Blu-ray Review: Damages

THE MOVIE: 4 1/2 stars out of 5

Damages is a series that ran on the cable channel FX beginning on July 24, 2007 and is presented here on Blu-Ray in its entirety, consisting of 13 episodes. Set in New York’s world of high stakes corporate litigation, Damages follows the lives of plaintiff’s class action litigator Patty Hewes (Glenn Close), her ambitious associate Ellen Parsons (Rose Bryne) and their litigation target, Arthur Froblisher (Ted Danson) one of the country’s wealthiest CEOs. This series is very well written and acted with plenty of unexpected plot twists. While the Arthur Frobisher character is patterned on some of the executives involved in the corporate scandals of the past several years, the Patty Hewes character is just as dirty and ruthless as he is and is an amalgam of some of the worst attributes of some of the excesses seen in class action litigation which at times borders on legal extortion. Recommended.

THE VIDEO: 4 stars out of 5

Encoded with AVC and presented in in its original aspect ratio of 1:85:1, this encode was somewhat of a disappointment. On the plus side, the video has very accurate colors. Primary colors look excellent as do flesh tones which are spot on. Black levels are good but not great robbing the image of the three dimensionality of the best looking transfers. The real issue I have with the look of this release is the general softness of the image. Given that I did not see this series on TV, I can’t compare the two. However, my guess is that the softness is part of the master and not the fault of the transfer and was done for either artistic reasons or reasons related to vanity. While the series looks good, it lacks the sharpness, clarity and detail of the better looking HDTV series such as CSI-NY and the Blu-Ray release of the third season of Lost. While this is far from a bad looking series, it comes short of what I expected of a new TV series.

THE AUDIO: 4 5/8 stars out of 5

The audio on this release is presented in Dolby True HD and is one fine sounding audio presentation. The sound is smooth, rich and open with excellent dialogue which is well recorded and well placed in the mix. The music on this release sounds wonderful with a full dynamic sound and excellent bass The sound field while somewhat front heavy as one would expect from a drama, employs the surrounds very effectively to convey a convincing sense of space, from the law offices, apartments and jail. It sounds as though you are in those spaces as you watch the show. Very well done. I am sure that fans of this series will be very happy with the audio on this release.

IN CONCLUSION

I can fully recommend this release to fans and non fans of this series. While I was disappointed with the quality of the video, I have no reservations at all with either the audio or the quality of the show itself, which are both top notch. Recommended.

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