Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced that the FX legal drama Damages will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray disc on January 29. The three disc set, nearly ten hours in length, will include all thirteen episodes of the first season of the suspenseful drama series starring Glenn Close and Ted Danson.

As noted earlier on this site, the main innovation of the show is its willingness to take a realistic look at the character of the crusading lawyer:

Close’s character, an immensely wealthy tort lawyer whose specialty is class action suits against deep-pocketed businesses, is every bit as scoundrelly as any of the defendants she attacks, and perhaps more so.

The narrative slowly reveals just how manipulative and ruthless she really is, and her actions soon belie her claims of public-spiritedness. She is immensely wealthy, hugely powerful, and ambitious for more of each.

Damages, in short, is no Erin Brockovich, no simple left-wing morality tale in which one side is basically selfless and goodhearted and the other is entirely greedy and irresponsible. Damages is a much more balanced look at its characters’ choices, and hence a great deal better in artistic terms.

As the series progressed, the businessman played by Ted Danson was revealed to be a progressively worse and more despicable character, and for a while it seemed that Close’s crusading left-liberal lawayer was going to be whitewashed after all. But it does not turn out that way at all, as the producers wisely incorporate some very good plot twists in the last couple of episodes.

Damages is television of a very high order indeed.

Recommended.