1.She can turn the whole world on with her smile-but only if she feels like it.
Ally isn't out to mother everybody in the office. Her favorite expression is the turned down frown, and her favorite book is Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King, who's refrain is, "I want! I want! I want!"
2. It's Unpredictable.
Just one you thought you'd seen every stale formula there is, he comes a show that mutates from moment to moment. This may reflect the personality of Kelley, who writes every single word. "You know, David is a cryptic guy," say Germann. " He's the kind of guy, who if you said, 'David you're cryptic', he would say, 'Am I?'"
3.Bathroom Humor You Can Root For.
The law firm's unisex bathroom is where everyone goes to spill secrets- which are forever getting overheard by colleagues hiding in the stalls. (When Fish is busted eavesdropping with his feet up on the door, he claims he has "L-5 disk problems"). Not that secrets are any safer in people's offices. There's always at least one ear at the door, and everybody is apt at pretending not tohave heard a thing as they scurry away. Ally McBeal is written as if rumors rule the office world, because they do.
4.Fishisms: The Ultimate Cult Of The 90's?
Ally's hilariously morally malleable boss is forever spouting wise thoughts in proverbs he calls "Fishisms". When Ally has a problem using her curves to land a client from the firm, Fish says, "A problem is just a bleak word for a challenge. Here is Fish's idea of comforting Ally's heartbreak, "Everybody's alone, Ally. it's just easier to take it in a relationship."
5.There's Music In Her Soul
Ally gets an inspired theme song, "Searchin' My Soul", by folky rocker Vonda Shephard, who, unlike a lot of folks in Hollywood, still has a soul to locate. Shephard's down-bu-not-downhearted tunes, which she often performs in the shows night club scenes, give Ally a sonic doppleganger. No wonder Kelley likes to have Shephard's music blasting when he writes the show. Shephard's music makes Ally seem deeper. Let's hope there's a soundtrack album soon.
6. A Little Fantasy Goes A Long Way
Teh show gives us play-by-play commentary on Ally's emotions, via voice-over monologues, flashbacks, and hit-and-run fantasies. But the flashback scenes don't linger forever, as they did on Sisters, for instance. The fantasy bitsand internal monologues are snappy, too, never weighing down the pace of the drama. They're almost subliminal, which is how things shouild be.
7.The Love Triangle Rings Our Chimes
Usually, when TV stages a romantic rivalry, it's about as subtle as the cat fight in The Women But Ally McBeal shows the way it really works. Naturally, Ally and Georgia, the lawyer who married Billy, want to hate eachothers guts. " You were hoping she was fat and stupid, and maybe missing a few teeth," says Bill, and Ally admits it. Yet, when Georgia and Ally prepare a bog case together, they bond-until Billy walks by, and his glance reveals that some Ally-Billy intimacy survives. You used to have to go to the movies to find such subtle nuances.
8. Found: The Real Lords of The Dance.
Most men, on Ally McBeal and in real life, are from Mars. The dancing twins, who turn up in the night club scenes, are down-to-earth. Their attire is identical, their happy feet indefatigable, and they can be trusted to never trip Ally up.
9.It Tackles Themes That Get Women Down WithOut Putting Them Down.
In a touching guest role, Kathy Jackson captures the anger of a TV anchor cast off because not enough people in internet chatrooms want to see her naked. Dyan Cannon plays a judge who permits a man not her date to smooch her on the sly, sadly explaining, "20 years ago I would have slapped his face-because it happened all the time"> Courtney Thorn-Smith has a poignant line you would never hear on Melrose Place, "I'm afraid of growing out of what my husband fell in love with."
10.It's In The Kiss.
Ally McBeal is to the study of romance what Seinfeld is th the study of neurosis; she can still feel the sizzle of her first kiss, and everyone thereafter. While Ally dances with a hot date, her voice over tells her," The first dance is critical. I never start off close-it gives me no place to go. A dance is basically foreplay..." Even just walking is foreplay, Ally reconizes, "Not that I invited anything, I kept my body language stiff, hands behind my back... I only smiled medium...
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