'Amy' brings back woman's melodrama

The woman's melodrama has found a new place and time. We're not talking daytime drama characterized by cheating husbands or warehouse explosions, we're talking about "Judging Amy" and it is on CBS at 10 p.m. The pilot aired Sunday, Sept. 19, at 8:30, wasting no time establishing the dramatic tension between mother and daughter, (both Amy with her mother, and Amy with her own daughter) - a conflict all too familiar to women of all ages. That the show is primarily about female relationships does not preclude male viewership, though it is likely to appeal to a more progesterone-driven audience. It is not a sappy, romantic "chick flick," nor is it an angst-ridden display of male bashing. Either classification would demean subtle complexity of the show. Amy Gray, adeptly played by Amy Brenneman ("Your Friends and Neighbors," "Heat"), and her mother, played by Tyne Daly ("Cagney and Lacey"), lead the cast of this new, heart-warming show.

Amy, recently separated from her husband of 10 years, finds herself back at home in Hartford, Connecticut living with her mother and her semi-unemployed brother, Vincent. Starting a new job as a Superior Court Judge, and trying to manage her six year old daughter's anxiety about separation and change, this confident, capable woman struggles to free herself from her mother's over-bearing clutches.

A family dinner scene begins with Vincent's discussion of Luke Skywalker as an archetype, an everyman. In many ways this is a microcosm for the mother. She is everymother. An over-bearing woman whose pendulum swings from caring nurturer to controlling harpy. Both are manifestations of the mother who can't let her children go. This explains Vincent, with a degree in comparative literature, who still lives at home and washes dogs for a living. Blunt, powerful, and at times, caustic, this mother bear will go to any length to make sure her brood is safely doing her bidding.

Wisely, the writers are slow to reveal her Achilles heal. "I'm quitting," she tells her daughter when Amy finds her outside smoking during the last ten minutes of the pilot. There is an inner weakness behind her titanic facade of impenetrable strength. She is not a one-dimensional woman, but a sympathetic being everyone can relate to. She tells Amy, "Stop looking for answers, formulas. There aren't any."

The show's action, periodically intercut with black and white photos of Amy as a young girl, her expressions mirroring her adult emotions, reminds the viewer that inside everyone is young and vulnerable. No matter how mature people may appear, they have wounds, experiences from childhood shaping who they area and who they will become. This theme plays itself out not only with Amy but with Vincent, her mother, and her daughter as well. Amy must return to the vulnerability of her youth, re-learn all that she knows from another perspective, and audiences are privy to share this exciting journey with her.

09-24-99