IMDb > "Judging Amy" (1999)

"Judging Amy" (1999) More at IMDbPro »TV series 1999-2005

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Overview

User Rating:
7.0/10   1,181 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 8% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Creators:
Amy Brenneman
Bill D'Elia
Connie Tavel
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Contact:
View company contact information for Judging Amy on IMDbPro.
Seasons:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 full episode list
Release Date:
19 September 1999 (USA) more
Genre:
Drama more
Plot:
A family drama focused on three generations of women living together in Hartford, Connecticut. Amy Brenneman plays Amy Gray... more
Plot Keywords:
more
Awards:
Nominated for 3 Golden Globes. Another 13 wins & 37 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(57 articles)
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 (From Vanity Fair. 5 November 2009, 8:50 PM, PST)
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season Two Blu-Ray Review
 (From Collider.com. 8 October 2009, 8:57 AM, PDT)
User Comments:
Woman on top. (spoilers) more (70 total)

Cast

 (Series Cast Summary - 10 of 207)

Amy Brenneman ... Amy Gray (138 episodes, 1999-2005)

Richard T. Jones ... Bruce Van Exel (138 episodes, 1999-2005)

Jessica Tuck ... Gillian Gray (138 episodes, 1999-2005)

Marcus Giamatti ... Peter Gray (138 episodes, 1999-2005)

Karle Warren ... Lauren Cassidy / ... (138 episodes, 1999-2005)
Tyne Daly ... Maxine Gray (138 episodes, 1999-2005)

Jillian Armenante ... Donna Kozlowski (130 episodes, 1999-2005)

Timothy Omundson ... Sean Potter (89 episodes, 2000-2005)
Dan Futterman ... Vincent Gray (76 episodes, 1999-2005)

Kevin Rahm ... Kyle McCarty (66 episodes, 2001-2004)
more

Additional Details

Runtime:
60 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Colour:
Colour
Aspect Ratio:
1.33 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Stereo
Certification:
Netherlands:6 | Australia:PG | Argentina:13
Filming Locations:
20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA more
Company:
Barbara Hall/Joseph Stern Productions more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
In one episode, Maxine gives Ignacio a book of art called "Chicano Visions". Cheech Marin, who plays Ignacio, is the real author. more
Quotes:
Lauen Cassidy: What's anorexia?
Maxine: It's a disease women get by reading magazines.
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in "Nip/Tuck: Candy Richards (#5.14)" (2008) more

FAQ

Is there a Judging Amy DVD collection?
more

User Comments

   (Comment on this title)
25 out of 27 people found the following comment useful.
Woman on top. (spoilers), 28 April 2004
Author: Pepper Anne from Orlando, Florida

Did you ever notice your major network's morbid fascination with death? Nearly every prime-time drama is a law enforcement drama from the perspective of cops, criminal investigators, or lawyers. And nearly everyone is about investigations into violent crimes. Take CSI, for example, a forensics show piecing together the clues behind violent homicides. Law & Order, no matter which one you watch, is usually about brutal crimes as well. These two I give as examples considering their popularity among network viewers.

But Judging Amy is quite a refreshing break from the world of violent crime, though it is not without it's share into the investigation of some violent crime. However, it is also not done so morbidly. Judging Amy is a show about the legal system as well as a regular drama about the regular, normal lives of the character. In a day and age of violent television, it offer a little bit soap drama (but not sappy drama) and a bit of humor (particularly from Amy's mom, the witty Maxine Gray).

Amy Gray (Amy Brennan) is a judge in family court. As a single mother, she lives with her mother, Maxine, (the wonderful Tyne Daily), and her daughter (Lauren Karle Warren). There's also Amy's charismatic and poignant friend, Donna, her clerk, and Bruce Van Exel (Richard T. Jones) who is Amy's coworker as well as her source of direction on many occasions. So, we see Amy on two fronts: as the family court judge and as single mother and member of a busy family.

Thus, the show caters to an audience just looking for a regular drama as we see the various situations surrounding the Gray family life such as the lessons Amy tries to teach her teenage daughter, or Maxine's or Amy's love life dilemmas, or perhaps what her cousin Kyle is up to, or the difficulties her brother and sister-in-law are going through. There's always something going on. And the characters are all interesting enough to care.

Judging Amy, too, is good as a critique into the legal system. Three members of the family work in public service (her brother works in insurance, so he doesn't count). Maxine is the brazen social worker at DCF and is determined to make the system work to help as many people as she possibly can, even when the bureaucratic processes try to slow her down (remember when they wanted to fire her for speaking against the mayor for the underfunding of the children's home). These are where most of the arguments about flaws in the cumbersome family law policy comes from because Amy, as a judge, can only make such arguments personally, so they occur sometimes rarely. And her cousin Kyle, worked in a shelter and now in a hospital, and is faced, too, with similar frustrations with a neglecting system of public service.

Likewise, even Bruce is interesting as a vehicle for the arguments against the family law system when he is working as a mediator, attempting to fix situations without having to send parents or children into state custody, and hoping they can fix those problems without an abundance of recidivism. All of these characters are there to make the policy arguments that the show intends.

So, Judging Amy presents two spheres, both enjoyable. And the actors do a terrific job. It's really quite a different show, breaking away from the strict examination of the legal system, but not being thrust into a pure soap drama (but again, even if it were, it's less sappy and much more viable than your soap dramas). The strikes a balance. Not only that, because the show involves a single mother and the dominance, too, of her own mother (Maxine), it is a likely quite a popular show among women. Even so, it is not female dominated. Other characters are probably given equal concentration even though Amy and Maxine are pretty much the main characters, both working as counterparts of one another. Amy sometimes seems less sure of herself, less willing to be on the offensive. Maxine is much more bold, more willing to break the rules if it going to help things along. And she always seems to know what she's doing and how to go about it.

It's a pretty good show, different than most of what's out there on network television, and probably worth your time.

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