John Grisham realised years ago that, never mind the four-yearly excitements of New Hampshire, power in the United States had completed its gorilla arm swing from legislative branch, through the executive, to the legal. The most lethal words in the American language are therefore these days “Get me a lawyer,” and they have a particular potency when uttered by a lawyer herself, particularly one bloodied and beaten up in her own apartment, very possibly by her own law firm.

Ellen Parson, who since her attack had been “nonresponsive”, made them her first utterance to the police and the last of the first episode of Damages, an Americanimport likely to send you to bed slightlylater than you intended on a Sunday night. The first American drama to be given a primetime slot on BBC One for years is not as stylish, intelligent or classy as it hopes. You’d be disappointed if you’d paid for a ticket to see it at the cinema – and that’s bad, since the best American television is now better than the best Hollywood. It is, however, horribly watchable and undemanding viewing. As pleased as punch with its twists, we viewers can be even prouder of being able to spot them coming. The only complexity is working out who is the bigger bastard: Patty Hewes of the eponymous big law firm or Arthur Frobisher of the eponymous big business. I could do the workings out for you, but the fun is to do it yourself, since neither Patty nor Art are all bad and Glenn Close and Ted Danson, who play them, winkle out every trace of subtlety the script allows.

When they are off screen, mind you, Damages is about as subtle as Time Square. The set-up is a blatant lift from Grisham’s The Firm: law grad sells soul to law firm, in this case Hewes & Associates, located in an office block that rivals the Meade Organization in Ugly Bettyfor spooky opulence.

Close gives a cinema-size performance as Hewes, not remotely credible but impressive in a Norma Desmond way. She is accompanied at most times by a mutt who may well be her demon. Danson, as the boss whom she is suing on behalf of a grizzle of disgruntled ex-employees, also towers, his white hair as snowy as the peak of Annapurna.

The trouble is both move among a company of ant-hill actors. Of the young leads, Rose Byrne is particularly unstriking as Ellen. We keep being told that Ellen is brilliant but she is as mousey as they come and easily out-shone by her fiancé’s sister, Katie (Anastasia Griffith), a caterer. Katie has a dog, too. It gets slaughtered. Then her bother does. The story is told in flashback so we are waiting to find out why all the blood letting, but we know one thing: Ellen has been personally hired by Hewes and Katie is opening a restaurant financed by Frobisher. Now what are the odds of that happening by chance?

Rather more remote than a nuclear war started by accident, you would think. We all scare ourselves from time to time remembering the Cuba crisis of 1963 but it turns out we came much closer to extinction 25 years ago. In 1983: Brink of Apocalypse (Saturday, C4) we were told a story I had not heard before, of how the Russians mistook a regular Nato war game for a real attack on the Soviet Union. Tensions had been ramped up in the months running up to November 8 by the Russians accidentally shooting down a Korean airliner.

Meanwhile, Soviet agents were typing up the required paranoid fantasies in an exercise known as Operation Ryan, commissioned by the renally challenged Yuri Andropov. “Zee lights are burning late in Whitehall,” they would write, failing to acknowledge this meant the cleaners were in. Andropov’s opposite number in the geriatric community, Ronald Reagan, had, in fact, no interest in pressing the destruct button on humanity, although, worryingly, his resolve seems to have been strengthened by his viewing a TV movie called The Day After. According to Henry Chancellor’s fine documentary, which interviewed just about every one of the extant players, Reagan was so shaken by the “misunderstanding” he determined to go and talk to Andropov’s successor in the no-longer-so-Evil Empire. History does not get more darkly comic than this.

Out of the box

The late-night talk shows are back in the States after months with their writers on strike. And what have their hosts been doing? Growing beards, in the case of David Letterman and Conan O’Brien. For his hirsute return, O’Brien wrote his own monologue. The critics say it showed. They preferred wildman Letterman, who has negotiated a deal with his writers and appeared in front of chorus girls waving Writers Guild of America placards. “Yes,” he explained, “this crap is actually written.”

Tonight’s Panorama on BBC One is on paedophiles preying upon teenagers online. “I’ve been finding out what every parent needs to know to keep them safe,” says Jeremy Vine. ITV’s Tonight, meanwhile, is on exactly the same subject. “Mark Williams-Thomas reports on what every parent should know to protect their children in chat rooms,” ITV promises. As the perverts who are interviewed whine, the net makes some targets just too easy.

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