Judging Amy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Judging Amy
The Cast
Genre	Serial drama
Running time	60 minutes
Creator(s)	Amy Brenneman Bill D'Elia John Tinker
Starring	Amy Brenneman Dan Futterman Tyne Daly Kevin Rahm Richard T. Jones Marcus Giamatti Jessica Tuck Karle Warren Jillian Armenante Timothy Omundson
Country of origin	United States
Original channel	CBS
Original run	September 19, 1999–May 3, 2005
No. of episodes	138
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Judging Amy is an American television drama that aired from September 19, 1999 until May 3, 2005 on CBS. The show starred Amy Brenneman of NYPD Blue and Tyne Daly of Cagney & Lacey. In the US, reruns air on the TNT cable channel.

After six seasons, the show was cancelled by CBS on May 18, 2005. It still had solid ratings in its time slot, but the network felt the other pilots for the new season would garner even better ratings, especially among younger viewers.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Characters 2.1 Main characters 2.2 Secondary characters 2.2.1 Amy's love interests 2.2.2 Maxine's love interests 3 International 4 External links 5 See also

[edit] Plot

Brenneman played Amy Gray, a young New York attorney who, after divorcing her husband, returns with her young daughter to her childhood home in Hartford, Connecticut. She becomes a judge on that city's family court at age thirty-four. Her mother (with whom she lives), played by Daly, is a caseworker for the Department of Children and Family Services. In what turned out to be the series finale, Amy quits the judiciary to run for the U.S. Senate.

[edit] Characters

[edit] Main characters

• Amy Madison Gray, played by Amy Brenneman: After divorcing her husband, Amy Gray returns to her childhood home with her daughter and becomes a judge on Hartford's family court, trying to go on with her life. Balancing her new job, her family and trying to rebuild her love life isn't easy, but she keeps trying. She makes a name for herself in family court for her unusual methods and sentences and her stubborness, which sometimes gets her in trouble. She dates several men, but her two longest and more serious relationships are with lawyer Stuart Collins and ADA David McClaren. With Stuart, they dislike each other at first, but when she asks him to be Eric Black's lawyer, they get closer and finally get engaged. However, Amy leaves him at the altar on their wedding day, saying he has a way to always convince her to do things she doesn't want to do. She meets ADA David McClaren during her short stint in the criminal court, and things are rocky from the start. Eventually, Amy becomes pregnant by him and they plan to marry, but things fall apart when she miscarries and they part ways soon thereafter. In the last episode of the series, she quits the judiciary to run for Senate, to try to prevent the passing of some laws that will effectively end the juvenile justice system by allowing the State's Attorney's office to try teenagers as adults at their own discretion.

• Maxine McCarty Gray, played by Tyne Daly: Amy's widowed mother. A social worker for DCF (Department of Children and Family), she retired once but returns to the job at the start of the series, and she's willing to do whatever it takes to help the children in her care, even bending the law. She's an opinionated, strong willed woman, very set in her ways and capable of holding long grudges (she hasn't spoken to her brother in over 12 years) but loving to her family. Her relationship with daughter Amy is often not easy, since they're too much alike. After a troubled courtship, she becomes engaged to rich businessman Jared Duff, but he dies 48 hours before the wedding. By the end of the series, she becomes engaged once again to Ignacio Messina. She has a heart attack in the last season and has to undergo open heart surgery.

• Vincent Gray(episodes 1-51 & 100-138), played by Dan Futterman: Amy's younger brother, with whom she has always been closest. Vincent is the winner of a Pushcart Prize for a collection of short stories. Shortly at the beginning of the series, he becomes roommates with Donna, with whom later he becomes best friends. As he attempts to continue his writing career, he holds a number of different jobs: reporter, dogwasher, and free-lancer. He eventually marries his girlfriend, Carole Tobey (Sara Mornell), who has breast cancer, and leaves with her for San Francisco, parting with Amy on very bad terms. Some time later, his cousin Kyle arranges for him to arrive as a surprise to Amy's wedding to Stuart Collins. The wedding is annulled, but he patches things up with Amy. He returns home soon after, explaining that Carole has left him for her oncologist. Still stuck on his new book, he gets a new job as a social worker.

• Kyle McCarty(episodes 53-118), played by Kevin Rahm: Amy's cousin, the son of Maxine's estranged brother Richard. A former medical student who was expelled because of problems related to his addiction to drugs. Shunning his father, he comes to his aunt Maxine for help. She gives him a home and gets him a job as a counselor at a facility for runaway teens. He later moves in to share a flat with Donna after Vincent leaves and finds a hospital willing to give him a new chance to finish his medical residency, and gets into a complicated on/off relationship with fellow doctor Heather Labonte. After his father dies, he quits his job and finds a new path in life as a medic with the SWAT unit. He finally decides to accompany his ex-girlfriend Heather to Minnesota and take care of their son while she's in rehabilitation.

