Damages: The Complete First Season (DVD)

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Let me begin with a disclaimer: I did not catch this show when it first aired. Before I even watched scene one, I had heard that Glenn Close was in a bar when it was announced with zero fanfare that she had won a Golden Globe for her role as tough-as-nails attorney Patty Hewes. And I had heard the buzz of more than a few critics who hailed "Damages" as the next best thing to a real class action suit that would drop a thousand bucks on every American whose mind has been dulled by bad TV. I also knew that the creators--Glenn Kessler, Todd A. Kessler, and Daniel Zelman--had written for "The Sopranos," and so I approached this series thinking I was in for something special.

While "Damages" is an ambitious show--one which tries to be artful, intelligent, edgy, and mystery-packed--I don't think it's quite in the same league as "The Sopranos." Sure, people get whacked, people betray each other, people use each other, and you never know who's on whose side. But if this is the legal system today, I don't think I'm ever going to recommend another student for law school. Every last one of these people is a sleazeball who shouldn't be allowed to vote, much less practice law. And that's probably the biggest similarity that this show has to "The Sopranos." They're no angels.

Like many dramas today, the storyline continues for the entire season, but it makes you wonder if the show is going to flounder its sophomore season the way "Desperate Housewives" did, once the first-season mystery is revealed. Here, it's the world of high stakes litigation, as we watch ruthless litigator Hewes and the worshipful (and scared writ-less) group of young and middle-aged attorneys that she surrounds herself with as they try to win a single lawsuit. Her case? An Enron-style bit of chicanery that saw one of the nation's wealthiest CEOs, Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), manipulate the books to give himself a silver parachute and the rest of his employees a lead balloon. Five thousand employees lost their jobs, their life savings, and their futures, thanks to this guy, and Hewes is out to get him . . . at any cost. If it takes ignoring the employees' representative (who may or may not be in cahoots with Frobisher) or hiring a bright new attorney not because she's the best, but because Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) is close to a woman who could be a key witness, she'll do it. If it means getting one of her employees to pretend he was fired in order to perpetuate the ruse, she'll do it. If it takes blackmail, she'll do it. Even a kindly senior attorney from a rival law firm that first tried to hire Ellen thinks that Hewes is scum.

So how is she different from the man she's after? Well, that's the point, of course, and the creators have tapped into a fairly long-standing tradition in American cinema. Fast-draw cowboys have always been conscious of the thin line between them and the hired guns they're hired to bring down, as are countless cops who know that but for the grace of God they could have been on the other side.

After a kitchen-sink pilot that throws everything at viewers and seems way too self-consciously artsy--if "Blair Witch Hunt" gave you motion sickness, watch out!--"Damages" settles into a comfortable stride as an above-average TV drama. Directed by Mario Van Peebles ("Baadassss!"), the series doesn't have the most distinctive group of actors, but the talent is certainly there. Even Danson brings his A-game, and relative newcomer Anastasia Griffith is especially engaging as Ellen's friend and future sister-in-law.

There are just moments that seem too "pat." It's one thing to give Tony Soprano respect, but when a talented group of adult attorneys sits at the feet of the Master and says, like wide-eyed (and clueless) children, "What can we do about it?," you want to revoke ALL their licenses to practice law. Thankfully, those painfully obvious moments are offset by occasionally humorous ones, as when Frobisher says into his cell phone from the golf course, "I'll be at the ER. My idiot brother-in-law can't drive worth shit," or Hewes opens a package on her desk and, seeing a grenade, remarks, "God, it's gonna be a shitty week." I just wish there were more such moments of snappy dialogue.