Amy Lippman writes family conversations that matter even when they settle little. Party of Five, created with Christopher Keyser, is good, patient television until the writers ask its siblings to endure more misfortune than the drama needs.
Fi1m perspective
The family conversation in Party of Five (1994) can end with the problem still there. Someone needs help, nobody feels equipped to give it, and being related is no guarantee of knowing what to say. Amy Lippman and Christopher Keyser’s series begins with five siblings facing life after their parents’ deaths, but its strongest writing concerns the ordinary business that follows. We were moved by the siblings’ attempts to manage everyday problems that none of them felt equipped to solve.
Lippman’s early writing for soaps led to network dramas, including L.A. Law (1986), before she and Keyser created Party of Five. Their partnership matters to how we judge the work: there is no useful way to credit one of them with every good conversation and the other with the excesses. The spin-off Time of Your Life (1999) extended that work. Later credits include writing for In Treatment (2008), and writing and executive producing on Masters of Sex (2013). Those credits take her beyond the family drama, though Party of Five gives us the clearest reason to rate her.
The second and third series are the strongest stretch. By then, a disagreement has earlier disagreements behind it, so the writers need not invent a fresh disaster to hold our attention. Within 42 minutes, the conversation must do enough to keep an episode moving and still sound like people trying to understand one another. That is difficult writing to sustain: too much explanation and the characters sound rehearsed; too little movement and an episode stalls. At their best, Lippman and Keyser let the family relationships carry an episode without another calamity.
The later accumulation of misfortune makes the Salingers less convincing. The strain falls on relationships that were already worth following, and the series becomes harder company than it needs to be. We can still value the earnestness and the committed ensemble without needing another crisis to prove how much this family has endured. Start with Party of Five for the patient family writing, with some tolerance for the troubles the writers keep adding.
Biography
Amy Lippman is an American television writer and producer. She studied English at Harvard College, graduating in 1985, where she met her future writing partner Christopher Keyser in a playwriting class. After writing for soap operas in New York, she and Keyser moved to Los Angeles in 1988 and began working as a writing duo on series including L.A. Law and Sisters.
Lippman and Keyser created the Fox drama Party of Five (1994–2000), on which she also served as executive producer and writer. She later wrote episodes of In Treatment (2008) and worked as a writer and executive producer on Masters of Sex (2013–2016). She oversaw the 2020 reboot of Party of Five and has credits on other series such as Significant Others and Time of Your Life.
Lippman received a Humanitas Prize with Keyser for an episode of Party of Five. She is married to actor, writer, director and producer Rodman Flender.