• Peter Gray, played by Marcus Giamatti: Amy's older brother. He inherited the family business from his father and he's good at it, even if it wasn't his first choice in life. He's a good but grey man who sometimes surprises people with some outbursts. He's married to Gillian and they have been trying to have children for a long time. They agree to adopt the son of a pregnant girl called Evie, even after he turns out to be half African-American. Some time after adopting Ned, Gillian gets pregnant and gives birth to Walt. Things get rocky after Walt's birth and they separate for a while, even as far as dating other people. Peter goes through a "rebellion" phase, trying to recall his teenage dreams, until he finds out his business is bankrupt. Soon after, he finally reconciles with his wife.

• Gillian Gray, played by Jessica Tuck: Peter's wife. A controlling woman with a good heart who completely loves her husband. She is usually well-meaning, but also often obsessive and nerve-wracking. After being unable to get pregnant, they adopt baby Ned. Some time later, however, she gets surprisingly pregnant, but things go wrong during the delivery of her son Walt, and she falls into a coma for a while. She and Peter have problems soon after, and she even dates another man, but they finally reconcile.

• Lauren Cassidy, played by Karle Warren: Amy's daughter, 6 years-old at the start of the series. A mostly well-adjusted girl going through the pains of childhood and pre-adolescence with divorced parents but a loving family. As a young girl, she struggles over her father's relationship with Leisha, whom she likes at first. When Lauren is 12, her uncle, Peter, takes her for her haircut and she returns home with her long straight hair cut into a hipper, shoulder-length cut. Her boyfriend Victor turns out to be the son of her mother's boyfriend, David McClaren, which causes Lauren to feel both awkward and disgusted. When Amy becomes pregnant with David's child, Lauren reveals what a total blow to her social life this will be and is furious, but later, becomes accepting and supporting of her mother after she miscarries. Towards the end of the series Lauren begins to hang out with a group of friends who embrace the Straight edge culture, which puts her at odds with her mother.

• Bruce van Exel, played by Richard T. Jones: Amy's Court Services Officer, who eventually becomes her friend. The series addresses a number of issues of their cross-racial friendship and how each feels differently about it. Bruce is a stubborn man with strong convictions, whose advice Amy comes to find invaluable. He has a daughter, Rebecca, whose mother breaks up with him after he gives her an ultimatum to move in together. At one point, Bruce is suspended from work for punching a man. He performs community service in a soup kitchen before returning to work with Amy. He is also a fairly devout Catholic, and not thrilled when his sister Winnie takes Rebecca to her more traditional black church with 'more interesting prayers.' Rebecca and Lauren attend the same middle school. In the second-to-last episode, he quits his job to complete his Master's in Family Counseling, something he always wanted to do. There's an attraction between him and Amy that's sometimes acknowledged, but never really explored.

• Donna Kozlowski, played by Jillian Armenante: Amy's clerk. An eccentric woman from a wealthy family, from whom she's estranged. Donna is intellectually a genius (she finishes her law degree in one and a half years) but socially awkward. She is married to a convicted murderer, Oscar Ray Pant, and becomes roommates with Amy's brother Vincent. While living with him, she has a daughter by Oscar, Ariadne Gray Pant, to whom she gives birth in a plastic pool in Amy's living room. Her mother arrives while Donna is in the pool, but is unable to offer her support and leaves. Maxine ends up getting in the pool with Donna. Later Oscar confesses to Donna that he's really guilty and she divorces him. Upon passing the bar, Amy fires her so she would go to work as lawyer, and she becomes a court-appointed minor counsel for the Hartford Youth Advocates, whose office is across the hall from Amy's.

[edit] Secondary characters

• Sean Potter (Timothy Omundson) - Maxine's boss and later friend, who has his hands full dealing with Maxine's unorthodox methods.
• Eric Black (Blake Bashoff) - A gay teenager who has been abused several times. When all else fails, Maxine reluctantly takes him into her own home, where he rapidly bonds with the family, and afterwards Sean becomes his foster father. Eventually, Eric protectively confronts and kills a stalker who's after Amy and Lauren. He is tried and found not guilty, but as Maxine no longer trusts him, he decides to run away to Canada with his boyfriend.
• Heather Labonte (Sarah Danielle Madison) - A doctor at Kyle's hospital with a substance abuse problem who gets busted with a drug test and gets a job as a bartender. She has an on/off relationship with Kyle, until she gets pregnant. Kyle says he'd help economically, but that they shouldn't be together. Finally, Kyle decides to accompany her to Minnesota and take care of their son while she's in rehabilitation.
• Graciela Reyes (Tara Correa-McMullen) - A gang member Amy helps, offering counseling to. As time passes, she makes progress, though she is arrested one day for criminal facilitation, as she was in the car with her cousin when she was involved in a drive-by shooting. Graciela is tried and found guilty, thus being sent to prison, where she is murdered, ironically mirroring the actual gang-related murder of actress Tara Correa-McMullen.

