What are your thoughts on "Ally Mcbeal"?

Forgot about that old shit. Is it 1995 in your mind?

R1 You sound very hip and happening pretending people shouldn't discuss culture!

I blame this show for the unending fashion trend of bare legs with suits/dresses.

I loved the first two seasons. By third season it already lost its coolness and edge.

R3 I remember it being controversial at the time how short the women’s skirts were and how they didn’t wear tights. That most law firms would never allow that.

One person talking to himself again.

Love the OP’s pic. They ALL have smug mouth. Lots of them have smug brows. There are even a couple smug shoulders.

R3 It looks like the turning point right when stretch jersey and microfiber overtook tailored for good and America never stopped showing up to work in pajamas from that point on, particularly as the country got fatter.

It was fun.

R6 Oh, honey. I'm sorry for you. We'll always be here for when you need us.

Anorexia.

Three words: Robert Downey Junior

Back to front - that’s how you wipe.

Like R4 said.

It was really clever and fresh in the beginning, but it developed a lot of annoying tics pretty quickly, including, if I remember right, the voiceover.

Grey's Anatomy reminded me of it later on: a show that was really fun and fresh, and then as soon as the spotlight was on it, it kind of fell apart. Fun while it lasted, though.

R12 He was on it?! Now I'm looking for pics...

Yawn! Time for bed. I guess I better take a shit first.

Interesting how this show has just vanished from the face of the earth since its original network run. Don't think I've ever seen it listed in syndication even once, though I'd guess that it's on somewhere out there.

The "clean bowl" thing was classic.

In the ongoing Chrissy Metz thread all I could think of was a scene in Ally McBeal where a morbidly obese man gets into a car and [html removed] the car tips over. It was horrible and yet exactly what we all see in a situation like that,

Boring, sexist garbage from the 90s dustbin.

My 90s roommate loved that show, but I had to work Monday nights and never saw it. We didn't have a VCR.

I've been searchin' my soul tonight.

Robert Downey Jr was fantastic on the show. He completely revived it, til he ended up in jail and off the show.

All I can remember about this show is a dancing baby and Vanda Shepard screeching in some bar.

I was about 12-13 years old at the time and I loved this show. I think it had a major impact on me growing up. I was a smart ass in school and always getting in trouble for my slick mouth. I was completely fascinated with RDJ's character because he was so sarcastic, and basically how I envisioned I would turn out as an adult.

It was probably the first time my gaydar was activated too, I knew something was different about Robert Downey Jr lol. I was so shocked/disappointed when I found out RDJ was in trouble IRL.

The first season was the best.

25 replies and no one mentions the gender-neutral restrooms? If there was any controversy with the show, that was it.

Loved it until the storyline where Billy had a brain tumor and acted crazy. The show went downhill from there.

R27 - That was unfortunate.

WHET Gil Bellows?

He got fat and old

Lots of little white twinkle lights, all the time -

All I remember is how every woman on that show blamed calista flockhart for their anorexia.

I forgot Jane Krackheadowski was also on that.

R17 it used to come on late at night on tv. But I think that only lasted a couple of months.

Ann Heche played a character with Tourette’s Syndrome....who lived in a bookshelf

They don’t make shows like this any more

R35 so she played herself?

She played Celestia playing a character with Tourette's

Anne Heche was really cool on “HUNG”

The "Cloud Pajamas," the awful-anorexia-hiding, "Cloud Pajamas"!

I remember when Lisa Nicole Carson started wearing her hair all natural and people started taking issue with it.

The Unisex bathrooms were controversial as were the skirts the women would wear. Too short with no tights.

Jane was gorgeous and definitively not anoxeruc in the show.

The future ex-Mrs. D during her Ally days -

Portia De Rossi was very obviously starving herself and a druggie during her time on the show. She wasn’t that skinny in the beginning though. She looked healthy. Then got too skinny.

I remember her being on Jay Leno and speaking about her OCD and how she can’t have all her foods on one plate. Different foods can’t touch each other. Her mashed potatoes on one plate, broccoli on another etc. and she would eat all of one at a time. She had to finish her broccoli first, then she could eat the mashed potatoes etc.

Sounds exhausting

I remember seeing some episode preview with that scary horse faced Vonda Shepard which made me never want to watch a moment of it. So I haven't.

I liked it a lot in the beginning, but I only watched the later seasons because I felt invested already... or obligated. They weren't great.

First 2 seasons were great, the rest meh. The writing simply went downhill, to the point that not even Robert D J could've saved it. Portia was gorgeous before her weight plummeted somewhere around S3.

