Prime Video’s Justice on Trial, created by and starring Judge Judy Sheindlin, has a very clever premise. Perhaps more importantly, it’s a premise that could only work as a TV show. It makes me wonder if, perhaps, television might be the best possible means of not just occupying our free time with mindless entertainment, but presenting incredibly complex and divisive issues in a way that we can not only understand, but that might fundamentally change our perspective on those issues.
I’m well aware that this is an incredibly highfalutin claim to make about a Judge Judy series, which is part of the reason why I felt so compelled to lay out an argument for it. This series feels sneakily self-aware in how it repurposes the comfort and familiarity of reality TV, and the trustworthy visage of a long-time reality TV staple, and puts it to work challenging surprisingly essential questions. To be clear: This is not frivolous bear-baiting nonsense, but, on the contrary, an attempt to take the justice system itself to task for its potential failings. Crucially, though, it doesn’t attempt to form your opinions for you, instead laying out the facts – or near enough – and allowing you to make of them what you will. I’m as surprised as you are.
Judge Judy: Trojan Horse
Justice on Trial was conceived and executive produced by Judy Sheindlin, who had the following to say about it (per Deadline):
“Judges do not make law. They interpret the law. Judges are people. Sometimes they get it wrong. Then what happens? When and how long will it take to get it right? I’ve put justice on trial,” says Judge Sheindlin. “I couldn’t be more proud of this series. Everybody who watches it will come away a little smarter. Mission accomplished.”
This sounds like marketing spiel, but it’s a pretty adroit summary of the show overall, which across eight episodes takes real, landmark cases with deeply contentious verdicts and recreates them for the audience’s scrutiny. This is done through dramatic re-enactments of predictably wavering quality, but primarily through the aesthetic of the usual Judge Judy fare. Sheindlin is cast as the presiding judge, her legal team as attorneys arguing for and against, and the trial itself, through court transcripts, is redone in a made-for-TV manner.
It’s all very smart. Sure, some dramatic liberties have been taken, which the show is up-front about, but the broad strokes of each case and ultimately the verdict are true-to-life. A general audience’s familiarity with Judge Judy allows them to be suckered into significantly more complex cases than reality TV would ordinarily allow for. And then they’re hooked. But Sheindlin’s presence is repeatedly and reassuringly deployed in cutaways wherein she explains a complicated legal precedent, or justifies a particular decision, or raises an important question (perhaps prompting the audience to ask their own.) The framework of comfort-food reality TV is suddenly in service of something more closely resembling true crime.
Made For TV
Judge Judy Sheindlin in Justice on Trial | Image via Prime Video
Having ensnared an audience, Justice on Trial has to keep them hooked. But the trick to this is to allow the cases to speak for themselves. With prompting from Sheindlin, it’s easy to grasp the fundamental arguments and form your own conclusions about who’s right and who’s wrong. Often, you’ll find yourself in complete disagreement with the verdict, which is entirely – or at least largely – the point.
This is why television is such an ideal medium. It’s trustworthy. It’s easy to buy into the illusion that there’s nobody watching but you. It’s a private affair, immune from the pervasive and often performative gotcha-ism of social media. There’s never a sense anyone is trying to catch you out, which allows you to weigh everything up on its own terms. And that’s crucial for properly considering the kinds of issues this show raises.
Across 25 seasons, Judge Judy had an undeniable effect on courtroom programming, spawning spin-offs and breaking ratings records, but it paddled in the comparatively shallow waters of small-claims disputes. Justice on Trial is a completely different proposition, but with the approachability and reassuring sense of trust inherited from Sheindlin’s two-and-a-half-decade daytime TV tenure.
In Practice
I’m aware of sounding overly hyperbolic about a Judge Judy show, so indulge me a moment to give you an idea of how all this works in practice, using the first episode of Justice on Trial, “What Happens in My House (The Matter of Terrence K.)”, as a case study.
After a brief intro from Sheindlin, we get into the meat and potatoes of the matter, which here is the idea of diplomatic immunity. That’s a term everyone has heard but not necessarily one that everyone implicitly understands, so Sheindlin lays out some precedent, and it’s also reiterated through the trial recreation itself. Essentially, a foreign diplomat on a mission to the U.S. has violently abused his son, which has been noticed by state agencies in New York, but the interests of the U.S. government are to preserve diplomatic relations by sending the kid back home with his father rather than intervening.
Naturally, this raises all kinds of huge questions. Why is diplomatic immunity important? At what point should it cease to apply or, failing that, should efforts to communicate with the sending government be made? What is the relationship between personal rights and responsibilities and national interests? At what point does one supersede the other? I repeat: This is not frivolous daytime telly.
My sincere hope is that people feel about this show the same way I do, and thus come to the same – or at least a similar – conclusion about the value of television as a means to educate and challenge us rather than simply entertain. It isn’t about this show particularly, or Judge Judy specifically, but about how the familiar, comforting structure and language of TV can be repurposed for different goals. Absent the combative, point-scoring zero-sum game of contemporary politics, and divorced from its many short-form battlefields across social media and video platforms, TV might be the final frontier of honest introspection, and the only way to have a reasonable conversation these days – even if it might only be with ourselves.