[edit] Amy's love interests

• Michael Cassidy (#1 John Slattery, #2 Richard Burgi) - Amy's ex-husband. Michael remarries to Leisha, a younger and blonder woman than Amy, who at first tries without success to befriend Amy. Later, Michael tries to get full custody of Lauren, the daughter he has with Amy, but after some time he drops the case. It turns out Michael wanted Lauren to help his marriage, but then Leisha left him. He tells Amy that, even though he stands by what he said about her in court, she's still a better parent than him.
• Rob Meltzer (Tom Welling, episodes 2.9-2.11, 2.15-2.16, 2.19) - Lauren's karate teacher, with whom Amy has a short affair.
• Tom Gillette (Gregory Harrison, episodes 1.14, 2.11-2.13) - The man Amy chooses over Rob. The relationship only lasted four episodes. He left her to return to his estranged wife.
• Barry Krumble (Chris Sarandon, episodes 3.12-3.23) - A fellow Judge whom Amy dated briefly. He "saved" her from embarrassment at her 10 year college reunion, but the relationship fizzled out when she realized they weren't meant for each other because he couldn't "live in the moment" the way she did.
• Stuart Collins (Reed Diamond, episodes 1.3, 1.11, 2.15, 3.1-3.3, 4.16-5.7) - A lawyer who, after several on/offs, gets betrothed to Amy. They rekindle their relationship when she asks him to be Eric Black's lawyer, but she ends by leaving him at the altar. Six months later, she learns that he has married a 22-year-old Polynesian woman whom he met on the trip that was supposed to have been their honeymoon.
• David McClaren (Adrian Pasdar, episodes 5.1-6.15) - A recently widowed assistant state's attorney and the father of Lauren's boyfriend Victor. His relationship with Amy is rocky from the beginning. At first, he is still dealing with the fact that his wife had been murdered, and he attends victim's support group meetings, one of which he asks Amy to attend. Later, she becomes pregnant by him and they buy a house together. However, Amy miscarries and they separate without ever living in the house.

[edit] Maxine's love interests

• Jared Duff (Richard Crenna) - A wealthy businessman who Maxine meets at a local diner, which he later purchases for her. Things between them become rocky several times, one being due to his son's opposition to the relationship. But they do finally get engaged. Unluckily, he dies 48 hours before the wedding is set to begin (actor Richard Crenna died in 2003).
• Ignacio Messina (Cheech Marin) - Maxine hired the landscape designer to work on her garden. The two of them become close, but Maxine discovers he is not divorced from his first wife. They stay friends, and he remains very supportive through her health problems. Finally, he divorces his wife and asks her to marry him.

[edit] International

Judging Amy is internationally broadcast by the following stations under the following names:

Country	Name	Translation	Station
Austria	Für alle Fälle Amy	Amy in any case	ATV+
Belgium	Judging Amy	Judging Amy	Vlaamse Televisie Maatschappij
Canada (Québec, French)	Amy	Amy	Séries+
Croatia	Sutkinja Amy	Judge Amy	HRT
Denmark	Amys ret	Amy's court or Amy's rights	TV 2
Finland	Amyn lailla	Like Amy or With Amy's law	Nelonen
France	Amy	Amy	Téva
Germany	Für alle Fälle Amy	Amy in any case	VOX
Hungary	Amy-nek ítélve	Judging Amy	Hallmark
India	Judging Amy	Judging Amy	Hallmark
Ireland	Judging Amy	Judging Amy	TV3
Italy	Giudice Amy	The Judge Amy	Canale 5
The Netherlands	Judging Amy	Judging Amy	Net 5
Norway	Judging Amy	Judging Amy	TV2
Philippines	Judging Amy	Judging Amy	Hallmark Channel
Portugal	A Juiza	The Judge	SIC Mulher
Slovenia	Naša sodnica	Judging Amy	POP TV
South Africa	Judging Amy	Judging Amy	SABC 2
Spain (Catalonia)	Jutjant l'Amy	Judging Amy	TV3
Spain	La Juez Amy	Judge Amy	Cosmopolitan
Sweden	Vem dömer Amy?	Who judges Amy?	TV4 Plus
UK	Judging Amy	Judging Amy	Living TV,Hallmark

[edit] External links

• Judging Amy at the Internet Movie Database
• Judging Amy at TV.com
• Judge Amy: Judging Amy on CBS starring Amy Brenneman & Tyne Daly

[edit] See also

• List of Judging Amy episodes
• List of television shows set in Connecticut