Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

flonker steen In 2008 I bought the DVD-box of the first season of Ally McBeal... and after having bought the other 4 seasons the day after, I saw all 5 seasons in less than three months (5-3-2008/26-5-2008). Was I hooked? Definitely!Did I cry my eyes out with men doing the penguin for Renee, frogs being squatted and subsequently flushed in toilets, only to resurrect as if they had seen the light,the biscuit losing his Barry White, Ally being TOTALLY wet after having had anonymous sex in the car-wash, John residing in his HOLE, Ally pouring her heart out with Larry Paul - no Ally, he never said he was a shrink, AAH Ally, you're quite mad: "Yes, and I LIKE IT!", Ling controlling men in general, and Richard in particular, by their dumbsticks, bygones, babies shooting arrows, BARRY HUMPHRIES/Edna Everidge, unisex bathroom with eavesdropping colleagues, worlds without love? I did.What struck me the first time I saw the series, and again struck me the second time, (and no doubt will strike me within shortly, when I start yet over again...), is the love, the warmth, the wit, the true sentiment - never false, of this gorgeous series!And wouldn't it be so groovy to find out where Ally McBeal and her daughter Maddie, Richard Fish, John Cage, Nelle Porter, Georgia Thomas, Elaine Vassal, Ling Woo, judge Jennifer 'waddle/whipper' Cone, Renee Raddick, Jenny Shaw, Claire Otoms, and all those other dear friends are, some 15 years later in their lives? Would Billy still sometimes return to soothe Ally, if she needed soothing? Would Barry White still inspire John Cage? Would John Cage still sometimes perform in a Mexican band? Would Larry Paul and Ally McBeal ever meet again? Would Ally still sometimes sniff butts? How about relationships? Richard? Elaine? John? Would Nelle and Ling still be friends? Would Richard finally have found his ultimate waddle? Would Ally ever grow up? These questions, and many more, would finally be answered if David E. Kelley & Co. only put their minds to it, in a new series of Ally McBeal! Please?

Bolesroor Here's your standard episode of Ally McBeal: Ally- a young, attractive lawyer- bites her lip, rolls her eyes, hallucinates a cartoon and avoids making any emotional or personal decisions while her law firm defends a woman's right to dress like a whore and not expect any unwanted sexual attention whatsoever.Yikes.This show is disposable Hollywood-liberal schlock, a dreary timepiece, a false step in feminism. This was back in the day when women could get a man to do anything they wanted just by kissing another woman. Yawn... Ally is the fictionalized ideal of the woman-child who has it all but is still miserable because she doesn't know what to do with it. Or maybe she's just too stupid to make any concrete and assertive choices, paralyzed by the wonderful life she's made for herself. Poor Ally…The show was the brainchild of writer/creator/lesbian David E. Kelley, who seemed to genuinely believe the offbeat and often backwards fairy- tales he wrote each week. Ostensibly designed to liberate and empower women, the show was anti-male in every sense of the word: men were brutish creatures whose hostile sexual desires were thrown back in their face and openly mocked or they were impotent teddy bears. Middle ground and complexity are not Mr. Kelley's specialty. If only men could be as sophisticated as the strong women he writes, who take no responsibility for their sexuality, unless/until it suited their desires. You've come a long way, baby. Hypocrisy and arrogance abound.Maybe that's what made it all the more ironic that the Ally herself- Calista Flockhart- was suffering from severe anorexia during the show's run: like Ally, Flockhart was an attractive young rising star who worked hard to achieve stardom, only to learn that she couldn't handle it. Just a little girl after all... how decidedly female, how decidedly obnoxious... The show shut down production several times to accommodate Flockhart's hospital stints and attempts at recovery. Like Ally, Calista wanted to have her cake and not eat it too.Women- to a certain degree- will never fully understand their own sexuality, a simple fact of Nature that can't even be overcome in a fictional TV universe with unisex bathrooms and the open discussion of orgasm or lack thereof. For anyone to base their views of life, sex or feminism on this show would be criminal... it's trite, condescending and often plain ridiculous. David E. Kelley used the show's "legal" cases for all the wrong reasons: not to examine morality and society or to tell an interesting story- the legal issues were in fact Mr. Kelley preaching and moralizing to the audience about his own personal views of the way the world SHOULD BE- and why everyone should agree. He created the weekly scenario and played judge and jury all by himself, with the underlying message to every ruling being that Men are Bad and that women- no matter how ridiculous, childish, slutty or insane- should be blindly praised and rewarded. The show hasn't been seen since its cancellation and it probably never will be- it was a sexist and insulting view of the world by a self-loathing male who wanted to atone for the carnal desires of his entire sex.So what should a successful, attractive woman do when a man looks lustfully at her ripe breasts on full display in her low-cut top? Taunt him? Sue him? Stop eating until said mammary glands disappear? According to this show she should do anything except take some responsibility and cover up... that would be anti-Ally. GRADE: D-

Teresa C My thoughts are based solely on the content of the show and have nothing to do with the actors or their acting ability. It reminds me of a saying I heard years ago..."People doing the best possible job with the worst possible material." The show consistently portrays women as weak and that they need a man to be "okay" in life. The chauvinistic attitudes of the men toward the females on the show regardless of whether they are attorneys at the firm, clients, or simple passersby is extremely insulting, I cannot believe it had the popularity that it did.I did not watch it when it aired originally. It never even caught my eye back then. Recently I was browsing through some titles and started watching it. Being fair minded (& a little OCD) and not wanting to judge it on just a few episodes, so I am up to episode 87 out of 100. I originally hoped it would redeem itself somehow but at this point I have given up that hope.I simply cannot figure out why it was such a high rated show. I know times have changed but it is hard for me to believe that women thought it was entertaining to see themselves portrayed in this way.

Tatiana Valeonti I first stumbled upon Ally McBeal many years ago, on TV. I was a little girl then and I found Billy and his chemistry with Ally fascinating. But I rarely watch TV series when they're aired, so I forgot about it. I remembered it this year and started watching it from the beginning, wondering what happened with them. While it's a bit, well, childish in a way, I found the show enjoyable. Apart from the Ally's-personal-life orientation, there are some delicious caustic comments on the legal system that made me laugh a lot. However, *big spoiler coming* Billy's death is a deal-breaker for me. The main reason I watched the series was for them and I see no reason to continue watching it without Billy. The whole point was that they had known and loved each other forever. After all, the first episode is about when Ally accidentally meets Billy again and ends up working with him. I'm all for the unexpected twists, but this wasn't an action or mystery series! It's not a realistic "this is how life is" series either, even though they obviously tried to go that direction... I wish they had embraced the kind of show they were. In my opinion, it's plain cowardice, that they not only couldn't bring them together but also just killed him off!