The Worst Episodes of Judging Amy
Every episode of Judging Amy ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of Judging Amy!
Judging Amy is an American television drama that was telecast from September 19, 1999, through May 3, 2005, on CBS-TV. This TV series starred Amy Brenneman and Tyne Daly. Its main character is a judge who serves in a family court, and in addition to the family-related cases that she adjudicates, many episodes of the show focus on her own experiences as a divorced mother, and on the experiences of her mother, a social worker who works in the field of child welfare. This series was based on the life experiences of Brenneman's mother.
Lowest Rated Episodes Summary
The worst episode of "Judging Amy" is "Short Calendar", rated 6.8/10 from 61 user votes. It was directed by Jack Bender and written by Dawn Prestwich, Nicole Yorkin. "Short Calendar" aired on 9/21/1999 and is rated 0.2 point(s) lower than the second lowest rated, "Last Tango in Hartford".
6.8/10 61 votes#1 - Short Calendar
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 9/21/1999
Short calendar day drops 54 cases on Amy's docket, and the long day stretches into night when she's forced to make a life and death decision about the fate of an abused child; Maxine decides to return to work; Amy's confrontation with Lauren's obnoxious new teacher leaves her with yet another responsibility in an already jam-packed calendar.
Director: Jack Bender
Writer: Dawn Prestwich, Nicole Yorkin
7.0/10 58 votes#2 - Last Tango in Hartford
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 10/12/1999
A death threat, coupled with Maxine's disapproval, puts a crimp in Amy's blossoming relationship with Tracy; Vincent begins to feel like he's 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.
Director: James Frawley
Writer: Dawn Prestwich, Nicole Yorkin
7.0/10 38 votes#3 - Looking For Quarters
Season 4 Episode 18 - Aired 3/18/2003
Maxine unwittingly provides Amy with the information she needs to decide whether promoters are responsible for the death of a teenager who died from an ecstasy overdose during one of their raves; Maxine and Sean join forces to persuade a couple to take back their former foster child after she's released from work camp; Amy and Maxine disagree about Amy's being overprotective of Lauren; Sean lets Maxine know he's angry about her judgemental attitude toward Eric; after conferring with Martin, Kyle decides to pursue a romance with Heather; Kyle goes off the wagon when he and Heather throw a party to celebrate their successful evaluations; after Lily sees them kissing at the party, she decides not to reveal that a random drug test is being conducted the next day, and Heather is fired; Bruce distances himself from Amy in an effort to convince Zola that there's nothing going on between them.
Director: James Hayman
Writer: N/A
7.0/10 32 votes#4 - Revolutions Per Minute
Season 6 Episode 19 - Aired 4/12/2005
Lauren announces to the family that she has decided to become a vegetarian. Amy has a confrontation with Lauren's spiked-haired friend Reagan about the issue when Reagan and her brother stop by to take Lauren to school. Amy hears a case in which a teenage boy is accused of assaulting his mother and locking her in the basement. The boy admits that his mother beat his pit bull to death and also used to leave him home alone when he was a small child. Maxine investigates a child abuse allegation involving an autistic child. The child was screaming a lot because he missed his mom's boyfriend. Peter becomes concerned about what Gillian did during their separation. They decide to drop the issue and make up.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.1/10 34 votes#5 - Imbroglio
Season 3 Episode 7 - Aired 11/6/2001
Amy asks Bruce to set her up with his friend, but it doesn't go quite the way she planned; Amy hears cases involving a woman who breastfeeds her 6 year old son and a couple who can't decide whether to send their ""mute"" daughter to therapy; Maxine goes to bat for an unhappy spelling bee champ; Gillian obsesses about getting Ned into an exclusive preschool.
Director: Daniel Sackheim
Writer: N/A
7.2/10 44 votes#6 - Between the Wanting and the Getting
Season 2 Episode 19 - Aired 5/1/2001
Jonathan Ashworth joins the Sanctuary House team and manages to ruffle everyone's feathers; Amy tries unsuccessfully to displace some doubts about her relationship with Rob onto Maxine, but is finally forced to confront reality; Bruce quarrels with Winnie over their mother's move; Maxine is displeased at the methods Jonathan uses to engineer the arrest and conviction of the Roseland pedophile; Amy hears the case of a boy with gender identity disorder whose parents are charged with educational neglect for keeping him out of school after he's harassed by his classmates.
