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There aren’t any eccentric characters that make you
laugh at them nor are there any cases neatly tied up at
the conclusion of each episode with a bow on them. “Damages”
follows a single case and the follow out from that case
from its beginning until its bitter end. “Damages” begins
with Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne from “28 Weeks Later” and
“Sunshine”) bloodied and battered walking the streets of
New York until she is discovered by the police. From there
the series takes a trip back in time six months earlier
a case that Ellen worked on as a new attorney at Patricia
Hewes (Glenn Close) & Associates. It’s a civil case where
Hewes is suing multi-billionaire Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson)
for hollowing out his company and robbing 5000 employees
of his company of their pension plans in the process. Having
escaped the prosecution of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Frosbisher
now must defend himself from claims that he benefited by
selling his stocks before his company collapsing and getting
away scot-free. Frobisher of course insists that he is innocent
and was as much a victim losing the company he cared for
as the employees. We see the entire case unfold before our
eyes, the double dealings, double crosses and underhanded
attempts by both the Hewes and Frobisher’s attorney to gain
the upper hand in this litigation. ***
“Damages” is compelling, fascinating and well written
featuring a wide variety of characters with their own agendas.
No one truly is an angel here although the naïve Ellen comes
mighty close as she finds herself dragged into Hewes’ world
and manipulated as much by her boss as she is by the opposition
in the case. A personal connection between Ellen and the
case is uncovered which also makes Ellen suspect that the
only reason she got the job was so that she could be used
to gain the upper hand in the case. In the process Ellen
sees her ambitions and dreams pull further and further away
from her reach just as she thinks she is climbing the corporate
ladder of success. Hewes tells Ellen at one point, “trust
no one” and the same could be applied to everyone involved
in the case. ***
Academy Award winner Close, Emmy Award winner Danson,
Bryne, Tate Donovan, Peter Riegert, Michael Nouri and a
host of film/TV/Broadway veterans bring these characters
to life with a vibrancy rare in series television. If the
story sounds like it was ripped from the headlines, the
Enron, Worldcom and other scandals where corporate CEO’s
betrayed the public trust and manipulated the market inspired
the series but it’s the compelling characters and drama
that will make you stick around to the conclusion of this
13 episode FX series. ---
Image & Sound:
The opening had me scratching my head in puzzlement—it
looked like crappy low-rez video. It’s a façade like everything
else here as it is simply a sequence showing us the raw
reality that Ellen finds himself trapped in. As the show
jumps back six months in time to the beginning of the case,
we get a beautifully rendered high definition video image.
There are a couple of problems with video noise that occur.
It isn’t a perfect presentation on Blu-ray but it looks
extremely good. ***
The lower rez DVD looks good as well with a nice presentation,
sharp images and accurate fleshtones. ***
Audio sounds marvelous with a TrueHD 5.1 mix that uses
the format quite well. It isn’t compressed and has terrific
dynamic range. The 5.1 format is nicely used given that
this is primarily a dialogue driven show with nice ambient
effects captured in the surround channels. ---
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