Judging "Judging Amy"

Judging Amy
For whatever reason I have seen this show 2 or 3 times now, mainly as background noise while web surfing, and have found it to be both entertaining and silly at turns.

At it’s core it’s defintely a “chick flick” type show but surprisingly Tyne Daly, of all people, usually saves the show for me with some strong performances.

Anyway to my question. On the last show, the court services office for the Judge, Bruce Van Exel, is meeting some single mother he fancies for a date and the date is interrrupted when the mother’s little girl comes home from a slumber party early (forget exact reason) while Bruce and the mother are getting frisky.

After friskus interruptus the mother sends the little girl to bed and… essentially tells Bruce that if he’s a real sensitive, caring, standup man he’ll stay and service her (with her little girl in the house) instead of saying nighty nite. Cut to the shot of the little girl screaming the next morning when she walks in on Bruce in the bathroom doing his business. It’s obviously presented as a “Ha Ha” what a laugh moment in a generally serious show.

Now possibly I’m not as progressive as I reckoned but is this supposed to be a reasonable model for appropriate single parent behavior. “Now go to bed honey so Mommy can screw the nice man.”:confused:

Am I the only one who thought their behavior was kind of tacky with a little girl who doesn’t know him in the house?

Was there some back story to this scenario that would change my impression of that scene.

Actually, the little girl (who’s name I cannot remember, as I also tend to watch it while surfing the web) does know him.

Bruce & Bruce’s girlfriend (another name that I can’t recall) met because their daughters were the same age and friends with each other. They met trying to arrange a playdate for the girls and we’ve seen both parents and both girls together in that kind of situation at least once (and I think we’re supposed to assume that they’ve done the playdate thing several more times).

Well they’ve made this into a VERY serious issue in the show, by now.

I was a single mother, and yes, I think that the WAY she went about things was tacky, but…not that she was having sex. Single mothers are human, not saints. If the scene had been from a single FATHER’s point of view, would the audience reaction have been the same?

Agreed, on Tyne Daly.
Plus, I love to see a character who’s an older female, kinda overweight, but…
VERY appealing, witty, honorable, wise, fun-loving, and…
according to the continuing storyline…still attractive!
To millionaire-types, even.

Tyne Daly’s performance certainly can’t be captured in my words here, but IMO-- it really makes the show.