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| Rose Byrne (left) and Glenn Close earned several awards for their work in "Damages" (DirecTV) |
FX’s
Damages – from creators Todd A.
Kessler, Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman (they go by KZK) – erupted in the
2007-08 television season, along with Mad
Men and Breaking Bad, as a major
new entrant in the prestige television landscape. Its first season won three
Emmys – for leading actress Glenn Close, supporting actor Zeljko Ivanek and
casting – and was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series, writing, directing
and more. Its next two seasons earned a combined 12 nominations.
Despite
very good reviews and featuring some of the very best actors on television –
Close, Rose Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Ted Danson, Martin Short
and Lily Tomlin among them – Damages
never really clicked with viewers, and finished out its run on DirecTV where few were paying
attention.
Format-wise, Damages
was ahead of its time. Its non-linear, heavily-serialized structure likely
required too much commitment and investment on a week-to-week basis, and Netflix-style
binge-watching hadn’t yet been put into effect. Its run ended in 2012, and all
seasons have been available on Netflix since. According to reports, it fared
a lot better on the streaming site than it did as a week-to-week program
for FX-DirecTV – and executives paid attention. In January of this year,
Netflix commissioned a 13-episode family-themed thriller from KZK set in the
Florida Keys. Today, a title, release date and formal cast list have been
announced, and it’s looking pretty exciting.
All
episodes of the series, titled Bloodline,
will be released in March 2015, a prime slot for Emmy consideration next year.
No real information about the story has been given – Netflix released a
thirty-second teaser which, while intriguing, does not help matters any – but
the cast is top-notch. In leading roles as four siblings are Emmy winner Kyle
Chandler (Friday Night Lights), the
very-underrated Ben Mendelsohn (who was fantastic in this year’s Starred Up), Emmy-nominated Linda
Cardellini (fresh off her Mad Men
arc) and Tony-winning stage actor Norbert Leo Butz (he had a small part in Dan in Real Life). In supporting roles
are Oscar winner Sissy Spacek and Oscar nominee Sam Shepherd as the parents,
with Chloe Sevigny reportedly recurring.
It’s
a jolt of exciting news for a television season that has been a little light on
highly-anticipated new dramas. Showtime’s The
Affair, which has been earning excellent reviews – we’ll be checking in on
it in a few weeks – was among the few. For the most part, this season has
yielded solid star vehicles in programs that don’t quite match their actors' talents (Madam Secretary and How to Get Away with Murder); some
terrific miniseries (The Honorable Woman
and the forthcoming Olive Kitteridge);
and half-hours ranging from fantastic (Transparent)
to promising (Black-ish).
KZK
is perfectly-suited to Netflix, so expectations on Bloodline are relatively high. We’ll be posting new details on this
and other new programs to get excited about as they come in. Also, look for
some pieces on a slew of HBO premieres in the next week or so – the
star-studded Olive Kitteridge, and
the second seasons of two great, underrated half-hours in Getting On and The Comeback.
Teaser
and details via Variety.