'Judging Amy' Reinvents Itself

Zap2it - April 02, 2005

By John Crook

For many hit shows, the sixth season can be a decisive one, as the show's writers move further and further away from the original focus of the program to find viable new story lines.
That's not true for "Judging Amy," the CBS Tuesday drama that has found new vitality in its sixth year by returning to the very core of the show: the Gray family in all its dysfunctional glory.

To some extent, that shift was made possible by audience favorite Dan Futterman's return to the series as Amy's screwed-up younger brother, Vincent, but bringing in a mostly new writing staff also was key.

"We had a changing of the guard in our writers, although each season has had its own flavor," says Amy Brenneman, who stars as Judge Amy Madison Gray on the series. "Last season, Amy was drawn into the personal drama of Adrian Pasdar's character, and while that led her into an important relationship, it didn't have a heck of a lot to do with the Gray family. This year, we just had a sense we needed to go deeper into who this family is and remine that. And the writers have done a mind-blowing job."
Certainly, it has been an eventful year for the Gray clan.

Even before midseason, the family was rocked by back-to-back heart attacks for Maxine (Emmy winner Tyne Daly), the second one nearly fatal. In addition to providing some very poignant moments for siblings Amy, Vincent and Peter (Marcus Giamatti), those episodes also drove home to those three characters what their lives would be like without the maddening Maxine. (Let's face it, who hasn't expected one of these kids to put a pillow over this infuriating woman's face while she slept?)

"I loved the episode where Maxine had the second, more serious heart attack and we got to see how the three kids -- Amy, Peter and Vincent -- all had different, very well-delineated reactions," Brenneman says. "You got a keen sense that this is a very real family, and each of these children has a unique relationship with the mother.

"I remember watching Marcus' performance, when he was at peace about telling our mother she could 'go' if she needed to, and thinking, `Yes, he's her firstborn, the rock, and this is what happens when a parent dies.'"

"After five years, you don't want to keep repeating yourself," says "Amy" executive producer Joseph Stern. "At the same time, you want to feel that your characters are growing and evolving just as we all are in our own personal lives, in terms of addressing age and illness and relationships. Everything really is reflective in large part of these characters' ages and the times we live in."

Maxine had hardly recovered and returned to work before Amy discovered she was pregnant by her doting boyfriend, Assistant District Attorney David McLaren (Pasdar). After carefully weighing her options, she decided to marry David and have the baby -- only to suffer a miscarriage on her 40th birthday.

That shattering episode must have stunned most viewers, who probably assumed Amy's on-screen pregnancy had been concocted to coincide with Brenneman's off-screen reality (she expects her second child shortly after production wraps for this season).

Not true, explains Brenneman, who came up with the idea for that story line last season, before she became pregnant in real life.

"I love the idea that Amy, like many women in positions of power, believes she is in control of every aspect of her life, but of course, that's not always the case," the actress says. "I thought there was just a kind of poetry in letting her become pregnant, then she reaches a decision, only to discover that it isn't really her decision to make."

And while Stern says CBS never has tried to censor or interfere when the show has tackled hot-button issues, Brenneman says a red flag did go up when the pregnant Amy was weighing her options -- all of them, including terminating the pregnancy.

"It was very important to me that Amy, who is clearly and strongly pro-choice, go through the process of considering not having the baby," Brenneman says. "Because this particular topic is such a hot button right now, the network didn't even want to touch it. But I loved the process of discussing it with them, because it was all very positive and constructive. I hear stories from other shows about how that process is so combative, but that's not the case with us.

"I truly think it has something to do with the nature of this show and how much people love it. I asked them what they were afraid of, since we had clearly established that Amy is pro-choice and would obviously at least consider that other option. But in the end, it turns out not to be her choice to make anyway."

In its sixth year, "Judging Amy" has lost ratings ground to NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," and as of this writing, CBS had not renewed the series for a seventh year. If it does so, Brenneman says she is inclined to return, even with a baby in tow.

"If I weren't in this particular childbearing moment there would be no doubt, because I love my job," she says. "I feel blessed. Like a marriage, there are better times and worse times, and then times of reaffirmation, and this season has felt like one of those to me, when we fell in love with it again.

"This morning, an actor came on the set and said, 'Wow, the atmosphere on this show is incredible,' and I said, joking, 'Yeah, we fired all the bad people,'" she adds, laughing. "Or maybe they just weaned themselves out. Both Tyne and I have a pretty low tolerance for any kind of 'bad stuff,' like we hear goes on with some other shows, but this past year has just been fantastic -- so I just have to figure out how to work a little baby around that."


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