Director: N/A
Writer: Dawn Prestwich, Joseph Dougherty, Nicole Yorkin
7.2/10 34 votes#7 - The New Normal
Season 6 Episode 17 - Aired 3/22/2005
No description available
Director: Helen Shaver
Writer: N/A
7.3/10 43 votes#8 - The Persistence of Tectonics
Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 11/23/1999
Amy juggles preparing Thanksgiving dinner, being on call, and coping with a surprise announcement from Michael; Gillian asks Maxine for help in financing another in-vitro procedure; Amy presides over an adoption in which the biological father shows up at the last minute to claim his child; Hillary tries to settle the score with Vincent during a Thanksgiving party at Alan's; Amy sentences two boys convicted of animal cruelty.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.3/10 33 votes#9 - The Cook of the Money Pot
Season 3 Episode 13 - Aired 1/15/2002
Amy hears the case of a disturbed teenager who successfully impersonated a police officer at a high school for several months, carrying a loaded gun, and who was only discovered after being arrested for severely beating a student he suspected of being a drug dealer; while Maxine is deciding whether a mother who is being released from prison for killing one of her children should be returned to her family, Kyle helps her uncover some medical information that may give credence to the woman's claim of innocence; Kyle and Brian have a run-in over Kyle's way with Teen Harbor's clients, and Kyle learns an expensive lesson about street kids; as Amy is about to rule in the matter of two teenagers accused of stealing a stop sign and contributing to an accident which seriously injured a man and left him in a coma, she receives word in open court that the man has died, prompting a startling admission from one of the accused; after Lauren walks in on Kyle having sex, Gillian volunteers to help hi
Director: James Hayman
Writer: Lyla Oliver
7.3/10 34 votes#10 - Can They Do That With Vegetables?
Season 3 Episode 15 - Aired 2/5/2002
Maxine reluctantly allows Eric to stay at her house when she's unable to find him the right placement; Amy makes a second date with Barry; Kyle helps a former drug addict who goes to extremes to find an apartment; Amy hears the case of a teen who is suing a tobacco company for causing his emphysema; Gillian's effort to expand her knowledge of black culture doesn't go so well.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.4/10 42 votes#11 - Culture Clash
Season 1 Episode 15 - Aired 2/15/2000
Amy is assigned to a Judicial Conduct Commission panel which will decide the fate of a judge accused of demanding sexual favors from a prostitute in exchange for a reduced sentence; Maxine faces a culture clash when she tries to help a Yemeni teenager who was stabbed after being accused of dishonoring her family; Amy presides over the case of a woman who fears that her ex-husband may have abducted their children; Vincent's book is published and reviewed by The New York Times; Evie moves in temporarily with Maxine and Amy, and proves to be quite a handful; Michael's parents come to visit Lauren, and rebuff Amy's attempts to discuss the divorce.
Director: Jack Bender
Writer: N/A
7.4/10 49 votes#12 - 8 1/2 Narrow
Season 2 Episode 12 - Aired 2/6/2001
Amy finds herself fending off Nick's advances and agonizes over whether she should tell Lolly; Maxine assists a detective in tracking down an undocumented Cambodian boy's parents; Amy rules on a case involving a teenager who refuses to attend school after the principal discontinues the gay pride club on campus.
Director: Helen Shaver
Writer: Joseph Dougherty
7.4/10 36 votes#13 - Sex, Lies and Expedia.com
Season 5 Episode 23 - Aired 5/18/2004
Unwilling to let a poor client go to extremes to get prompt medical attention for her daughter, Maxine finds a way to get D.C.F. to cover the surgery the girl needs; David declares his love for Amy; Maxine gets shocking news about Ignacio and breaks off their relationship; Amy tragically miscalculates a teenager's propensity for violence; increasingly jealous over Peter's involvement with Shelby, Gillian confronts him about the future of their marriage, and doesn't like the response she gets; with the help of Buck and a little gunfire, Kyle finally finds a career path he can get excited about; the Grays receive a very unexpected, and very welcome, visitor.
Director: James Frawley
Writer: Lyla Oliver, Karen Hall
7.4/10 35 votes#14 - 10,000 Steps
Season 6 Episode 11 - Aired 1/25/2005
When Amy tells Lauren about being pregnant, her reaction is not exactly what Amy would have liked; While working at the outreach office for teenage runaways, Vincent uses his flair for writing to encourage a teenage runaway to write a better essay about himself so that he will be accepted in a half-way house; Amy presides over a case involving parents who want to terminate their custody over their adopted child due to his short temper and destructive behavior; Maxine deals with a case involving a boy who uses his eight year old foster brother as a drug mule; Peter fears for his relationship with Gillian when all she wants to do is have sex; Amy and David become engaged.
