Too Close for comfort

Few actresses do calculating, cold and ruthless as well as Glenn Close. There's a reason she was cast as Cruella De Vil, the ne plus ultra of female evil doers.

In Patty Hewes, Close's character on Damages, we get Close at her despicable, devious best. And that makes for some seriously addictive TV.

Thank the heavens above Damages wasn't made as a movie, offering only a scant 60 minutes of Patty Hewes; as a television series, we get to wallow in hour after hour after hour of pitiless manipulation, relentless ambition, and Machiavellian scheming on a scale seldom before seen on screen (large or small).

Rose Byrne, Ted Danson, Tate Donovan--they all more than do their part--but this is Glenn's show. She runs it, she owns it, she chews it up and she sword swallows it whole.

Suffice it to say, I'm glad that I didn't find this show until this summer, because had I found it when it first aired last summer (as in oh seven), and then had to wait until sometime next year (as in, hello?!, oh nine??), I'd be foaming at the mouth. Seriously, even now I can't believe that I have to wait four to six months before Season Two airs. Four to six, I say, because I can't find a clear answer anywhere as to when FX is going to air Season Two--January, April, January, April? Somebody tell me, please? I think I'm going through Hewes withdrawal.