The showed was original for the time, one of the few that took the protagonists POV - admittedly one who had some pretty peculiar things going on in her head, too. She had a female Walter Mitty thing going on but by season 3 it was becoming more stuffy hot chicks in tight skirts.

They had that Timmy midget kid from Passions as a lawyer who always cried. X-Files had monster of the week, Ally had weirdo-of-the-week.

Elaine and her “face bra”

Snappish R49.

Loved it for a while. Reflecting on it reminds me of an old boyfriend you know you were hot for but cannot remember why.

Waddle... Barry White music... that's what I remember

Was there an animated frog?

That time when RDJ still had an acting range.

I don't think she looked skinny at all.

The studio space was better utilized when the Golden Girls was taped there.

I loved whenever the dancing baby showed up. That made the show fun. And I liked the dwarf lawyer, Oren Koolie (played by Josh Ryan Evans aka Timmy). It was the quirky, surrealistic, off the wall things like these that made the first season fun and kept my interest. But they changed all that in the second season and it became bland and predictable. They never should have gotten rid of that dancing baby.

Lisa Nicole Carson was allegedly abused and sexually harassed on the show.

That some fish hated it made me think I should like it.

Yet it was a very fishy show in a way...

More details on de Rossi's drug use. She admitted to anorexia, but she's never mentioned any drug use.

[quote] Lisa Nicole Carson

Abused and assaulted? Huh, that would have explained why she went batshit crazy at the end.

R40 it was wattle!

R52 I thought Renee's hair was usually natural, in season 2 she straightened it for a couple of episodes.

I enjoyed the show, the first 2 seasons were excellent. They usually had one very sad, heartfelt episode per year. Season one had the murdered, cross-dressing rent boy Ally befriends. Season 2 had the boy dying from cancer who sues God. Season 3 had Billy dying. Season 5 had the 2001 Christmas episode which reflected 9/11.

Season 3, when some of the main cast left the writing suffered and became stake. Season 4 the show reinvented itself and felt fresh again. Season 5, with the loss of RDJ, Peter McNicholl and Lucy Liu the show became a parody. Dame Edna and a raft of boring new characters helped sink it.

The show had a season 4 and 5? I literally only saw seasons 1-3.

Lucy Liu was on this. Totally forgot that.

R62 that’s part of why she left. The producers wanted her to straighten her hair. They felt most viewers (white People) would have an issue with her all natural look and not connect with her. She wanted to stay all natural though.

Lisa Nicole Carson had issues on that set. From them wanting her to look a certain way for white America to her claiming to have been abused and assaulted.

I remember Tina Turner singing in one episode.

Wasn’t there an episode with Mariah Carey?

I know internet fame whore Cindy Margolis was on an episode and had zero lines.

To those talking about Portia's weight issues: When you look at "Sirens" (1994) from just 3-4 years before, she's both thin and healthy looking. What's interesting is that she was working alongside petite Tara Fitzgerald in it and didn't later talk about feeling the same pressure to try to stay smaller than her even though she's taller. Was it just that she was surrounded by Amazon-esque models, so it all felt relative? I think she was one of the tallest women on "Ally Mcbeal".

Lara Flynn Boyle crossing over from The Practice.

Previously on Ally McSqueal...

They had a Tina Turner singing contest at that bar they all went to, R64. Jane K and Lisa NC were both great, but of course Tiny Ally had to win. It was ridiculous.

r66 I felt like Portia and the woman who played Billy's wife wanted to compete with Calista, who was hyped as the new Audrey Hepburn for being an underweight clotheshorse. They all wanted to out-thin Calista to hog the spotlight, I guess.

R70 I read that all the females were instructed to lose weight so Calista didn't appear so unhealthy. She looked fine in Season 1 as she wasn't so scrawny. It was season 2 onwards that she looked emaciated.

She totally deserved an Emmy though over that overrated Helen Hunt who won 4 times for her bland acting.

But Jane and Lisa Nicole remained full figured, while Lucy Lui was lean but toned . . . so Portia and Courtney were the only ones who wasted away.

My memories...

Billy was hot.... and only shirtless in one episode unfortunately

Ally would do these weird things with her lips when she was confused or flustered... made me think of Mary Jo Buttafucco or Bette Davis after her stroke.

Courtney Thorne Smith annoying me as Georgia. Maybe because she whined "Billllllyyyyy" just the way she used to whine it on Melrose Place.

Liking Renee and Elaine a llot

Richard Fish playing with Dyan Cannon's wattle and cracking up when he'd say something obnoxious and then saying "Bygones"

John Cage making that weird whistling sound out of his nose when he got nervous

Vonda's voice going through my ears like an air raid siren

Losing all interest and no longer watching with the addition of Nelle and Ling

What happened to Courtney Smith? Did Calista stop acting? I liked the show when it started. I didn’t see the later seasons.

