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Family Drama, at Home and in Court
Newsday - September 17, 1999
By Diane Werts, Staff Writer
TIRED OF TV that's entirely too cool? Want to get involved in people's lives again? It's no accident that CBS' new
character study "Judging Amy" previews in the Sunday 8 p.m. "Touched by an Angel" time period
this weekend before settling into its regular Tuesday 10 p.m. slot.
Just as there's often more depth to "Touched" than its slick critics would admit (if not as much
complexity as some of us would like), "Amy" is that much sharper than the show whose hour it occupies
Sunday. But the appeal to the heart is just as warm. Starring are two familiar women cops: Amy Brenneman, Licalsi of
"NYPD Blue," now playing a fresh family court judge in her Connecticut home town, and Tyne Daly of "Cagney
& Lacey," nicely matured into the intrusive mother into whose home Brenneman, on the eve of a divorce, has
returned from New York's legal fast track with her 6-year-old daughter.
"You look like a deranged minister," Mom tells Daughter at first morning's glance of her new judicial
robes. "And drink your juice before the vitamins escape." How many of us have heard this sort of
commentary from our own matriarchal figures? How many of us have resented it - yet nestled ourselves deeper into its
swaddling care? "I live with my mother, I don't have sex, I carpool," moans Brenneman, the judge named
Amy, of her reversionary life. She isn't alone. Also installed at the family homestead is her brother, Dan Futterman
(the son in "The Birdcage"), a would-be writer currently soaping dogs for a living and confiding his
literary thoughts to his displaced niece. His dinner table take on family conflict: "This is what we call
middle class angst." Somehow the 6-year-old understands. Yet she's not a precociously cutesy TV tot.
Much as Futterman lends melancholy a quiet authority instead of the usual sarcastic tone, young Karle Warren is
levelheaded, fearful and aspiring, proud of herself that she only threw up once the day she had to give her book
report.
"Judging Amy" carries itself with emotional truth, just as Brenneman's "baby" judge tries to
conduct herself with magisterial control when she hasn't got a clue. She throws herself on the mercy of court
officer Richard T. Jones (the hero of tonight's 10 p.m. BET movie "Incognito"), who reluctantly gets
involved in her growth, just as her family members end up entangled in each other's spiritual quests anyway.
Sunday's premiere hour from producer-novelist Barbara Hall (TV's "I'll Fly Away," the book "Close to
Home") neatly traces the behavioral patterns that ultimately direct our lives, despite our best efforts to
decamp our pasts. These people know how to push each others' buttons. They give each other "that look"
instead of spouting sentences of oh-so-meaningful dialogue. And we instantly know how they feel.
The pilot unfolds with deliberate breathing room in setting up character intricacies that will pay off down the
line. Tuesday's 10 p.m. second episode gets the action moving, both personally (daughter's school problems,
Grandma's online obsession) and professionally. Brenneman's judge gets to "hit the ground running" facing
40 cases on one crazy day - custodies, annulments, kidnapings - topped by a life-or- death late-night coma-baby
decision. The character, based on Brenneman's own mother (Connecticut Superior Court Judge Frederica Brenneman),
holds her own, of course, after a few anxious moments and some sage counsel from social-worker Mom.
We'd expect no less from folks who trust common sense over conventional wisdom and still believe they really can
make a difference - and make us believe it, too. "Judging Amy" airs opposite ABC's critically beloved
newcomer "Once and Again" and later this fall "NYPD Blue." Let's hope it's somehow touched by
the TV angels.
Copyright © 1999 Newsday Inc. All rights reserved.
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