The new season of “Damages” begins tonight on FX. It’s a fictionalized version of the Bernard Madoff case (without using their names of course.) The New York Times explains and gives it a big thumbs up, especially for Lily Tomlin who plays the financier’s wife.

Rose Byrne is now a D.A. but she and Patty continue their complex and bizarre relationship. Update below:

Prediction: Between the Madoff theme and Glenn Close’s great acting, the show will be a big hit this season. Lily Tomlin and Martin Short are really good additions. I’ve never liked Rose Byrne, and considering she’s playing a drug prosecutor getting people to flip, I like her even less. But the action was fast paced enough that she wasn’t on the screen that long at any one time.

I’m looking forward to seeing how Patty’s “stalker” (the “architect” figures in.)

Nice touches: FX also played tonight’s episode without commercials — and Glenn Close came on at the very end to thank everyone for watching.

The season opener of “Raising the Bar” is tonight on TNT. From a review:

Tonight’s hour starts wonderfully, as friends roast Jerry Kellerman (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) on his birthday. The guy’s a public defender – passionate, caring and profoundly disheveled. Then – for the sake of a client – comes a transformation. That signals a strong start for the second season of this show from Steven Bochco, the “NYPD Blue” and “L.A. Law” producer.

Viewers will like these idealistic lawyers,changes and all. Jerry has had a makeover, Bobbi (Natalia Cigliuti) is getting a divorce; their boss (Gloria Reuben) is working cases again, because of funding problems. And viewers will care about the cases. Tonight, a decent chap may go to jail, because his nephew was selling drugs in the back of his barber shop. It’s smart, Bochco-quality TV.

I will DVR it for later watching, as the Bachelorette, Nurse Jackie and especially Weeds are first on my list.

For those of you who watch The Closer, that has its season opener tonight as well.

Don’t miss America’s Most Wanted on Fox this Saturday Night. Instead of trying to find a murderer, this time the show is trying to free one.

“America’s Most Wanted,” scheduled for broadcast at 8 p.m. Saturday on KQFX-TV (Fox 38), will devote an hour to the investigation and trial of Helmig, now 53, who in 1996 was convicted of murdering his mother. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The show is designed to capture bad people and put them away,” said producer Dave Bolton. “This case jumped to our attention because it looked like a huge miscarriage of justice because the bad guy who did the crime was still out there and the innocent guy was put in prison for a crime he did not commit.”

Helmig was convicted of killing his mother. The evidence against him, all circumstantial, was beyond thin. His conviction was overturned in a federal habeas petition (opinion here), but the state appealed. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Dale’s conviction and the Supreme Court denied cert. He remains in prison today, having served 12 years of a sentence to life without parole.

The prosecutor in Dale’s case was Republican former Congressman Kenny Hulshof, who unsuccessfully ran for Governor last year. An issue was made in the campaign of numerous questionable homicide convictions when he was a prosecutor and Dale’s was one of them.

This will be the third feature show/film on Dale’s case. The first was a TNT documentary in 2000, Was Justice Denied? in which a former prosecutor and I spent weeks in Missouri re-investigating the crime, interviewing witnesses, family members, the Judge, defense lawyer and yes, even Hulshof.

The second, and far more comprehensive one, was by “A Matter of Innocence: The Story of Dale Helmig,” by the Innocence Project of Missouri.

I hope the third time’s a charm, and AMW is able to attract the attention of someone who might have knowledge that would prove Dale’s innocence. Some prior TalkLeft coverage is here.