Sat, Sep 18, 1999
Ten years after her marriage to New Yorker Michael Cassidy, corporate lawyer Amy Gray is separated, living back in Connecticut at her mother Maxine Gray's with pre-teen daughter Lauren, who misses daddy. Amy starts sitting in as a novice judge in the Hartford County Superior Court family law division. She soon feels out of her depth, professionally, and accepts advice from her mother, officially retired after 28 years as social worker but 'counseling' full time, while resenting being mothered. Also living at home is Amy's sensitive brother, unemployed literature graduate Vincent Gray.
Mon, Sep 20, 1999
Amy is thrown into the dog-eat-dog world of the short calendar, with some 54 cases, and decisions must be made quickly. She is called to an ER, where a doctor wants to terminate medication being given to a critically ill infant. Lauren is having troubles at school, and Amy has a confrontation with Lauren's new teacher. Adding to Amy's troubles, Maxine decides to return to work.
Mon, Sep 27, 1999
Ma finally admits the car she inherited from dad has had its time, but allows Peter to talk her out of settling for one that she and Vincent agreed on. Amy dumps her daughter's sleepover guests on ma, who shamelessly passes the kids on to Vincent. He takes this as proof that she never took his writing ambition seriously. Filling in for a sick judge, Amy presides over her first-ever, civilian jury trial, about minor Josh Spellman, who shot his girlfriend, Janette Harper, with his parents' gun, for which they may have to pay damages if held negligent.
Mon, Oct 4, 1999
In the hardware-store Vincent meets a woman, painter Chris Osborne, who offers him a date and to pay him for publicity copy-writing. Vincent isn't even put off when he meets her teenage daughter, Lori. The presiding judge dumps a dangerous case on Amy: Thomas Bell, a 10 year comatose boy, supposed to work wonders and suffering stigmata in his grandmother's care, who, according to the physician suffers under abusive attention. However the case is decided by an unexpected maneuver beyond Amy's control.
Mon, Oct 11, 1999
A death threat, coupled with Maxine's disapproval, puts a crimp in Amy's blossoming relationship with Tracy; Vincent begins to feel like he is Chris's pet project; Maxine rekindles an old friendship; Amy officiates at Donna's wedding to a convict; Maxine helps a second-generation foster teenager keep her infant son out of the system.
Mon, Oct 18, 1999
Vincent's former professor and fan, Barnett, puts him in touch with literary agent Hilary Baker, someone Vincent considers pure evil since their youth, and indeed she changes the rules during the game. Amy judges the case of a father who demands custody of the 8 year old son he left, many years back, in the mother's custody. He claims she's a wicked witch, actually of the Wiccan variety; but she is scorned by an official Wicca interests organization. Lauren refuses to participate in Halloween after listening to scary stories told by a schoolboy, yet Amy defends (in the PTA) the ghost, witch and similar traditions against 'politically correct' censorship.
Top-rated
Mon, Nov 1, 1999
Vincent accepts an English writing teaching position for the income, but doubts if it fits his vocation as an author. He wonders what made his dad - whom he lost very young- work in the insurance field, as brother Peter now does enthusiastically, despite their father's acceptance for medical school. Maxine fights a deaf supervisor's claim to end the guardianship of big brother Paul Dexter, who alas never learned sign language, over young Kevin, who refuses to learn any more after systematic peer abuse at school, neglected by DCS till then. Amy hears a claim by an old black grandmother for custody over her 2 year-old grandson Eryk, who is in foster care with the devoted white Chase couple, which adopted his older sister.
Mon, Nov 8, 1999
Vincent intervenes when a woman is attacked outside the grocery store and is shot, within an inch of permanent disaster, yet refuses to be mothered. With some difficulty he picks the shooter from a line-up, who will also be charged for a previous murder. Amy grants divorced Jewish father Voci to have his son circumcised but considers the mother's breast-feeding to ridiculous to rule on. Maxine finds otherwise fine parents believe in abduction by aliens.
Mon, Nov 22, 1999
Maxine refuses to cook for Thanksgiving the 40th year in a row and is most skeptic when Amy announces she'll cook instead to give Lauren a good first one in Hatford, when her dad Michael Cassidy is visiting; they agree to formalize their divorce. Vincent tries to avoid his ex-agent and scorned seducer Hilary Baker at the publisher's party, only to find she viciously set up gay fellow author Justin Hopkins, an instant friend, as his 'mate'. Amy has to stand in for a judge on 'family emergency' and is ruthless on model students Nathan Larsen and Jonathan Wanderley from good homes, who tortured the neighbors' cats to death for having the police break up their loud nightly frat party. A couple's adoption can't be finalized because the previously unknown biological father turns up and objects.
Mon, Nov 29, 1999
Vincent finally has a perspective: publisher Algonquin wants to publish his short stories, if he can add a 'killer story' to bind the collection, in only four days. He retracts his first attempt, being to personal, containing his brother Peter's marital infertility-drama causing the wife Gillian to take 'a break' living with Maxine, who bullies young colleague Phil(ip), who can't help the workload either. Amy is pissed-off another medical excuse allows a judge to dump on her a teacher-stabbing by an abused foster child with 19 personalities, ably prosecuted by attorney Weims.