Courtney Thorne Smith does NOT have nice things to say about her time on the show.

R74 Calista went on, of course, to be a key player on The Sally Field Programme. More recently she was in the first season or two of Supergirl.

Courtney did According to Jim (a really bad show that lasted many seasons). And then was recurring on Two and a half men.

Calista is on Supergirl.

Calista and Courtney both lost significant weight during the run,

Fun in the beginning, began to crap out around S3 and then sputtered to its death.

[quote] Fun in the beginning, began to crap out around S3 and then sputtered to its death.

Oddly enough, the same could be said about Calista's next show, The Sally Field Programme.

Never watched it - Thank Gawd.

Skinny wummin yet their characters regularly binged on ice cream and wine. .

This show was obnoxious, ridiculous shit

Tracey Ullman as that wacky therapist. Total fun.

[Quote] Calista is on Supergirl.

She left after the first season when they moved to the CW.

It was amazing to me that Courtney Thorne Smith went from successful show to successful show so many times. She's really not that great of an actress, but she certainly had quite a career.

The show became too forced after a couple of seasons - concentrating on people's quirks way too much.

I think Courtney kept getting jobs because she is attractive, reasonably talented, and is willing to show up and do the job. That means more than being talented and fkakey.

It was originally developed for Bridget Fonda. But she didn't want to do television. Enter Calista Flockhart.

Lisa Nicole Carson was great the first few seasons. She was doing ER and AMcB simultaneously. Then her character was abruptly killed off ER, while she vanished on Ally. Word was she ended up in a mental institution, has been in and out ever since while completely disappearing from the airwaves. She came back briefly to Ally in the final season's run.

Anyone know where/how she is now?

Billy dyed his hair bright yellow, got a crewcut, and then died of a brain tumor!

He was murdered on Shawshank first.

Supposedly Lisa Nicole dealt with a lot of abuse and was sexually assaulted on set.

I was too young to get I to this show at the time but I watched some episodes on Hulu a few years ago and it was really good.

This is on Hulu?

I think I only watched the pilot episode and gave up on it when that didn't grab my interest.

It's interesting what a big deal this show was in the 90s, and how completely forgotten it is now; nobody ever talks about it anymore.

[quote] Season 2 had the boy dying from cancer who sues God

Yeah, that shit sounds very David E. Kelley - the same kind of vastly-overestimating-its-own-cleverness plotline he'd also would have put in "Picket Fences".

James Marsden was on for a while and he was totally adorable and a good singer.

Marsden is always adorable and always talented.

Very underrated and under appreciated because he’s so pretty.

Whoops... wrong post ^^^^

Lisa Nicole Carson is doing just fine nowadays. She was trying to get back into acting a few years ago and even landed a few gigs - she reprised her Ally McBeal character Renee (now a judge) on Harry's Law with Kathy Bates and Mark Valley. She was also on The New Edition Story (mini-series) last year but nothing major ever since. She spoke out about her mental health issues a few years ago and confirmed that she had a few mental breakdowns around 2000/2001. She's gone into great details about her mental illness (I think she was diagnosed as bipolar) and says she got blacklisted after all the bad press. Her mom took care of her when she couldn't cope but she died back in 2011 and Lisa Nicole left NYC after that and returned back to LA. Her former co-stars were very supporting of her. Especially Calista Flockhart and Peter MacNicol.

I think a lot of the show's appeal rested on the stylings of the main female cast. Every lady, thin or full-figured, are decked in stylish, expensive-seeming business gears. Portia and Lucy both went through an impressive array of striking hairdos during their stints. It's like one of those "what will she wear in the next scene" old Hollywood movies, except it's TV.

very problematic show!!!

this show jumped so many sharks, the worst one when Ally found out she had a teen daughter played by miss Panettiere.

How does Ally not know she has a kid?

i seem to remember it was about frozen eggs or something ridic like that....

why this question OP? Were you searching your soul tonite?

Lisa Nicole was barely on ER.

Tried very hard to be clever and hip.

R103 Maybe you didn't watch at the right time, but she had a major story arc that involved the Eriq Lasalle character for about a half season. Then recurring for 2 to 3 years. It was fairly prominent, and the character had a major impact on his life.

I did watch it R105. I rewatched the first few seasons fairly recently. She was on for a scene or two in several episodes each year for a few years. Her character had a big effect on Peter Benton’s life, but she did not have much screen time.

