Kate Walsh is very, very good. Bad Judge, sadly, isn't. But it could have been. Originally conceived by Will Ferrell's famed sidekick Adam McCay (and executive produced by Ferrell), Bad Judge was no doubt originally designed to follow in the footsteps of Bad Teacher  and Bad Santa. It likely would have been very good at that, with Walsh in the lead supported by Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars, Party Down), an actor who's so good with his face that he can get a laugh just by entering a room or raising an eyebrow to the point where you wonder if that might be his gimmick… but then he's just as good when it's his turn to talk, and you realize the guy's just fundamentally funny. That makes him a perfect compliment to Walsh, who sports a similar skill set, although in contrast to Hansen's laid-back hilarity she's at her comic best when pushed into neurotic frenzy. 

Alas, the network panicked and instead of a lovably deplorable anti-hero, we have a nurturing, largely generic leading lady. Walsh is so good she saves a lot of it, but the show has an identity crisis even she can't solve, as half the episode was re-shot to make her into this new, loving character and half of it was left over from her days as a me-first hedonist. The show runner responsible for the pilot has already been fired, and replaced, so there will soon be yet a third interpretation on the table. Hopefully it will be one that tips the show in one direction or the other, as the leads are strong enough to make it work as either… but it can't survive as both.