The first season of "Damages" can be downloaded (iTunes) for $1.99/episode or $23.99 for all of the first season's 13 eps.

It's a little more expensive than renting, but it's a great alternative if the rental store happens to be out of the episodes you want to see. Or if you want to see Ep. #1 just to see how you like the show.

I wish I could download Season 2, but it's currently not available.

I thought the first episode was amazing. If possible, just as good as Season One, which immediately puts it ahead of Mad Men for the moment. (Though Mad Men had an impossible act to follow with the first episode of the series being the best opening episode in television history and all that.)

I was stressing and stressing about who played Sam, the money man. He looked so familiar and I couldn't read the print saying his name. Finally Dolores figured it out. It's James Naughton, with whom I worked closely a couple of years ago on my song for the Yankees. He's good, too--as are Hurt, Close, and Byrne. In fact, they're much better than good.

Season Two looks just as addictive as the first one.

But, yes--good call, carrobin--it seems Tom Aldredge (Uncle Pete) should see Ellen cohorting with the agents. And as Marj says, maybe he has.

Love the scene with Regis and Kelly. Makes you wonder: how many jovial, convivial talk show guests are evil and crazy when the cameras aren't on?

January Jones (Betty on Mad Men) gets a stunning photo essay in the new Vanity Fair. James Wolcott writes it, and says it for national consumption: Hitchcock would have used Jones.

And since I posted the NY Times review...

Just as I feared. The Times gives the second season of Damages a bad review. There are some slight spoilers so read at your own peril.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/arts/television/07dama.html

January Jones (Betty on Mad Men) gets a stunning photo essay in the new Vanity Fair. James Wolcott writes it, and says it for national consumption: Hitchcock would have used Jones.

But the bit that really grabbed me was the news about a remake of "The Prisoner"--one of the all-time great TV series. I'm uneasy about it, but the fact that Ian McKellen will be Number 2 means I have to check it out.

As for the NYTimes review, remember that Alessandra Stanley is the woman who had a serious girl-crush on Sarah Palin for most of the second half of 2008, so I don't trust her about women--and certainly not now that she has panned the impressive performance by Rose Byrne. Far from being unready for the new demands of Ellen Parsons, Byrne meets them handily while never breaking a sweat. She's transmogrified into the cynical revenger and has managed to remain the same rather likeable young woman in the bargain. Love Timothy Olyphant's line (and his reading of it, because I've been an Olyphant fan for years):

"A couple more of those (drinks) and you'll be trading one program for another."

On the basis of the first episode, I think Damages has the potential to top itself in sophomore year.

...
Btw, Billy, what issue of Vanity Fair are the January Jone's photo's in? The latest I received has Tina Fay on the cover.