Customer Reviews

Pilot

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just watched the Ally McBeal pilot again. David Kelley and Calista Flockhart were born for each other like Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick.

Calista is radiant. She is not quite beautiful, not exactly pretty, no raging sex-pot; but the total combination is irresistible. You can't keep your eyes off her. She can be a waif, then a courtroom shark, with no time and no transition. And she pulls it off. She is Ally McBeal, and she changed the culture in the process.

The show is outrageous. The music, the graphics illustrating hilariously how Ally feels from moment to moment; Cage, Fish, the sexiest woman ever on television--roommate Renee, played to mouthwatering perfect by Lisa Nicole Carson; Elaine--a whole new category of character. It was such a high-wire act that only pure genius could have kept it up for five seasons.

I loved every minute of it. I miss it. I can't wait to own it.

If you haven't seen it, see it. If you have, it's time to get reacquainted with these quirky old friends.

Now, pardon me, please. I'm going to watch Episode 2.

(Warning: Some minor spoilers on later seasons or boyfriends-of-the-week!)

Ally McBeal is a well put-together show, shinily produced, and the actors are all terrific, but going back and revisiting the show years later was definitely a shock. I'd remembered thoroughly enjoying some episodes, while becoming increasingly dissatisfied as it went along, so it's interesting to go back and re-view the pilot and early episodes and wow, everything I disliked is right there up front after all.

I realize I'm one of the few, so feel free to click "not helpful" and I will totally understand.

But hear me out.

The show is cute on the surface but the farther down you go, the meaner its spirit and less deep it becomes (a real paradox). Dig deep and there's no "there" there.

The show's premise is that Ally is this sweet, hapless waif who just wants love (specifically, the guy who dumped her), and who also wants to be seen as a good person -- while consistently making a neverending series of questionable, shallow, egotistical or downright disturbing choices. The law firm is supposed to be cool, edgy and awesome, but eight hours at that firm and the harrassment suits would be flying. Most of the men are not conventionally handsome, which is fine, except that they're also generally painted as massive entitled jerks who are nevertheless incessantly desired and/or pursued by the firm's females, almost all of whom are gorgeous ice-queen types. The more imperfect the man on this show? The more perfect the actress playing his love interest is guaranteed to be. The show's supposed to be be this single-girl fantasy comedy but in fact is much more a man's fantasy at heart (which is unfortunately where too many of Kelley's shows seem to end up).

Yet of course these same women are ALSO willing to make out with each other on a moment's notice (especially for sweeps) -- but of course, never in a way that implies actual homosexuality or bisexuality (because that would mean they had actual depth, feelings or character progression), so it's mostly just staged in a prurient "Look! Hot chicks making out!" kind of way. This is never clearer than in the storyline where Ally falls for a coffehouse owner played by a terrific Mark Feuerstein, and the entire episode is really charming until Ally -- who has actively explored her sexual feelings for another woman on the show (forget that it was obviously a sweeps stunt, it counts) -- dumps the guy because she is unwilling to tolerate the fact that he has a same-sex relationship in his past and she is grossed out at her mental image of him kissing another guy. (The total stunning hypocrisy of this episode was, for me, the one where my dislike for the show blazed into white-hot hatred.)

Back in the day, the show tried to position its not-so-candy center as "daring" -- like it's speaking from the id all those secrets people don't typically share -- but really it's just all really kind of shallow and disturbing. Ally's ex continues to flirt with her incessantly right in front of his current wife. The same guy hires supermodels to accompany him music-video-style from meeting to meeting so he'll look virile. Ally is asked why her problems are more important than anyone else's and she coolly responds, "They're mine." A secretary smugly tells a heartbroken lawyer at the firm he can "use her [for sex]" anytime. Various geeks, losers, and unnattractive clients are paraded through court with their cases constantly hinging on characters ostensibly revealing the hidden truth of reality -- that they deserve to lose love, jobs, opportunities, etc., because they're ugly/geeky/losers and life is cruel. It's all oh so edgy.