Director: N/A
Writer: Constance M. Burge
7.4/10 40 votes#15 - Dream a Little Dream
Season 6 Episode 13 - Aired 2/15/2005
Amy oversees an emotional case involving a 13-year-old boy with a history of violent behavior who shot and killed his grandfather who was suffering from terminal lung cancer; Maxine uncovers a human smuggling operation while following up on a report of a young boy being beaten numerous times; Vincent witnesses the gunning down of a prostitute by her pimp; Meanwhile, Amy and David search for the perfect house to start their life together in.
Director: James Frawley
Writer: Adam Belanoff
7.5/10 60 votes#16 - Trial By Jury
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 9/28/1999
Sitting in for a friend who's undergoing chemotherapy, Amy presides over her first jury trial and clashes with a former law school classmate who represents the parents of a murdered girl who are suing the parents of her teenaged killer; Maxine shops for a new car for the first time in her life; Vincent feels that Maxine doesn't take his writing seriously after she interrupts his work to ask him to babysit the six rambunctious first graders attending Lauren's sleepover party.
Director: James Hayman
Writer: Natalie Chaidez
7.5/10 44 votes#17 - Not With a Whimper
Season 1 Episode 22 - Aired 5/16/2000
After going on the date from hell with a Yale professor, Amy has one last fling with Michael the day their divorce becomes final; Maxine returns a stowaway boy to his mother; when Donna and Vincent persuade a reluctant Evie to deliver her baby in the hospital instead of home, she insists that they, instead of Gillian and Peter, act as her birthing coaches; Amy assigns a unique condition of probation to a bright and feisty teenager; Maxine fears that she's contracted Alzheimer's after suffering cognitive lapses, and is relieved to discover that it's only a concussion sustained when she bumped her head on a piece of furniture; Evie's son is born, surprising the family with his interracial heritage.
Director: David Platt
Writer: Dawn Prestwich, Nicole Yorkin
7.5/10 36 votes#18 - You're Not the Boss of Me
Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 10/24/2000
Maxine goes overboard in mothering Vincent after he's released from the hospital and moves back into her house to recuperate; Amy sentences a teenager accused of bullying small children; Donna uncovers incriminating information about Ian; Lauren's soccer coach turns out to be an old friend of Amy's; after the police reach a dead end in a child molestation accusation, Maxine stumbles upon the ammunition needed to reopen the case; Lauren lays a guilt trip on Amy about her being a work-outside-the-home mother; Amy demands a written apology after the investigation about her relationship with Bruce is dropped for insufficient evidence; when Gillian and Amy disagree about babysitters, Peter disagrees with his wife's plans to quit her job; after presiding over the case of a teenager whose infant son died after she left him on the steps of a church, Amy goes ballistic when a father at one of the soccer games becomes verbally abusive; Amy gets Bruce transferred back to her court, and is shocke
Director: Kevin Dowling
Writer: Dawn Prestwich, Nicole Yorkin
7.5/10 44 votes#19 - Adoption Day
Season 2 Episode 10 - Aired 1/16/2001
Evie walks back into Ned's life just as Peter and Gillian are set to adopt him; Maxine deals with a young girl who wants to be adopted before her 18th birthday, and a 12-year-old boy who refuses to be adopted because he believes his birth mother will come back one day.
Director: James Hayman
Writer: N/A
7.5/10 36 votes#20 - Off the Grid
Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 10/2/2001
Vincent and Amy are frantic when Maxine disappears; Carole ignores a lump on her breast; Amy suspects a lawyer of exploiting starving children and also hears the case of two kids who attack a Live the Lord club and try to excuse it by saying that the club should not be meeting on school grounds.
Director: Jack Bender
Writer: Joseph Dougherty
7.5/10 36 votes#21 - Who Shot Dick?
