Damages: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Damages: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 14, 2019

Damages is the second recent Mill Creek full-series television release that finishes what Sony started, and abandoned, long ago. Sony previously released season one many years ago near the beginning of the Blu-ray format's inception, much like it did Rescue Me's third season, which Mill Creek also rescued by way of an agreeable, but problematic, 16-disc set. Like Rescue Me, Damages was one-and-done under the Sony banner, but at least it was one-and-done with season one rather than a random third season release. Unfortunately, where Mill Creek packed Rescue Me to the gills with bonus content, the studio has left Damages entirely bare. Sony's season one disc offered a handful of extras, but there's nothing on any of the 10 discs, which span all five seasons, included with this set. It's a subpar release overall, unsurprisingly problematic in terms of its A/V presentation and lack of bonus material, but the value proposition, as always, is Mill Creek's selling point, and in that regard the studio doesn't much disappoint.

Official synopsis: Glenn Close (in her two-time Emmy winning role) commands the courtroom and the screen as win-at-all-costs attorney Patty Hewes, staking out her turf against ambitious ex-protégé Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne). The former legal allies battle each other in high stakes cases involving ruthless billionaires, government conspiracies, economic crises, multinational corporations and military scandals. Throughout its remarkable run, the hit thriller also showcases brilliant guest stars and earned multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.

There are several reasons to watch Damages, several reasons why the show has achieved a favorable following and won a number of awards over its five-year run. Interestingly, though, despite its critical success and an envious number of Emmy nominations and wins, the show was dropped from its home at FX after three seasons. It was picked up on the DirectTV exclusive channel Audience Network for its final two seasons. On the move, Glenn Close was quoted as saying she never felt that FX was the right fit and proper home for the show, that the network and its programming was more likely to appeal to fans of FX's more gritty and action-oriented flagship show The Shield (also available on Blu-ray from Mill Creek in what is probably the studio's best overall release to date) rather than a slow-burn legal and character-driven dramatic thriller. Regardless of home, the show maintained a high level of narrative and character development quality and earned critical acclaim across all five seasons.

One of the more novel points of interest is that Damages is not a basic "case of the week" courtroom thriller. Rather than structure itself after any number of classic courtroom dramas of past years -- shows like Perry Mason and Law & Order, which essentially offered a new case with every episode -- Damages instead focuses on a single case over the course of each season. They are all pulled directly from the headlines (as were many from Law & Order), molded after well known and culturally saturated news stories that altogether offer a fairly broad spectrum of legal intrigue and ample opportunity for character growth through both each individual case and along the larger series arc. Corporate scandal, the environment, Ponzi schemes, private security opportunism, and Internet whistleblowing are at the center of each of the five seasons. It's a welcome departure from the normal routine. The ample breathing room allows for much greater season- and series-spanning character growth both near to and away from each season's arcing narrative while exploring each case in much more detail than could be achieved in a standalone episode or even two- or three-part special. That the show builds its stories from recent and widely known headlines offers a facilitated point of entry for the audience, too, providing simple groundworks on top of which much more engrossingly complex stories are built that don't necessarily go with the flow and follow the real-life headlines to real-life outcomes.

Even as so much of the arcing plot lines are concerned with the law and how the characters work the case, the show isn't the type to drop scene and sequence in the courtroom with regularity, if at all. Damages is not concerned with ebbing and flowing through the usual courtroom machinations, with the lawyers on both sides working their witnesses into "gotcha" traps and playing the jury to consider whatever is beneficial to their side, not the pure facts of the case. No, Damages works behind the scenes and plays the legal long game. While there's plenty of law-and-order plot points, the program is much more concerned with the relationship between its primary characters. Damages proves unique in that regard. The show does not dismiss type in terms of its character drama, but it's an interesting structure to watch a show set in the legal world that is less concerned with that legal world and more on how the characters grow within it. Don't go into Damages expecting to watch opportunistic lawyers strut their stuff while in court. Watch it instead for its evolving, and evocative, take on complex characters.

That absence of typical courtroom maneuverings becomes a more interesting point of discussion considering just what kind of character spearheads the show. Glenn Close’s Patty Hewes, the head of her firm Hewes and Associates, is a lawyer at the top of her game, a ruthless sort who is as sharp and smart as she is cunning and manipulative. Her backstory is not notable -- she was raised in the system but suffered abuse and battles demons of her own making from adulthood -- but it does cement her character’s ambitions, focus, and capabilities within workable workplace and personal contexts. Hewes thrives on power, perhaps ironically using hers to take away that which others wield. She isn’t above manipulation, perhaps again ironically in the pursuit of taking down those who have manipulated their way to the top. Close’s performance is a scene-stealer in every sense of the term. She develops the character carefully and plays Hewes to the show’s strengths, revealing subtle hints in most every scene that foreshadow and build and explain, sometimes clearly, sometimes opaquely (much as the show flashes forward with some regularity in heavily stylized cutaways). Whether working the case or working her family, there’s an intoxicating precision to the performance, particularly in her relationship with Ellen; it’s in that relationship’s evolution where the show finds most of its dramatic pull.

