’’You’re the first, the last, my everything’’ sang Barry White as Richard & Lysa celebrated their marriage an curtains came down on one of the best written series that i’ve seen till date.
Goodbye’s are hard that’s why i’m posting this review 6 months after I started writing it. I never felt sad about a series ending be it Friends, X-files etc. but this one was different.
Yeah Guys, Ally would not be returning next season as this season was, as its producers’ put it, its 5th and farewell season. Well usually a review is written to introduce something or to recommend something but this one is for neither as Ally doesn’t needs an introduction as for recommending well this may be too late. So let’s say this is a farewell review to one of the most well written, entertaining and one of its kind series that I have ever seen on TV.
I started watching Ally Mcbeal three years ago as a most of the little television time that I got was getting unused as more & more saas bahu & giveaway shows came up replacing my old favorites and soon there was no series left worth watching in indian channels except for may be Timon & Pumba ;-) (Lately they have stopped that too I suppose).
Initially it was a little odd to watch a comedy which surprisingly doesn’t believed in sugar coating (as english serials I watched were of Star-Trex, X-files or of fiends variety)but slowly I got hooked as sugar or no sugar my mouth always watered for something different.
There were many things memorable about this series. Firstly as I said it was refreshingly different. Secondly I loved the way the idio-synchrosies & feelings of various characters were potrayed and the simple way of showing of what’s going on in the charactors mind. It is not everyday you see somebody eating her colleague’s head or a five foot toungue or a simple ballon punture of a human body in a series which in no sense a science fiction. Other things like the Uni-sex toilet(almost a third of every episode was picturized here in the last few seasons) in the firm or John cage’s secret hoole in the Loo or characters like Claire Otams(in the last season). But the fact that despite all this they were so real or true to life chracters made it an engrossing watch.
The main strength of the series was its script. There was a better written script in its each episode then in 99% of bollywood films/shows, or even majority of hollywood films for that matter (As a matter of fact successful shows in america generally have a good script, which is not so true about successful hollywood films). A typical episode would be about some development in the private life of a employee/s of the firm, a new case for the firm working around which would be the whole episode. The types of case which Cage & Fish would handle could usually be classified as weird. But the absurdities of the particulars/parts contributed beautifully to make sense of the whole episode(not to mention the contribution of each episode to the series as a whole) and that’ what made the script special.
The best part about the series besides the script was the Characterisations. Personally, I have not seen better characterisations on television. I still don’t know real names of anyone except probably Calista Flockhart. Ally being the central character took the bulk of the OST(On Screen Time)but that didn’t hinder other characters. Personally my favorite was John Cage. For me he was the best written character in the series. I simply loved watching him. He was an utterly loveble character. He was probably the one with most ’issues’ in the series and was most interesting to watch. Among others Elane will not be forgetted easily and then there was Richard Fish, the one who induced most laughs in you. About Ally, her love problems are now legendary but after watching her over a period of time you kind of knew what to expect(which marks consistency in writing). There were surprises but none earth-shaking. Also the series does not end as ost of people thoght it would. Ally still has’t found love and is moving to New york to take care of her genetic daughter. So much so for predictable.
With that kind of script and characterisations you already had a good show but to make it great you needed great performers. Thats what you got in this show. Performences were really something to watch out for in this series. Calista Flockhart will forever be remembered for her performence as Ally Mcbeal. As I said earlier that I don’t remember real names of most of the characters as their characters were too good to forget. So i’ll go with character names whereever needed. John cage was brilliant, I simply loved him.I think he won an Emmy for his performance after being nominated twice. Richard fish, well the chances of seeing a character like him is high but not his performance as he probably found new way of playing a silly womaniser who usually had no idea of himself. But the most surprisingly amazing performance was of Jane Krawoski as ’Elane’. And Nelle & Ling redefined the defination of Bi*ch.
Pardon me if you think I could’nt do justice to this series . I know that may be I didn’t coz i’m really at loos of words here. I only watched the last three seasons so I cannot really judge if the series got good or bad with time or if it got stale or not as I really didn’t get an opportunity to watch the old seasons. So I can only comment on what I saw and what I saw is enough to convince me that I won’t be watching anything like it in a long time to come.
I know not all of you might be ally’s fan (and thought I was exxagerating), coz the show is blunt and therefore arouses strong reactions. Especially here in India. Thus I would like to clarify that I’m not refering to it as a gospel but just as a compelling show which enages you.
’’...find my way back home’’ yeah finally may be she did found it as she said the parting lines ’’.....I must be right, otherwise why would I be crying’’.
Good bye Ally, we’ll miss you.