Season 3 Episode 12 - Aired 1/8/2002
After her brother Richard arrives in town looking for his son, Maxine initially refuses to put him in touch with Kyle, but later relents; in the process of helping Donna with her estate planning, Peter and Gillian agree to become Ariadne's guardian should something happen to Donna; as Maxine quarrels with Richard about the event that caused them not to speak for twelve years, it becomes apparent that Maxine blames her brother for Edward's early death; Bruce and Andrea hit it off during a play date for their daughters, and later go out on a date; Kyle refuses his father's offer to bail him out of his troubles; Maxine works to help a father regain visitation rights to his teenaged son; Kyle and Amy continue their discussion about the events that caused a rift in their relationship and find that they share responsibility and guilt for the events of that night; a young surrogate mother pregnant with twins who has no interest in keeping the babies comes before Amy in the middle of a custody
Director: Nancy Malone
Writer: Barbara Hall
7.5/10 34 votes#22 - Not Stumbling, But Dancing
Season 3 Episode 17 - Aired 3/5/2002
Amy's suspicion that a little ""pretty girl voodoo"" is behind the case of a teenager who beat up the abusive ex-boyfriend of a girl on whom he had a crush is confirmed when prosecutor Jonathan Ashworth does a little digging and helps Amy serve up justice to all parties; when a confused and frightened teenager barricades himself with his siblings in their house and begins shooting at the police, Maxine risks her life to persuade him to put down his rifle and come with her to visit his hospitalized mother; a pregnant woman flees the jurisdiction to avoid losing custody of her baby to D.C.F. after Amy determines that she has done nothing to change the conditions under which she lost custody of her son two years earlier; Lauren's assignment for her life skills class, to prepare dinner for the family by herself, results in a creative dish inspired by a well-known trio not usually associated with the culinary arts.
Director: N/A
Writer: Joseph Dougherty
7.5/10 35 votes#23 - Motion Sickness
Season 5 Episode 1 - Aired 9/23/2003
When Amy is transferred to criminal court, Bruce stays behind in juvenile court, and she inherits Spencer, an insolent clerk; Lauren has an extremely unhappy first day at junior high, but things brighten up on day two when, much to her mother's dismay, she finds a boyfriend who is a year older; after accepting Stuart's proposal, Amy begins to have nightmares about the wedding; recently unemployed as a result of budget cuts, Donna helps Peter care for his sons while Gillian languishes in a coma; Ellen, D.C.F.'s newest employee, uses her experience as a former foster child to help Maxine deal with a teenager who's run away from her foster home; fed up with his impudence and disloyalty, Amy fires Spencer and hires Donna, who's recently graduated from law school; Amy's predecessor in the criminal division threatens her with retribution after she considers overturning his decision to suppress evidence in a capital murder case; Gillian finally emerges from her coma.
Director: James Frawley
Writer: N/A
7.5/10 33 votes#24 - Going Down
Season 5 Episode 2 - Aired 9/30/2003
After she's released from the hospital with a clean bill of health, Gillian reveals that she had a near-death experience during Walt's delivery, but can't seem to find anyone who believes her; when Amy claims that she has no time to organize the wedding, Stu volunteers to make all the arrangements; tragedy occurs when Maxine's pleas to the police to publicize the disappearance of a foster child fall on deaf ears; it's apparent that there's no love lost between Stu and David when they end up at the same cocktail party; Kyle and Lily have an intense encounter in a hospital elevator; Amy's frustration with the difference between the criminal and juvenile court systems increases as the Hawkins trial concludes; Kyle is unsuccessful in his attempt to get Lily to change her mind about moving to New York.
Director: Paul Michael Glaser
Writer: Karen Hall
7.5/10 32 votes#25 - Slade's Chophouse
Season 5 Episode 20 - Aired 4/27/2004
Amy fusses over Lauren's overnight school field trip to Philadelphia with Victor; Bruce is in for a shock when an old friend comes for a visit; Amy confronts David after Lolly Wetzel repeats Greenwich rumors that connect him with his wife's murder, and he finally tells her the horrifying details of Kelly's death; when Ignacio's pictures get mixed up with another family's at the photo lab, Maxine sets off to investigate if the pictures of a woman with a black eye indicate spousal abuse, and ends up learning more than she wants to about the woman's interests; Amy presides over the pre-trial hearing for a troubled teenager accused of killing her babysitter; against Todd's advice, Kyle takes time off to see if Heather is with her father in Boston, and is stunned when Mr. Labonte tells him that Heather has a troubled past with a history of telling lies, including that he had cancer; when Amy goes to David's office to accompany him on a visit to his therapist, she learns that he has left to
Director: Fred Gerber
Writer: Karen Hall