HBO so it's reasonably priced.
the most riveting show on television 
2009-11-23 - I started watching Damages when it aired on tv, but I tuned out because I knew watching the episodes a week apart I was missing subtleties. I started again when it came out on dvd, and I'm so glad I watched it this way. The show is the smartest and most riveting show on television. Every frame, every line, and every scene matters. Every character will surprise you. It's visually stunning. A word of warning: you won't want to stop watching, so wait until you have a weekend to devote to this fantastic show.
damages ok!
2009-10-24 - The product arrived ok but the quality of the disc is just ok. It had some freeze spots during the first two stories. I hope the rest is ok. Bob Mangini
THE BEST PILOT 
2009-10-01 - DAMAGES has the best pilot I've ever seen in a drama show. It is very subtle and violent at the same time and leaves us wondering what that would lead to. I watched it and couldn't stop. The series, in general, is very good. The acting is magnificent. It's always a pleasure to see the many real faces of Glenn Close, her speech, and try to guess her caracter. However, I hope - I only watch this movies on DVD - that DAMAGES doesn't turn Glenn Close into that very pure-evil one-dimension woman that we've seen in Fatal Attraction. If that happens, the show would become, for me, just another kind of Mexican soap opera, and I'll loose the interest in it.
Excellent drama! Completely entertaining!
2009-05-28 - I watched the entire series over 2-3 days. I thought the acting was superb, the plot was compelling and the suspense was wonderful. I highly recommend this series!
