Revisiting Ally McBeal, a cast of obnoxious people that it was fun to spend time around, and looking forward to the revival, which could be absolutely awful.
The opening premise is young lawyer Ally McBeal losing her job due to a sexual-harassing boss and meeting an old college acquaintance Fish (Greg Germann, one of only three actors there for the duration) who immediately hires her. It turns out that her old flame Billy (from childhood sweetheart up to law school when he transferred) works there. Billy is married to Georgia (Courtney Thorn-Smith) and so they spend a lot of time dancing around one another as far as that goes and even though they are the ostensible thing, it didn’t really feel that way. More on Billy later.
In addition to Ally’s love life as a focal point of the show, week in and week out it had interesting cases and odd cases usually (though not always) exploring relationships (annulment, office sexual harassment, etc). As a matter of law they often veered towards the city, but I find myself thinking more about the McBeal cases than those on other law shows. The only Kelley show with court cases I thought more about is Picket Fences, which wasn’t even a legal show.
Ally with The Practice’s Bobby Donnell.
The show was produced by David E Kelley, who had a host of shows in and around that time, including the Picket Fences (small town with quirky residents and a courtroom), Chicago Hope (medical), Boston Public (schools) The Practice (gritty law), and Boston Legal (colorful law). This ran at the same time as The Practice and there was a crossover despite their very different tones. But surprisingly it worked and I wish they had done it more than once.
Death of Feminism?
The show’s handling of the famous Ally McBeal TIME cover, where she dreamed about it and talked about it a little, was fantastic. It was exactly the sort of neurotic dream that the character actually would have.
Musician Vonda Shepherd (who sang at the club they went to regularly) was listed with the rest of the cast, but never interacted with anyone on the show. How often does that happen? The only case I can think of where that might be so is when you have a voiceover, but I don’t think that they usually get opening list treatment. Bob Saget was not listed in How I Met Your Mother and Daniel Stern was not listed in Wonder Years. I’m sure it’s happened before, but I’m not sure where. She was in 109 episodes. Only three actors (Jane Krakowski as Elaine, Greg Germann as Fish, and Flockhart herself) were on more episodes.
Robert Downey Jr played arguably Ally’s best love interest.
One of the core elements of the show is Ally McBeal’s love life, which is usually riddled with bad luck. Kind of ironically, two of the characters with which she had the most chemistry that the writers planned to do a lot with had to leave prematurely due to casting issues (ie luck). Jesse Martin left for a regular gig on Law & Order and was written out almost as soon as he got it, and Robert Downey Junior… well… you know.
The original love plot is, as mentioned, long-ago ex-boyfriend Billy, who also leaves the show at season three for casting reasons. Gil Bellows was ready to move on. By the time he left, though, the character had really played out and you really hoped Ally would find someone better. The death was extraordinarily well done. After he died, his ghost hung around a bit. The Ghost of Billy provided an interesting contrast in that he was not a total douche. And it sort of makes sense. If that’s the Billy she imagined, it’s easy to see why the self-absorbed dope kept a hold on her heart.
Ally & Billy
The casting-character combinations on this show are truly amazing. I can’t say “casting” alone because a lot of them were leaning into characters they tended to play. But here they matched perfectly. Everything good about Peter MacNicol in Numb3rs was better in this show. Jane Krakowski as Elaine was far better than her (temperamentally similar) role in 30 Rock. Portia De Rossi and Lucy Liu. They were a cast of obnoxious people that it was fun to spend time around.
There were also some serious misfires. I really don’t know what they were thinking with the Mark Albert character. The whole show is a collection of oddballs and his thing was… good dental care. It looked like they were trying to set him up as Ally’s love interest, which just made it worse. James Marsden’s addition to the cast, as well as his love interest Jennifer, did feel like it ought to have worked. The good thing about the format of the show was that they could basically keep trying new things and characters until they found someone who hit.
I’m looking forward to the revival, which could be absolutely awful.
13 thoughts on “Tenshot: Revisiting Ally McBeal”
When I watched this in the original run, everyone seemed old. Now I’m older than almost all of the main cast.
He looked the rock and roll version of late 40’s.Report
The shift to service industries seems to be one big factor… but the other seems undoubtedly smoking. All things being equal, smoking really seems to beat-up the body.
Now, add-in some heavy partying and the pre-fitness craze… and yeah, that cohort aged like medieval peasants.Report
What revivals / reboots have been successful?
Immediate caveat: a lot of them have been designed to be 13-episode seasons for streaming channels, which tend to want eye-grabbing rather than long-running shows. So I guess I’m asking about shows that have been well-received by the public. The only one I can come up with is Battlestar Galactica, which I hear is aiming for a v3.
