Since I don’t have cable, I catch a lot of shows on DVD – a great invention. The downside is that there’s no water cooler discussion because everyone else watched it (whatever “it” is) years ago, but the upside is that you can blast through an entire season in a few evenings.
Just finished watching the first season of Damages, and, damn, what a great show. Ridiculously twisty plot, moral ambiguity right and left, back and forth in time, Ted Danson as a villain – loved it. My “best show ever” pick is the first season of Murder One, and I just emailed my friend Mark, a fellow MO acolyte, that this might be almost as good as that.
Nothing much to say beyond that, just – really looking forward to season two, though I don’t dare hope it will be quite as good.
As well as Season 3. Not to give away spoilers, but the cast includes Keith Carradine, Lily Tomlin, Martin Short, and Campbell Scott, who all turn in fine dramatic performances.
Update: I didn’t like Season 2 quite as much as S1, but definitely was absorbed start to finish. Looking forward to S3, disk 1 of which will get there tomorrow. (Love ya, Netflix – you always seem to give me the just-released stuff right away despite the “long wait” annotations.)
I thought S3 was better than S2. The S3 Finale was awesome (just saw it last week). Season 4 just started on DirecTV last Wednesday…it’s looking pretty good. John Goodman is the new villain.
It’s not even on cable, now. The ratings weren’t strong enough for FX to renew it, and other cable networks passed on it, too, so it’s exclusively on DirecTV for this season on Sony’s Audience Network.
Season 1 was definitely the strongest, because of Ted Danson and his excellent portrayal of an complex villain. (Zelkjo Ivanek, or however you spell his name, also helped in that regard, although his accent was bad to the point of distraction). Season 2’s villain, that guy from The Wire, was just sort of comic-book evil, and so I was pretty meh on that season. Season 3’s villain, the soft-spoken alcoholic son of Madoff, was also pretty interesting to watch.
But really, I’ve kind of soured on the show, because the main character (Ellen?), who went such incredible growth during the first season, is now kind of static. She’s just a jaded, (rightfully) cynical lawyer, and it’s not that interesting to me. Also, that fact that she would ever even consider working with Patty – the woman who tried to kill her – totally derails any suspension of belief.
Seriously. The character didn’t need to be southern for any particular reason, so every time he opened his mouth I was pulled right out of the story for a second.
For like the first three episodes I hated him and his accent…
… but he eventually grew on me. In the end I was rooting for Ellen, her fiance and him. I already knew Ellen’s fiance would die and that things would work out (more or less) for the show’s protagonist so he was the only missing piece for me. I was all sadface when everything when to shit for him and he wound up offing himself. I’m glad that he continues to appear as a ghost/hallucination/memory.
I too am pissed off that they are showing it only on Direct TV.
I have all these cable channels, and nothin’?!
Crap.
Might have to buy that season when it is finished - then again, I can watch them all, back-to-back, so maybe that is not a bad thing.
Just finished S3, which is definitely better than S2. Liked how a bunch of the earlier story lines that had been left dangling finally got dealt with.
The whole thing about them making a movie about Arthur Frobisher was pretty funny – esp. when the “actor” did Ted Danson squint for squint, twitch for twitch.
