Damages: The Complete First Season |  | Directors: Allen Coulter, Daniel Attias, Ed Bianchi, Greg Yaitanes, Guy Ferland
Actors: Glenn Close, Rose Byrne, Zeljko Ivanek, Noah Bean, Tate Donovan
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $49.95
Buy New: $22.79
as of 2/10/2010 05:23 EST details
You Save: $27.16 (54%)
New (23) Used (4) Collectible (2) from $22.79
Seller: digitaleyes_dvdplanet
Rating:  107 reviews
Sales Rank: 329
Format: AC-3, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 99
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 3
Running Time: 581 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.7
MPN: 24441
UPC: 043396244412
EAN: 0043396244412
ASIN: B000YW8RPE
Release Date: January 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Set in New York s world of high stakes litigation Damages follows the lives of Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) the nation s most revered and most reviled litigator and her bright ambitious prot g e Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) as they become embroiled in a class action lawsuit targeting Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson) 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.System Requirements:Run Time: 581 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 043396244412 Manufacturer No: 24441
Amazon.com
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
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 107
 Best Drama Ever! January 30, 2010
C. Smith (Pell City, AL)
Damages is the most captivating and intriguing shows ever. Glenn Close is brilliant!! I love this show, you will not be disappointed!!
Excellent Show January 30, 2010
E. Poehlmann (Cincinnati, Ohio United States)
This is one of the best shows i've watched in a long time, it's absolutely riveting, and i can't ever take my eyes off the screen. an excellent addition to any collection
 Too Much of a Cliche January 6, 2010
Randy Kadish (New York, NY)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I guess I'm in the minority. I didn't like this series. IMHO it suffers from two serious flaws.
The first flaw: The main characters Patty Hewes and Arthur Frobisher are - like so many of today's television and movie characters - repulsive and walking cliches. Neither character stives to do the right thing just because it is right. And neither is troubled by an inner conflict that makes them question their values and, therefore, affects their decisions. Hewes and Frobisher are characters that we've seen many, many times before.
The third major character, Ellen Parsons - unlike the characters on Lost, for example - is just too one-dimensional to be interesting. She too doesn't seem to be motivated by ideals, or anything interesting, for that matter.
Finally, none of these characters have an interesting past that shows us how and why they've evolved.
Second flaw: The plot is also a cliche. The reason the writers keep fast-forwarding to "the big event" is a sign that their storyline is not strong enough to hold our interest. Haven't we heard all too often about corporate greed and corruption?
And so I ask, whatever happened to television series like Combat or The Fugitive where we have characters who strive to do the right thing, characters we can root for?
Perhaps Damages, along with movies like The Departed, are a sad sign of our times. Personally, I'd like to be inspired for a change.
Damages - The Complete First Season December 31, 2009
Joseph Haggard Jr.
Here's something that totally caught me by surprise. "Damages" is a series that airs on the cable channel FX, and about a year ago I started coming across it on FX. It looked like an interesting show. I know that just a couple of months earlier it had won a couple of Emmy Awards and was nominated for Best Drama Series. The first time it aired was in 2007, and at that time I had no idea what this show was all about. That was until I saw bits and pieces of some of the episodes on FX airing in reruns (this was just before season two premiered earlier this year) and got a brief glimpse at "Damages". Then I got "Damages" - The Complete First Season for Christmas, watched all 13 episodes, and was blown away at what I saw.
The first season of "Damages" is great television indeed. It's about lawyers and litigators at the legal firm of Hewes & Associates involved in a class action lawsuit against a corrupt millionaire. The series focuses on two memorable leading characters: Patty Hewes, the tough-as-nails litigator and founder of the firm; and Ellen Parsons, the young lawyer Hewes hires to be her protege. These are two of the most fascinating characters I have seen on television in quite sometime. And they're surrounded by very interesting supporting characters: Arthur Frobisher, the corrupt millionaire; Tom Shayes, Hewes' right hand man at the firm; Ray Fiske, Frobishers' lawyer and friend; and David Connor, Parsons' doctor fiance. All these characters are smack in the middle of all that goes on here, as well as other characters that are involved with the class action case that looms over them. For these people it's win at all costs, which includes blackmail and murder. The show uses a different technique for a series to tell its story. It starts at a specific point of time, and throughout much of its 13 episodes "Damages" is shown in flashbacks to tell the audience what happened. Then it all comes together in the last few episodes. I don't know if this story construction has ever been used for a television series before, but it's the first time I've ever seen a series use constant flashbacks like this. It might be distracting for some viewers, but I had no problem with it. In fact, I found it to be fascinating. Plus there's plenty of mystery and suspense throughout that keep me on the edge of my seat because I was constantly wondering what was going to happen to these characters. In the first episode we find out that one of the characters ends up getting murdered, and throughout the rest of the episodes the tension builds up on how that character gets bumped off as well as what leads to it. Same thing applies to the other characters too. It's a gripping suspense-thriller.
"Damages" was created by Todd Kessler, Glenn Kessler, and Daniel Zelman, whose credits include the great HBO series "The Sopranos". Glenn Close gets the role of a lifetime as the wicked Patty Hewes. This role won her a well-deserved Emmy for Best Actress in a Drama Series in 2008 (she followed that with a second Emmy for season two as well). Australian actress Rose Byrne also gets a starmaking role as protege Ellen Parsons. Ted Danson, very funny as Sam Malone on the classic '80s sitcom "Cheers", gets very serious as the evil Arthur Frobisher, and is very good here. Danson received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, but lost the award to his "Damages" co-star Zeliko Ivanek, who won for his equally good role as Frobishers' lawyer Ray Fiske. Tate Donovan and Noah Bean are exceptional as Tom Shayes and David Connor, respectively. And there are also smaller supporting turns by Peter Facinelli, Philip Bosco and Peter Reigert, all very good here. The writing and directing is excellent (some of the directors here have directed episodes of "The Sopranos" and "House, M.D."), and the production values first-rate.
"Damages" - The Complete First Season is a pleasant surprise. If you like strong acting, writing, and directing in a drama series that has plenty of mystery and suspense in it, then I highly recommend this series.
 I wanted to love this series. But in the end I couldn't. December 6, 2009
Tim Lieder (New York, NY)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 107
|
|
|
![Caprica Season 1 [HD]](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0031UEO0I.01._AA75_PU_PU-5_.jpg)