Ally McBeal Review
McBeal is a strange mix of courtroom drama and romantic comedy.
Not realistic like Girls, but also not a sitcom per se like Seinfeld.
Voice-over monologs, green-screen effects, and flashbacks merge fantasy and reality into something completely new.
Some of the gags, like the unisex toilet, are stupid.
Some scenes are ridiculously over the top, but thankfully these are few and far between.
The music is often annoying as hell.
But this show hits the ground running.
The comic nightmare accelerates at warp speed from the very first scene.
A lawyer is harassed at her old law firm, leaves, and sues it.
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She gets a job at a new law firm where her ex-boyfriend, who is now married, works.
His wife is also a lawyer and comes to the firm to keep an eye on Ally and her husband.
Cut-throat court battles then bounce off the sizzling romantic plots
McBeal has a superb cast.
Massive four-point oppositions add to the drama.
The show is well-directed for the most part.
The McBeal writers had to do a lot of legal research to keep the show realistic and give texture to the romantic comedy that is at the heart of the series.
It’s hard to maintain that quality consistently, and the series finally faltered in its third season.
Still, it survived two more seasons at a lower pitch.
There’s no denying that the flighty Calista Flockhart and her provocative miniskirts were the focal point of this series and that they outraged many feminists.
But who’s complaining?
