Ally McBeal and hatred

You know what I think is funny? So many people bitch and moan about how much they hate Ally...

but they watch the show every single week.

Now, I tried to watch it once, but I couldn't stand it and I turned it off, so I don't really Ally bash anymore than your average feminist, but it seems that people really can't stand her, but seem to keep tuning in every single week.

I have come to the following conclusions:

1. There is nothing else on that night except Melrose and Ally because that particular person doesn't like football.

2. That particular person doesn't like either show, but is watching Ally just out of the principal that they won the right to not watch Football, and Ally is the only other thing on that makes it look like there's a reason to not be watching football.

3. The show is actually very good if you ignore the star character.

4. The show is so God-awful that you have to watch it like a car wreck on the highway.

5. The show is such a topic of interest that you have to watch it so you have examples to point out on why we all should hate Ally.

6. Subliminal sexual images on the screen (someone's making people drool for John Ritter, and I don't think it's John...). I mean, why did we all watch "Three's Company" even when Chrissy had left the show and it was most assuredly not funny anymore?

7. I'm just missing out on what is the most important feminist argument of the decade.

8. It's a fun show.

9. Everyone's remote control is broken, and they are left with no choice but to watch FOX 24-7.


Any suggestions on this or additions to the list would be greatly appreciated, as I find this to be quite baffling.

Well, I make more or less half of any disparaging Ally-comments that you may find on this website, so here are my thoughts on why I watch.

First, football has nothing at all to do with what we watch or don't watch on TV, on any day of the week, since neither one of us can stand the sport! I've watched Melrose Place from Day One, and still do, and since Ally has always been in the time slot right after Melrose, I started watching that, too. That and there's really not much else on at 9 PM on Mondays. I've always said that I think that the cast is great -- especially Peter MacNicoll as The Biscuit -- and the writing is very funny.

Ally is, in my opinion, the most annoying member of the cast. It seems that almost every week she's whining about how the love of her life (Billy, who she now works with)ran off and married someone else years ago (Georgia, who both Ally and Billy also coincidentally work with), and how she's going to be alone forever, blah blah, blah. Then there's the whole TV-fakeness thing, like the time she went around narrowing her eyes and telling everyone she was a "trained kickboxer" after taking a few CARDIO kickboxing classes and ONCE getting into the ring to spar against Georgia (the girl who Billy left Ally for years ago). The kickboxing thing is a point that we always bring up because, well, we box, and there's no way that she would've been able to get into the ring after taking 2 or 3 classes of AEROBIC kickboxing, which incorporates no sparring, partner work, or learning of combinations or proper form!

I don't think anyone should HATE Ally, after all, she's just a character on TV, but it's fun to see how the Television People portray what they think is a strong, professional independent 90's woman, as someone who is shown (in her mind) slurping guys' faces with her long, computer animated tongue (the show incorporates computer animation a lot)and doing a high-jump on top of a man so that her crotch is positioned right in front of his face! Ally says things like "I do want to conquer the world...I just want to get married first."

I happen to really enjoy the show, especially lately, now that they've added a few new characters...it's just that Ally is such a weird character made up of extremes (anorexicially thin, overly neurotic...she even regularly hallucinates for god's sake!)

And when I was young, I really did have a crush on Jack Tripper/John Ritter, and I still think he's darn cute!

Here's my take.

Ally is a troubled, neurotic, love-starved person that tries to vent her frustration with her inability to cope with her life through a strange and very active fantasy life.

Which is basically no different from, say, every character Woody Allen has ever played. (Wasn't there even an episode of Ally a few weeks ago where she was dating a guy that was much too young for her?) The difference being Ally looks better in a mini-skirt.

So I guess I never understood why she's such an affront to feminist sensibilities. She's a woman, but she's not _every_ woman. And I think it's unfair to not allow writer's to give their female characters real human weaknesses because any foible is seen as a strike against feminism.

But if you really want to watch a good show, tune into "The Practice." It's by the same writer (the incredible David E. Kelly), but's it's exponentially better.

As for John Ritter, I just thought it was funny that he became famous for playing a character who pretended to be gay in "Three's Company," but wasn't seen as a legitimate actor until be played an actual homosexual in "Sling Blade."

Feh! All of this talking about Ally McBeal as the sexy, new feminist icon for the nineties is making me ill.

It's time to bring back a real icon of television feminism... a daughter of the first bra-burner. You guessed it.

Scowl, Nu? is starting the campaign to bring back Maude. I'm not talking about re-runs on Nick at Nite or a remake of Maude starring Alicia Silverstone as Maude's granddaughter... who is strangely also named Maude. I want Bea Arthur, damnit!

Right on, Maude.

Janet, if Avery starts yelling out "BEA!" during your, uh... "couple time", start worrying.

Now I KNOW you all are just gonna poo-pooh me for saying this, but:

I LOVE ALLY MC BEAL!

I Love football, too, and using my XY-chromosome-enhanced channel flipping ability I can keep track of the game while watching AMcB.

Yes, the show kinda misses it with the Main character (who is going to be one-dimensional in reality if she aint careful), but the Rest of the cast MORE than makes up for it.

No, it's not hugely ground breaking nor is it the Citizen Kane of television (which, of course, goes to the first season of Twin Peaks) but hey, Its better that anything else I've seen on TV in a long friggin time.

And for those of you who watch the show just to grumble about it, I KNOW you were laughing at the whole frog subplot...

You do have to hand it to Ally McBeal. It's the only prime-time network show to accurately use the term "Spinner" in a sexual reference.

Oh, and does anybody else ever hope that they switch that damn dancing baby with an animated Jay Sherman from the Critic?

ok, i'm proud to say, i'm not a closet ally fan. i love the show. i'm not that opposed to the ally character. there's no big secret about what paul and i are doing in my apartment every monday night. we're giving a big shouting whoop out to ally for consistently kicking ass in a totally deranged kind of way.

and more importantly, if ally weren't the character she was, then we couldn't all be talking about how great the rest of the cast is.

in fact, only 6.5 hours until ally.

yeah, the skinny little skirts bother me, but i'd wear them if i could.

Skitch - This episode WAS a Woody Allen movie.

BootyQuake - The skirts? Don't bother me a bit, though Elaine does.

I even stopped flipping away to watch football (though the 'Boys were kicking butt)

The Whipper "bit" has got to be probably one of the funniest things I've seen on TV since Seinfeld's "Master of My Domain" episode.
(That Dyan Cannon - she STILL has it)

(I don't care what any of you say, I'm turning this into a "We Love Ally" board, you scowly folks.)

As you know from my previous posts I, too, like the show (except for Ally - ha!) But they can dispense with Vonda Shepard any time now...

Jocelyn -- I thought you already DID wear those skinny little skirts... :)

For God's sake. Has the world gone mad! She is soooo pathetic. Here are the reasons why:-

1. Two words
'OOGA CHACA'

2. What kind of a workplace has a nightclub below them with Vonda Shepard in it?

3. All she seems to want is to look pretty, have orgasms over coffee, get married to her x-boyfriend who is married now anyway, and have babies.

4. She has halucinations of dancing babies.

5. She dances with the babies.

In conclusion I want to give her a big slap. And to the question well why do I watch it the answer is simply:-

In England at 10pm on a Wednesday there is nothing better on telly. I simply have nothing better to do just like I have nothing better to do than write to you people now!