The show has moments of real cuteness, but every time, manages to ruin a sweet moment. The show really seems out to show us that there are no truly good people, that imperfect (or God for bid, ugly) people are secretly not loved, only tolerated, and that Ally's inability to find love has nothing to do with her utter narcissism, self-centered smugness, her shrill whining when her perfect life is only 98% perfect, her terrible choices, or her blatant egotism... she's just painted over and over again as this cute plucky girl with bad luck, still wishing on a star. When time and again, her own behavior is what directly leads to her unhappiness. For instance, Ally sees a gorgeous guy and actually hits him with her car in order to get his number. The guy (Craig Bierko) is handsome, successful, caring and generous, and goes out with her even after she admits she ran into him on purpose. With her car. (Gah!) Then what does she do? Dumps him almost immediately because of a minor character quirk (he has an annoying laugh). Multiply this times twenty or thirty and that's Ally McBeal in a nutshell. Ally's quirks are to be cherished, but not those of anyone else. (Speaking of which, the fantasy scenes are cute but get old fast, and the special effects are often really shoddy -- and don't even get me started on the freaking dancing baby). Most episodes end with plucky little lonely/wistful Ally, still determined to find love, usually after crushing someone else's dreams in the previous 55 minutes, of course. Then cue the appropriate utterly interchangeable Vonda Shepard tune just in time for closing credits.

It's interesting that watching on digital video, in close sequence, actually exacerbates the show's flaws. We don't have a week to forget how shallow or inexcusably selfish Ally was last week -- instead, she's at it again, just moments later.

And that's all before the incomprehensibly bad final season. As with most of David E. Kelley's shows -- he consistently seems to become bored with his own shows by the last one or two seasons, often completely rewriting characters or 'retconning' them (see also "Chicago Hope" and its horrible final episode, etc.) Here, the final season -- after a rare bright spot with Robert Downey Jr., who miraculously makes everyone sort of bearable again for a brief moment -- means the show is finally as bad on the outside as it had seemed already on the inside. If that makes sense.

I know I'm in a minority, so I just want to close by saying that those who enjoy the show, more power to you. And truly, I have no problem with grayscale or unlikeable characters -- I loved "Arrested Development," for instance. But I do mind that a show that seems to think that it is "cute" adorable empowering candy-coated awesomeness, when it's actually kind of troublingly shallow, nihilistic, sexist and cringeworthy at heart. But maybe it's all just me. (Bygones!)

I had forgotten that the early episodes of this series were a bit creaky. and at first Ally seemed
so young, goofy and nervous that she felt more like a teenager than a smart 27 year old lawyer.

But by episode 5 or so the show and the character finds it's stride. And if it doesn't quite measure
up to the best 'grown up' TV of today, it still deserves praise for being one of the series that broke
the mold of what a TV show was supposed to be.

It had an openness to complicated tones that seamlessly mixed wild, sometimes surreal humor,
more subtle humor and drama, to long story arcs and not easily solved once a week problems,
and to being more about character than event, making TV a more novelistic and sometimes
cinematic medium in the process.

Certainly Ally McBeal wasn't the first show to do any of these things, but it was one of the first
shows that was a big success with these new approaches, and that helped paved the way for
many of the best dramas dramadies and comedies on TV in the years since.

I'll admit, with years of even braver shows since, Ally McBeal no longer feels quite as special, and
in fact now feels a little limited. Especially with DVDs allowing more than once a week viewing,
a certain sameness to Ally's constantly fearful, broken heart and her funny/sad attempts to overcome
it starts to plague the show.

But there's still a lot to enjoy here. The performances are terrific from top to bottom, and every
'silly' character is given their serious and moving moments, and every 'serious' character is allowed
to be laugh-out-loud funny at times. Special mention has to be made of Peter MacNichol's 'The Biscuit',
one of the oddest, funniest characters to actually work brilliantly in any series.

The writing is sharp and full of wit and pathos. The music is integrated in a way that was rare for
TV before, but much imitated since, with montages to songs played and sung by Vonda Shepard
(a great voice) who often also appears in the series as a singer at the lead characters favorite after
hours watering hole.

I do have to say, some of the music now feels, in retrospect, too on the nose. The songs chosen (or written) almost
always have lyrics that are too spot on, too obvious a commentary on the action, That good and bad
side to the music sort of sums up my perspective on the series looking at it again in 2011. I appreciate and admire
it for what it gave us and TV, I still enjoy it, but I'm no longer just blown away by it. Not in a world of Breaking Bad,
Weeds, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, Arrested Development, etc. etc.

watched some episodes of it when i was a kid. and always wanted to watch it after i grow up. so happy to find it here