In just two minutes, this collection of snippets from the past two seasons which opened last night's season premiere managed to evoke all the show's complexity and darkness. The segment's closing reel of the show's major character deaths to date served as the perfect climax - I hope Lost does something similar in opening their season next week, especially if the timeline does reset.
I've been thinking about Damages recently not only because of the new season starting, but also in relation to the premiere of The Deep End last week. Deep End gets compared to Grey's Anatomy frequently, but it shares a lot with Damages in claiming to depict a sort of high-flying, moneyed legal world. The difference is that The Deep End seems to function in a black-and-white universe - money grubbing sharks BAD! pro bono work GOOD! (I mean, obviously pro bono work is good, but pretending that a big fancy law firm wouldn't love the good press that can come out of devoting some hours to philanthropy is just dumb) - while Damages has carved a unique niche within the often rote law-firm-set television subgenre by taking a shark character and making her the champion of the "little guy" in representing class-action plaintiffs. The writers of Damages have created a wonderfully nuanced show by residing solely in grey areas, and the people who make The Deep End could learn a thing or two from them going forward.
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