Hated it. Hated every single cast member with the exception of Portia deR. Can’t stand Calista Flockhart, can’t stand Lucy Liu. I usually like David E. Kelley as a writer but this show was stupid trash.

Love the soundtracks. "Maryland"is beautiful.

Maryland

Used to listen to this on repeat, imagining there'd be a boy who loved me.

Hated the show and never watched it until one fateful night nothing else was on and I just smoked a doob. The episode was called "Boy to the world". Sad as all hell. I cried all night. Yep, Mary!!! Look it up.

Who/What is an Ally McBeal?

[quote]r84 It was amazing to me that Courtney Thorne Smith went from successful show to successful show so many times. She's really not that great of an actress, but she certainly had quite a career.

I remember thinking she was lovely on this show. She played a kind of ideal woman (the type you would never cheat on), and she could actually sell it.

I liked her.

[quote]r112 Who/What is an Ally McBeal?

It was a witty and sort-of risque dramedy series with a large ensemble cast, set in a law firm.

Anorexic Calista Flockhard played the central character, Ally.

[quote]It was amazing to me that Courtney Thorne Smith went from successful show to successful show so many times. She's really not that great of an actress, but she certainly had quite a career.

I've worked with her before and stated this before on DL but it is amazing how far an actress can go when she shows up on time, knows her lines/blocking, gets along great with cast and crew equally, pulls no stunts/attitude and everyone walks away with a really good opinion of them. That is Court.

^ She was also pretty in an All-American way. that never hurts.

What was the back story between Billy and Ally? They were lovers but then broke up and went to different law schools, then wound up at the same firm? Is that right? And Billy had gotten married? Did he and Ally ever have a fling?

R111 an episode that some of the sick trans haters on this site should watch before they shit out another 400 posts.

Although....that was a very late 90s look at trans people....and now we know better.

I didn't like it one bit. I might've watched it for Courtney-Smith, who pinged. But it was so fucking boring. Rather useless as a show.

OTOH, I loved The Practice.

The opening credits were enjoyable, at least in the beginning.

That sucks, R58. I liked Lisa Nicole Carson.

R115 I've read Rossi's book on her life with anorexia, and the only person from the cast of Beal that comes off like a human being was Courtney. Still Portia was miserable living in LA and doing that show.

I loved Dyan Cannon as Judge Whipper Cone. She was still hot, too.

I remember when Portia first joined the cast. She was so pretty. Eventually she looked like a corpse.

[quote]R123 I loved Dyan Cannon as Judge Whipper Cone. She was still hot, too.

Yes!

For those who didn't see it, that was an example of how the storylines and humor were somehow pleasantly off. Cannon played an older judge that a hot young attorney was fixated on. He wanted to stroke her neck, and she finally let him, in chambers.

Ally McBeal looks like she could use an Ally McMeal.

Ally loved her some cock.

I remember people saying how Calista should lose her job on Ally unless she sits and eats some pork chops lmao

R127 don’t we all?

R129 True, but she sampled some really primo cock.

Include the art model with the enormous dong.

Flockart famously fainted on the set once and had to be sent home.

But they told the press, "Anorexia??? Oh, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Why, she was just [italic]working too hard!"

I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned that "Ally McBeal" launched Josh Groban's career with that awful "You're Still You" song/guest appearance.

Josh Groban should thank RDW for that episode, because the original plot was to have RDJ's character marry Ally. Then RDJ got arrested and fired and they had to quickly rewrite the episode.

R116 - They were supposedly childhood sweethearts.

Didn't know Lisa Nicole was assaulted.. and on set? Was there an interview about this.? All I heard about was the mental illness...

Remember how they tried to bring in Matthew Perry at the last second to keep the series from getting cancelled? And how they edited in old clips of RDJ?

I watched one episode and decided it wasn’t for me

You kinda had to have been there -- and in a similar mindset to some of the characters. The Billy/Ally love story was straight out of Shakespeare, and it made you sad and wistful if you had experienced something similar. It felt very real while being totally surreal, like a dream. It got silly and predictable after season 2, but still enjoyable.

136 comments and no mention of Jon Bon Jovi??

Remember that Bridget Fonda turned down the Ally role.

What's there to say? He played a construction worker/plumber/painter/babysitter/Zen master boyfriend named Victor. It was so dumb. They obviously just dropped him in for the press, and even my female friends who found him hot couldn't sit through the episodes. At that point neither could I.

Maddie and Victor really ruined the show. I thought the start of the fifth season was better than artificially rebooting the show as a family comedy/drama in the second half of the season with Victor playing husband and Maddie playing spunky daughter. Barf.

