Friday 11 September 2009

Damages - Season 1












WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS

So I finished watching the first season of Damages a while ago and I just wanted to kind of air my thoughts on it, here goes. I felt that of course Glenn Close and Ted Danson were amazing in it, this was a role you wouldn't imagine him being able to play but he did it wonderfully. He manages to be a real asshole while yet still make you feel a little sorry for him (the episode "She Spat at Me" sticks out as an example of this) he never faults. The women who played Ellen (I forget her name) and the guy that played her husband (through no fault of their own) paled in when comparing, that is to say they weren't bad (far from it) but when you hold them up against the likes of Glenn Close they just can't match up. As far as the story goes, for the most part I found it very compelling, more so the things set in the past (when they would jump to 6 months earlier, 5 months earlier etc) but the stuff that was the present time line felt VERY stretched out, I kept feeling as though they were trying to milk for all it was worth by giving little tiny pieces leaving you to make your own assumptions based on what you saw (which of course they would later reveal "No this actually meant something else!") - it would have been extremely frustrating watching it week by week, but being able to marathon it on DVD this wasn't nearly as big a problem. This is really my only real gripe with show having so far only seen Season 1, other than that it was a great interesting ride and there's definitely a lot to build upon in Season 2 based on the final "twist". I'll admit I am curious to see what they do, I'm hoping they don't introduce a brand new story but instead use the non-linear format they have and bring us some sort of big mystery based upon what we found out in the final episode.