THE TV COLUMN : Thrilling Damages, Close back on FX for Season 2
Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Glenn Close (right) stars in Damages alongside Rose Byrne. The legal thriller airs at 9 p.m. Wednesdays on cable's FX channel.
Maybe because so much of the broadcast networks' dramatic fare is mediocre or hackneyed, most of my fellow TV critics turn to cable for quality.
Heading many of the Top 10 lists is FX's legal thriller Damages starring Glenn Close. It's a case of a big-time movie star finding a small-screen niche that seems to be tailor-made for her.
How good is Close? She won last year's best actress Emmy and a Golden Globe for the role of Patty Hewes. Let's not forget her Emmy nomination for a previous turn on The Shield.
Season Two of the cuttingedge adult series kicked in last week. The show airs at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Cutting edge? Adult? Yes, those are code words that mean the show will definitely offend some viewers with its themes. But I've found that any show more edgy than Wheel of Fortune will offend somebody.
FX is still basic cable and as such you won't see the more graphic stuff that's standard on premium cable such as HBO and Showtime. Still the adult-oriented programming on FX, such as Nip/Tuck, Sons of Anarchy, The Shield and Rescue Me, makes the channel the poster child for offensive television by media watchdog outfits that want to keep TV back with Ozzie and Harriet and the Cleaver family.
FX is what it is. If you don't like it, don't go there.
If, however, there are no 10-year-olds around to be warped for life and you want stimulating adult entertainment with quality acting and provocative themes, Damages should suit you just fine.
Natural State viewers will especially enjoy the performance of adopted Arkansan Ted Danson, who played evil billionaire Arthur Frobisher ("the most hated man in America") last season. No, Frobisher was not shot dead as we were led to believe. It was a close thing, however.
Asked by TV critics in Beverly Hills this past summer about how often his not-dead character will appear in Season Two, Danson said, "I truly don't know, but I didn't last year either. So, it's all good."
Danson is 61 and a juicy part like Frobisher doesn't come along that often. We asked the star of Cheers and Becker how playing a villain affected his career. Does he get lots more villain offers now?
"The writers' strike was an unfortunate little moment," Danson said about the hitch in job offers. "And now the potential - I don't know. Yes, to answer your question, absolutely. And I'm still very much available to do Larry David's show [Curb Your Enthusiasm]. So I'm hoping yes. Let's go with yes."
Danson earned rave reviews for his portrayal of Frobisher.
"True," he acknowledged. "Nice, huh? I am so grateful to be a part of this cast, to be a part of this show. For me, I mean, that part [the glowing reviews] is hard to tell, you know. If I had 400 film scripts in my lap, I could be a little more arrogant about my answer, but for me what it did was it made me really excited about going to work as an actor again, and that is worth everything to me.
"I'm really excited to be acting. That had kind of diminished for me a little bit. So I am so grateful for that."
Where are we now in the labyrinthine world of Damages?
Last week, the new season picked up a month after the end of the first. Sweet, sweet lawyer Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) now has revenge, sweet revenge, in her heart. Her target is her evil, manipulative boss Patty.
The devious Frobisher, a mere shadow of his former self, ought to watch his back as well.
Who's new to the show? How's this for star power: Oscar winner William Hurt (Kiss of the Spider Woman); Oscar winner Marsha Gay Harden (Pollock) and Deadwood sheriff Timothy Olyphant.
Hurt portrays Daniel Purcell and it's his case that's at the center of the new season. He plays a research scientist who has some sort of mysterious past connection to Patty.
Purcell's wife is found beaten to death, but the case soon becomes far more than what it appears to be on the surface.
The preseason buzz was that as wonderful as the veteran actors are, it will turn out to be Byrne's season to shine. Her character is no longer the innocent babe in the woods. Her fiance is dead and her claws have come out.
One warning - the series will again jump back and forth six months in time. Some viewers love this artistic device; others find it intrusive and irritating. I go with the latter.
The better news is that the producers and writers have deliberately fashioned the first few episodes so that new viewers can join the series without feeling lost.
MIDSEASON FILLER
For every complex, intriguing, engaging well-scripted, brilliantly acted drama on television, there are 63 cheaply made reality shows killing time and watched by viewers who don't so much want to invest in TV as have it wash over them.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
The midseason reality-show filler fluff is upon us:
Superstars of Dance, 7 p.m. Mondays, NBC. It's dancing international professionals. U-S-A! U-S-A!
True Beauty, 9 p.m. Mondays, ABC. Pretty people Tyra Banks and Ashton Kutcher produce this series where hot chicks and hot dudes are judged on their "inner beauty." Good luck with that.
Homeland Security U.S.A., 7 p.m. Tuesdays, ABC. Cameras follow those charged with keeping out drugs, illegal scofflaws and riffraff.
13: Fear is Real, 7 p.m. Wednesdays, The CW. Thirteen pretty young people are dumped in a swamp where they are "eliminated" one by one. The Real World meets Blair Witch.
Howie Do It, 7 p.m. Fridays, NBC. Howie Mandel meets Candid Camera. Wake me when it's over.
The TV column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
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