After birthing "Damages" early last year, exec producers Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman had little time to enjoy their new series.
The pilot was shot in February, edited in March, picked up in April and put on cable TV three months later. And talk about being rushed: The guys were cutting the final episode until 4 a.m. the day before it ran.
But now that FX president John Landgraf has given the show a boost of confidence with a pickup for two more additional seasons -- after the show seemed to teeter on the brink of cancellation -- Zelman and the brothers Kessler have plenty of time to plot out where attorney Patty Hewes and company go from here.
"The first season intended to build an audience by bringing them on a thrill ride," says Todd A. Kessler. "We have more time to think and process now. The challenge is trying to do things that stick as closely as possible to what entertains us and hope that entertains audiences as well."
Glenn Close, who formed a tight relationship with the network after co-starring on "The Shield," earned a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Hewes, an attorney whose win-at-all-cost mentality long ago eroded her sense of morality.
While many lawyer-based dramas save their best scenes for the courtroom, "Damages" preferred to make its season-long case long before it ever reached a jury. Specifically, "Damages" found its mojo in defining how power -- and, in this rare case for a show about TV lawyers, power held by a woman -- can shake up a legal firm that willingly eats its own to snare a multimillion-dollar settlement.
Add the combustible ingredients of a naive young attorney (Rose Byrne) trying to make a name for herself in the legal world, a high-powered exec (Ted Danson) who has bilked his employees out of their retirement funds and is willing to commit murder to keep his fortune, and opposing counsel who's smitten with a key witness, and there were plenty of reasons for Landgraf to want to see this story continued -- with one caveat.
"For season two, we don't want to repeat ourselves," Kessler says.
Given the imagination that powered the first 13 episodes, there seems to be little chance of that.
Best episode: "Pilot." Seeing Ellen (Byrne) run bloody through the streets of Gotham, without understanding why, proved a great hook to draw viewers in. Plus, the way Patty (Close) bluffed a rival attorney and score a $150 million settlement established her as a character worth watching.
Underrated character: Arthur Frobisher's attorney, Ray Fiske (Zeljko Ivanek), had to balance all the legal maneuvers Hewes threw at him, all the while dealing with a client whose eccentricities and self-absorption made his defense monumentally more difficult.
Great line: "Don't have children," Patty says. "Have wives instead. You can leave your wife, but you can't leave your children."
Contact Stuart Levine at
stuart.levine@variety.com