At the The University of Colorado at Boulder's 57th Annual Conference on World Affairs in 2005, star Eliza Dushku's mother Judith Dushku (a Professor of Government at Suffolk University) told a story about her daughter's growing dissatisfaction with the writing and her character as the show went on. According to Mrs. Dushkhu, Eliza had been promised that
"Tru Calling" (2003) would be another "strong girl" show, in the tradition of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and that her character would be a role model for young women. However, by about the sixth episode, Eliza was calling her mother to complain about egregiously weak and dumb traits in her character. Examples given by Mrs. Dushku include: an argument that Eliza had with the showrunners because she refused to play a scene in which Tru did not know what a map was (and she had to have a man tell her) and Eliza being told that Tru shouldn't be seen studying for her MCATs (even though she was supposed to be a medical student). Eliza also made a list of all the script instructions written to describe Tru's state of mind, and they always included words like "overwhelmed," "surprised," "shocked," and "bewildered," but never instructions for Tru to be strong, confident, or sure of herself.
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