Airdate: Damages

Set and filmed in New York City , this gripping series – acclaimed as like no legal drama ever seen on television – features a powerful star line-up headed by Emmy and Golden Globe winner Glenn Close as ruthless and brutal litigator Patty Hewes, and Australia ’s Rose Byrne who plays ambitious law graduate Ellen Parsons.

Other central characters include rancorous billionaire businessman Arthur Frobisher, played by Emmy Award winner Ted Danson; Tony Award nominee Tate Donovan who stars as Patty Hewes’ loyal colleague, Tom Shayes; Zeljko Ivanek as Frobisher’s cunning lawyer Ray Fiske; and siblings David (Noah Bean) and Katie Connor (Anastasia Griffith). David is Ellen’s kind-hearted fiancé and his sister Katie is an insecure restaurateur.

DAMAGES begins with a distraught Ellen Parsons (Byrne) running out of a building into the streets of New York half-naked and covered in blood. Who or what is she running from?

The story then shifts back six months to when Parsons is offered a job with the law firm Nye, Everett & Polk. However the position is unexpectedly withdrawn when they discover she has also been invited to go for an interview at the high-profile firm Hewes & Associates, led by Patty Hewes (Close).

Patty Hewes, a relentless litigator, is the lawyer of choice for clients battling corporate titans. She is fighting businessman Arthur Frobisher (Danson), accused of an illegal stock sale that saved his fortune but ruined his employees. Ignoring efforts to settle out of court by the tycoon’s lawyer, Ray Fiske (Ivanek), Patty plans to send Frobisher a costly message. But when the devastated employees vote to accept the settlement, a furious Hewes explodes on Shayes (Donovan) for failing to find out about their decision earlier.

Ellen discovers that her fiancé’s sister, Katie Connor, was working as Frobisher’s chef when the crooked stock sale went through. She suspects she has found a crack that could blow the case wide open – but Frobisher is an investor in Katie’s new restaurant and she is reluctant to do anything that could jeopardise it.

Ellen begins to fear she is caught up in a conspiracy that Patty Hewes has engineered to apprehend Frobisher and walks deeper into the trap she has set for him. But nothing is as it seems … and Ellen finally realises she can trust no one.