Rose Byrne is terrific as the young hotshot lawyer Ellen Parsons, recruited by all the top firms but taking a job at Hewes and Associates after Patty "interviews" Ellen while she is attending her sister's wedding. The young actress finds her breakthrough role in the show, and she pulls off the nearly impossible feat of going toe-to-toe with the legendary Close as the characters grow together and break apart rather quickly. Showrunners Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler, and Daniel Zelman are quick to make their relationship a focal point and evolve it almost as fast. Patty sees Ellen, at first, as a reflection of herself at that age but also as a surrogate daughter of sorts, seeing in her what she might have envisioned for her own daughter, who was stillborn years ago and whose death allowed Patty to maintain focus on her professional ambitions. The dramatic currents that see their relationship grow even more antagonistic cements the show's primary point of interest, and it's Ellen's arc that sees her begin as a reflection of Patty as she is and eventually as she might have been that is the series' most compelling plot arc. Byrne's performance is as layered and personal as Close's, and it's the more critical and complex role of the two as well.

Damages: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mill Creek has crammed the entire 59 episode run of Damages onto ten Blu-ray discs. Each season earns two discs regardless of episode count per (Sony spread season one across three discs). The result is a heavily compressed image in which often severe macroblocking is the hallmark visual characteristic. Backgrounds seem ready to break apart in many scenes. Resultantly, definition is rather poor and the image appears terribly flat. Beyond essential increases in core textural revelations thanks to the 1080p resolution, there's little here that truly commands the screen with stable and intimate high definition goodness. Core facial features, clothing lines, and environmental details are visible, but the image never can reveal much of anything with pinpoint clarity or eye-catching revelatory intricacy. Things like human hair lack all but the most modest definition, failing to find any separation or individuality. Additionally, the image is heavily noisy much of the time, a snowy, sloppy morass that, along with the extreme macroblocking, results in a fairly major stumbling block to image stability and general enjoyability. Colors are slightly better, but the palette appears fairly routine. There's little dazzle and precious few moments of eye-catching tonal intensity. Colors are rendered more than a bit flat, with essential clothing, skin, and environmental hues presenting well enough at a baseline level, but expect to find no color intricacy, interesting contrast, or anything of the sort. The various flash forward scenes are extremely stylistically messy, but at least deliberately so. Black levels are excessively absorbing but at least don't push overly pale or gray/purple. This is not an ideal Blu-ray presentation. It's watchable, and the problems occasionally diminish to nuisance levels rather than scene breakers, but for the most part the compression related issues are too much for the image to overcome.

Damages: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Damages at least features a fairly stable and agreeable DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The track is active, obvious from the outset with the capably delivered opening title theme, which offers well balanced front end width and surround implementation, carrying with it good instrumental clarity. Additional music is forceful and agreeably dense, whether overlaid songs or background music in a bar. The track makes further use of surrounds to bring street level environments to life. City sounds blend together to create a healthy, natural, immersive din that does well to draw the listener into the show's environments. Added effects, a few forceful here, a few more nuanced there, are placed and presented smartly and naturally. The track can be rather forceful, perhaps a surprise for a program of this nature, but Mill Creek has ensured a respectable listen in all areas. Dialogue does propel the show at its core, and the spoken word is consistently clear and detailed and well prioritized with a steady center channel output.

Damages: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Mill Creek's 10-disc, full series Blu-ray release of Damages contains no supplemental content. Sony's season one Blu-ray contains two audio commentary tracks, a pair of featurettes, an interactive supplement, and assorted deleted scenes. It's disappointing that Mill Creek couldn't have at least ported those extras over, particularly considering the avalanche of supplemental features the studio bundled in with Rescue Me's complete series release. What's more, a quick Internet search reveals that Sony's Damages DVD releases for seasons two, three, four, and five all included a number of extras in each set. Why the studio could include the Rescue Me bonuses and not the Damages supplements is a mystery, and a disappointment.

This 10-disc set is housed in an oversized Amaray case with each disc placed on its own hub. Disc artwork is identical across all 10 discs, featuring the same character images and text layout; about all that changes are the episode listings and the identifying disc and season markers. The slip box and the Amaray case do no share artwork. The slip box features the usual summary, picture collage, tech specs, and other assorted text on the back. The Amaray case offers the same text and tech cluster at the bottom but features different rear artwork without the synopsis. It's a simple but well packaged set that should not disappoint most any buyer.

Damages: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Damages was one of the best shows on television during its five-season run. Two compelling lead characters, terrifically acted by Glenn Close and Rose Byrne, battling within a complex and crisis-laden world of high stakes legal battles, are the series' anchors. The show is well versed in its world, a world which evolves with each new season but remains firmly grounded in its top two clashing characters. It's compelling from the outset and rarely stumbles in a significant way on through to the close. Mill Creek's Blu-ray comes about as expected, with the exception of the total lack of bonus content. After Rescue Me and The Shield, both jam-packed with extra content, it's disappointing that the rather ample assortment of bonuses that exist were not brought over for this release. Video is problematic as well, but the 5.1 lossless soundtrack is fairly good. Mill Creek's push to pour value into every release comes up a little short on this one. Wait for a price drop.