They should have kept James Marsden on, and let her use him for rebound sex. Or brought back Dylan McDermott, whom she had some chemistry with but had barely begun to date in season 1. Was he still on the practice at that point?

And then there was always the sexy Dr. Greg Butters. He left her for a job opportunity in season 1, and then she cheated on with Billy in season 2 and in theory he could have returned in season 5 for round 3.

Ally McBeal did to the legal profession what Sex and the City did to New York.

Courtney Thorne Smith is not a bad actress. She certainly isn't Emmy worthy, but she is a great utility player/straight woman, who as stated above is apparently well liked and shows up on time with no drama.

Listening to Vonda Shepard is like listening to several cats being strangled.

Courtney only last 3 seasons. What was her issue with the show? I seem to recall a comment about feeling the need to be super skinny. Her Melrose Places co-stars must have been so jealous that she jumped that sinking ship and landed on the hottest new series of the 1997-1998 season.

If you're going to be cunty, R1, at least get your facts straight. Ally McBeal didn't debut until 1997. It probably wasn't even on David E Kelly's mind in 1995.

It had some pretty cool moments at times; a unique style to it.

Courtney Thorne-Smith looks Photoshopped into the picture. And I don't remember her being on the show at all. I recognize everyone in the photo from the show except her and the woman on the far left.

It was a great cast.

Kelley admitted that Georgia and Billy were only supposed to be first season obstacles for Ally. When audiences fell ass over tea kettle for the long-lost love angle, Billy and Georgia were brought in full-time. Georgia joined the firm and they were regular cast members through all of season 2, but the will they won't they between Ally and Billy was resolved at that point so Kelley tried to move on. The results were the bizarre season 3 storylines about Georgia kissing Ally's father without realizing it as a reaction to Billy having always been a secret misogynist, which so disappointed Gil Bellows that he decided to leave the show. Kelley wrote the brain tumour to backpedal on the character assassination. I don't think Kelly purposely tried to undermine Billy, but yeah....how was having him date an 18 year old secretary not destroying the character?

Georgia joined Renee's firm I made appearances throughout the rest of season 3 and occasionally in season 4 but then disappeared until the series finale. It's worth noting that Courtney, possibly not helped by her incredibly short pixie cut in season 4, began looking real thin as well. When she returned for the series finale however, she was back to a more healthy weight (or what passes for healthy on television).

I think knowing there was no more narrative for her on the show, coupled with pressures to lose weight and a cast who didn't seem to have any particular bonds with each other, at least going by Portia De Rossi's memoirs, motivated her to get the hell out of there.

As much as I'd liked Georgia and would have wanted her to stay on, Kelley lost interest in the character. It's something that always seems to happen on his shows. She gets excited about a new character, writes for them for a while and then abandons them for another new character who may even be nothing more than a carbon copy of the previous one.. I'm glad Courtney moved on and has had such success in Hollywood.

Other than Lisa, for reasons previously explained, the only other two members of the cast to not move on to better things really are Bellows and James LeGros. WHTH?

Courtney was under pressure at Melrose to lose weight. Then she went too far in the other direction in Ally.

Ally McMeal

A long forgotten 90s tv show that wasn't even good then and is even worse in retrospect.

I remember when Calista was accused of being anorexic, she got so defensive and was on some talk show and she said "all you tabloid journalists can kiss my ass!". And then, a few years later when she was with Harrison, she admitted she was anorexic.

R151- You left out the key word.

“all you tabloid journalists can kiss my SKINNY ass!

R152, wish I could find the clip on youtube.

I never saw a quote from Calista admitting she was anorexic or had an eating disorder. I saw tons of press devoted to the subject back in the day. She couldn't seem to get through an interview for about a year-and-a-half without it coming up and staunchly denied it. I even remember one article describing the food she would eat throughout the day and how normal it was, etc. It was still small portions so I don't know who they think they were fooling trying to make her seem like a regular eater. ...

But I have never ever heard her openly say the words yes I was anorexic or yes I had an eating disorder.

Google is our friend!

Calista said: "At the time of all that, I was seriously stressed.

"I was working 15-hour days on the set and then I was dealing with the end of the show, which was basically my life.

"I started under-eating, over-exercising, pushing myself too hard and brutalising my immune system. I guess I just didn't find the time to eat. I am much more healthy these days."

Calista shocked fans with her gaunt appearance at the 1998 Emmy Awards. The 5ft 5in star had allowed her weight to plunge under seven stone.

I watched the season with RDJ on Hulu. It was good to see the old Robert again. Know when he really had acting ability and wasn't a big sellout. It was hard to watch because of anorexic nightstick. Robert was really charming and handsome in it.