No revival is ever going to be universally loved. What are the necessary ingredients for a good one? It probably varies by the source material. Generally I’d think a comedy needs most of the original cast, but a drama can have fewer or even none of the original actors. But that’s not quite right – family dramas may require the same family, for example.
I’ve been hearing mostly positive things about the iCarly revival. The cast chemistry is back, and the story lines have matured, but the writing is current year politically correct and misses the right tone. (I never saw the original or revival.) It’s hard to see how Ally McBeal could duplicate its tone. It was garishly politically correct and garishly politically incorrect for its day. How would you do that today? It’d be possible, but you’d need a master’s hand.Report
The Hawaii Five-O revival was successful (ran for ten? seasons), but was a somewhat different show than the Jack Lord version. Though a lot of that came down to how TV does ‘action’ in the ‘10s vs late 70s early 80s. (The new Magnum has also now been on for a while, but I don’t know how it’s characterization differs from the original other than the genderswapped Higgins)
As far as I can tell, most of the other action revivals from the 70’s /80’s that have been made in the past 15 years (e.g. Charlie’s Angels, Knight Rider, MacGyver, heck, put Nikita on the list) have been not bad, but still pretty mediocre, and have limped along for a couple of seasons before cancelation.
For that matter, nuBSG is basically also its own show, really just borrowing IP to make the Star Trek that Ron Moore always wanted to, but couldn’t.Report
Movies are a different thing, I think. Or maybe they used to be. In the last 20 years, movies needed some built-in market to get studio funding, so they were more prone to reboots / remakes / rewhatevers. Maybe TV is headed that way. Or maybe it’s time to bury the TV/movie distinction. Point is, 25 years ago you could create new content anywhere, next year probably only on YouTube.Report
The Arrested Development revival was dreadful. The conventional wisdom was that the first year suffered from not having the whole cast together, but the second year had that and was even worse.Report
When I watched this in the original run, everyone seemed old. Now I’m older than almost all of the main cast.
This sucks.Report
Get off of my lawn, kid.Report
This picture of the Traveling Wilburys makes the rounds periodically.
Huh. Crap.Report
Roy Orbison looked about 70. It’s a shame he didn’t take better care of himself. His last two albums were pretty good.Report
He looked the 2020 version of 70.
He looked the 1980’s version of late 40’s.Report
He looked the rock and roll version of late 40’s.Report
The shift to service industries seems to be one big factor… but the other seems undoubtedly smoking. All things being equal, smoking really seems to beat-up the body.
Now, add-in some heavy partying and the pre-fitness craze… and yeah, that cohort aged like medieval peasants.Report
What revivals / reboots have been successful?
Immediate caveat: a lot of them have been designed to be 13-episode seasons for streaming channels, which tend to want eye-grabbing rather than long-running shows. So I guess I’m asking about shows that have been well-received by the public. The only one I can come up with is Battlestar Galactica, which I hear is aiming for a v3.
No revival is ever going to be universally loved. What are the necessary ingredients for a good one? It probably varies by the source material. Generally I’d think a comedy needs most of the original cast, but a drama can have fewer or even none of the original actors. But that’s not quite right – family dramas may require the same family, for example.
I’ve been hearing mostly positive things about the iCarly revival. The cast chemistry is back, and the story lines have matured, but the writing is current year politically correct and misses the right tone. (I never saw the original or revival.) It’s hard to see how Ally McBeal could duplicate its tone. It was garishly politically correct and garishly politically incorrect for its day. How would you do that today? It’d be possible, but you’d need a master’s hand.Report
The Hawaii Five-O revival was successful (ran for ten? seasons), but was a somewhat different show than the Jack Lord version. Though a lot of that came down to how TV does ‘action’ in the ‘10s vs late 70s early 80s. (The new Magnum has also now been on for a while, but I don’t know how it’s characterization differs from the original other than the genderswapped Higgins)
As far as I can tell, most of the other action revivals from the 70’s /80’s that have been made in the past 15 years (e.g. Charlie’s Angels, Knight Rider, MacGyver, heck, put Nikita on the list) have been not bad, but still pretty mediocre, and have limped along for a couple of seasons before cancelation.
For that matter, nuBSG is basically also its own show, really just borrowing IP to make the Star Trek that Ron Moore always wanted to, but couldn’t.Report
Does James Bond count?Report
Hawaii Five-O is a great example.
Movies are a different thing, I think. Or maybe they used to be. In the last 20 years, movies needed some built-in market to get studio funding, so they were more prone to reboots / remakes / rewhatevers. Maybe TV is headed that way. Or maybe it’s time to bury the TV/movie distinction. Point is, 25 years ago you could create new content anywhere, next year probably only on YouTube.Report
The Arrested Development revival was dreadful. The conventional wisdom was that the first year suffered from not having the whole cast together, but the second year had that and was even worse.Report
Not enough Single Female Lawyer.Report