Ally McBeal's last show
Ally McBeal was a self-absorbed, whiny, psychotic, infantile woman-child who wore tiny, tiny outfits and stammered a lot. And now she's gone.
David E. Kelley wrapped up the unpleasant, soft-focused, ratings-impaired
world of his most notorious creation with the maudlin, "You're the soul
of this place," uttered by the goofy John Cage upon Ally's resignation
from her cushy partnership in a Boston law firm where every lawyer is
between 28 and 40, and has a fetish, quirk or body part obsession. You've read
the feminist diatribes against Ally. But what about her TV legacy?
1. The fantasy sequence. Let's call this what it is — a Get Out of Jail Free card for uninspired writers. Dancing babies, dead ex-boyfriends, soul great Al Green, whatever — why go to the trouble of composing compelling or even sensible dialogue when you can just have your star interact with a hallucination? "Ally" didn't start this trend either, but she certainly got the most press for it. And it seems to be sticking around. Tune in shows like "Andy Richter Controls the Universe," "Scrubs" or "Six Feet Under," and someone's imagination is coming to life somewhere. It's a cheap gag, and a cop out.
2. The guest star. In the last two years of the series, "Ally" featured
more celebrity star turns than a "Hollywood Squares"/"The Love Boat" crossover. To name a few: Christina Ricci, Carl Reiner, Dame Edna, Anne Heche, Robert Downey Jr., Sting, Elton John, Tina Turner, Mariah Carey, Wayne Newton, Cheri Oteri, Jacqueline Bisset, Christine Lahti, Barry White and John Bon Jovi. Sure, "Ally" didn't invent this trend. Sally Field hijacked "ER" last season, and Julia Roberts has lent her toothy mediocrity to both "Friends" and "Law and Order." But for pure quantity, "Ally" was a regular Promenade Deck. It made non-game-show TV a viable option for publicists pushing their "products" past career ennui.
3. Singing. Singing guest stars are one thing, but why did the characters themselves have to sing every night at the bar below the firm's offices? And this wasn't karaoke. They took over the stage, which always had backup singers at the ready. Actually, this might have been the kind of thing that could have kept the "X-Files" going. Scully and Mulder could have grabbed mikes and belted out the B-52s' "Song for a Future Generation" to lighten things up a little.
4. The "dramedy." In the mid '80s, shows like "Hooperman," "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd," and even "Moonlighting" were tarred with this epithet. Dramedies combine conventions of drama, such as serious subject matter, complex characters, interior and exterior settings, textured lighting, single-camera shooting and no laugh track, with the conventions of comedy, like the four-act structure, repetition, hyperbole and, uh, jokes. A decade later, "Ally" picked up the dramedy gauntlet and became the first hour-long show to win an Emmy for Best Comedy, though certainly not the first unfunny show to garner that award. Can Denis Leary's "The Job" keep this genre going? Time will tell.
"Ally McBeal" arrived with a bang, but has left with a whimper. It's too bad Kelley didn't elect to do something typically PR-inducing (how about a nervous breakdown, a la "M*A*S*H*"? Ally could have broken down in court, yelling "Keep that damn chicken QUIET!" while someone suffocated John Cage and his damn nose-whistling). But Kelley's probably too busy working on his next masterpiece. Replacing "Ally" on Mondays next fall is Kelley's "Girls Club," a drama about a trio of female San Francisco lawyers. No doubt he pitched it as "'Ally McBeal' meets 'Sex and the City'." And perhaps that is "Ally's" most significant legacy — that it will continue to be used as a touchstone in many derivative TV pitch ideas to come.
— Karen Lurie (karen@flakmag.com)
