FX's 'Damages' : Lawyers Who Are Worth Their Billable Hour

Also figuring in the story are Noah Bean as a young doctor named David Connor, who loves Parsons at his peril, and Anastasia Griffith as Connor's sister, a young entrepreneur who wants to open a restaurant in New York. In what way, if any, is that connected to the Frobisher case? Well, you might be surprised. Michael Nouri is seen briefly, about 40 minutes into the premiere, as the husband from whom Hewes is separated -- as virtually any husband would be. She's married to her work.

Everyone is suspicious and just about everybody is suspect, so it actually works out sort of evenly. But there's no question we want Hewes and her firm to put the screws to Frobisher, who personifies every arrogant CEO who ever went to prison or managed to avoid it, unscrupulous to the core. When he strolls across the private tennis court built on his estate, you wish a meteor would hit and wipe them both out. But meteors never seem to be around when you need them, so Hewes and her firm will have to do the work themselves.

Danson is shrewd in making Frobisher more than evil, more than a symbol, whether looking tenderly at his children and contemplating the divorce that might accompany his legal problems or, in next week's episode, snorting coke as he gambols with a high-priced hooker in the back of his lousy limousine. Danson keeps Frobisher convincingly despicable.

The creators, executive producers and writers of this bang-up job of a pilot are Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman. "Damages" might be the most seductive legal series since "L.A. Law," and set designers have made the Hewes offices even more sleekly gorgeous (though they pale in comparison to Hewes's Manhattan penthouse).

This is serious stuff, with none of the campy capers of current lawyer shows, and solid impact from the get-go. The language, it should be noted, is often harsh and the situations strictly adult.

Somehow fall would seem a more appropriate setting for the premiere of a major new series as good as this one, but television is changing, and the seasons aren't what they used to be. Maybe there's just one big season now, and it never stops. Regardless, "Damages" is grippingly hot stuff -- just the thing to curl up with there, on the edge of your seat.

Damages (one hour) debuts tonight at 10 on FX.