Damages is one of those shows that I push hard on people, because I find it so unique and challenging. And also because I am a bit of a masochist. See, Damages doesn't operate like other television shows on air right now. It prefers to dangle things in front of viewers, show them bits of the "ending" right off the bat, and generally lead them in a direction where they think they know the answer to the mystery before blowing everything up. I chatted with show creators (and brothers) Todd and Glenn Kessler about about the general sense of the FX program and Season 3.

TV.com: I always have a hard time describing the show to friends. "Legal Drama" just doesn't seem to do it justice. How do you pitch the show?

Todd A. Kessler: We really think of it as entertainment, but it's a character-driven thriller. The thriller genre itself is a tricky one to do in television. People have said [Damages] is like John Grisham when he's at his best. There's character stories, there's action and suspense, but it's coming from a place that's all from character. It's based on people in high-stakes situations, forced to make decisions about who they are.

When we went to pitch the show to FX, which was the only network we went to sell it to, they had told us that they had been trying to crack the legal genre for almost ten years. They had The Shield, which was their cop show, and Nip/Tuck, which was their medical show, both of which were unlike any cop or medical show before. No one had pitched them a legal show like what we pitched them.

Do you enjoy teasing the audience the way you do? Because every time I watch the show, I feel like I'm being drawn and quartered with all the unexpected twists.

Todd: I really feel like what we're trying to do is entertain. For us, so much of television is predictable, we like to not be able to predict what's going to happen. We find ourselves watching a lot of documentaries, where you're hearing one person tell their story and you hear another character tell their story, and you wonder, "Where is the truth?" [Unpredictability] is something that we feel is missing in a lot of television that's out there.