Judging Amy

Fine drama, fine acting, fine story-lines... I am always surprised that the hour has gone by so quickly.

Amy is now a criminal court judge in Hartford, CT. I did like her when she was on the bench in juvenile court, so we'll have to see how adult crime fares in her courtroom. Juvenile court was just as often about the crimes perpetrated against children as it was them doing wrong. Tyne Daly is a marvel. This is serious television done fine, just the right amount of serious issues, family-relationship soap, quips and pathos. Always lands in my moral comfort zone, even when I disapprove of some of the choices the characters make - but that's drama. Bruce is like this one-man Greek chorus, and I can never forget the one episode where he brought in Bonhoeffer's doctrine of "cheap grace."

Judging Amy won a Catholics in Media Award in 2002 and Tyne Daly an Emmy. Barbara Hall and her sister Karen Hall as well as CBS are to be congratulated for knowing what makes good television.

Alias

This is my must-see TV show of the week. I watch it for no other reason than it's totally engaging, unreal, and the plot keeps surprising me. And it has a female as the heroine in a television landscape that has precious few of those. I know it's "only" TV. Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) is this ... spy. Now she's in with the good guys (?) the CIA. It's impossible to explain the plot, so the best thing to do is go back to ABC on cable, maybe on New Years Day 2004, when they will do a marathon and you can catch up. Are there any morals to the story? Hmm. Do you mean personal or social? Or both? What drives it is the ongoing quest for what is right. You can ask, right for whom? And is anyone "good" all the time? It's a soap opera on high gear. I won't explain "Alias" to you - if you see it, you'll get it. This is pure escapism, but the going is smart.