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Another Mom, Another Daughter, Another
Capital
New York Times - September 17, 1999
By Caryn James
Hartford is within shouting distance of Providence in more ways than it seems. That Connecticut city is the setting
for CBS's new "Judging Amy," which, like last year's NBC hit "Providence," sends a successful
professional woman into serious emotional regression as she moves back to her leafy New England hometown to live
with her family and start her life over. The welcome difference is that the premiere of "Judging Amy" is
like "Providence" without the treacle.
Amy Brenneman plays Amy Gray, a newly divorced mother and lawyer who moves in with her widowed mom and becomes a
family court judge. So far she sounds suspiciously like Melina Kanakaredes's Syd, a plastic surgeon who moves in
with her widowed dad and works in a Providence clinic.
But where Syd is Mother Teresa in disguise (not a concept that allows for many surprises from week to week), Ms.
Brenneman gives Amy an engaging and intelligent mix of strong will, confusion and nerves. Even more winning, in
"Judging Amy" the family dynamics are realistically fraught.
"I didn't win the judgeship in a raffle," Amy tells her argumentative, interfering mother, Maxine.
"Well, not far from it," says Mom, superbly played by Tyne Daly with mother-knows-best impatience. Because
she had been a social worker for decades, Maxine thinks she knows and has seen it all. She is also well-connected
enough to get a police car to follow her daughter when she is late and speeding to court.
Amy also has an appealing relationship with one of her brothers, Vincent (Dan Futterman, in a likably natural
performance), a would-be writer working as a dog groomer. Together they can have honest, if unproductive, talks
about how to handle Mom.
Ms. Brenneman, who is also an executive producer of the show, found the idea in the life of her own mother, a
juvenile court judge. "Judging Amy" may be the television equivalent of a chick flick, but the opening
episode is never as cloying as its special time slot suggests: Sunday at 8, usually "Touched by an Angel."
When Amy gives her young daughter, Lauren, a speech about how the best job she'll ever have is being a mother, she
ends by asking: "How was that? Not too sappy?"
"It's O.K.," the little girl says. "You're nervous."
That scene shrewdly undercuts the sentimentality. But it also drops a huge hint that Lauren is too observant to be a
convincing child. And the series's second episode (which moves to its regular time slot, Tuesday nights at 10) is
disappointing.
With Amy harried by a long day in court yet determined to make a difference to the families she is assigned to help,
the show has a familiar, perfunctory tone.
In that episode, "Judging Amy" seems be turning into "Providence" before our eyes, which would
be the most serious regression of all.
JUDGING AMY
CBS, Sunday night at 8
(Channel 2 in New York)
Barbara Hall, Joseph Stern, Connie Tavel and Amy Brenneman, executive producers; produced by Barbara Hall
Productions Inc., in association with CBS Productions and 20th Century Fox Television.
WITH: Amy Brenneman (Amy Gray), Tyne Daly (Maxine Gray), Dan Futterman (Vincent Gray).
Copyright © 1999 New York Times. All rights reserved.
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