"Ally McBeal" at 20: Calista Flockhart, David E. Kelley and More on Dancing Babies, Feminism and Robert Downey Jr.
by Craig Tomashoff
Sept. 4, 2017


If TV shows had godparents, "Ally McBeal's" would have been "Melrose Place" and "The Practice". Without those two series, chances are Fox's groundbreaking dramedy about a lawyer and her crazed life might never have happened.

During the 1997 pilot season, Fox was searching for a companion series to follow its fading favorite "Melrose Place". Writer-producer David E. Kelley obliged, creating the quirky "Ally" for a fall launch. However, he balked when the then-head of the network, Peter Roth, suggested they hold off premiering it until spring 1998 so as to avoid the usual glut of fall debuts.

Still stinging from ABC's reneging on a deal to give "The Practice" a guaranteed time slot, Kelley insisted "Ally McBeal" stick with its premiere on Sept. 8, 1997.




His insistence paid off. The series would become a top 20 hit, capturing an average of more than 13 million viewers at its peak and winning a pair of Golden Globes and an Emmy. (The dramedy made TV history as the first, and only, hourlong program to win the Emmy for best comedy series.)

From its unisex bathroom to a dancing internet baby to a famous fuss about feminism, Ally McBeal became a cultural phenomenon whose unique blend of fantasy sequences, musical numbers and just plain weirdness (remember wattles?) continues to influence shows today.




As the 20th anniversary of the show's premiere approaches, the cast and creators spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about everything from an impromptu Elton John concert to the big-name actress who got cut from the cast before viewers ever saw her to Robert Downey Jr.'s sudden arrival and even more shocking departure.



Full Interview Here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/ally-mcbeal-oral-history-calista-flockhart-david-e-kelley-lucy-liu-interviews-1034516

Ally McBeal was more than dancing babies and inflammatory magazine covers (http://www.avclub.com/ally-mcbeal-was-more-than-dancing-babies-and-inflammato-1800804309)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/08/happy-birthday-to-ally-mcbeal-a-show-that-shaped-my-feminism

Feminism, toxic masculinity, gender identity, diversity — all of today’s hot topics were explored on Fox’s groundbreaking David E. Kelley legal dramedy that debuted on Sept. 8, 1997. “In almost all ways, Ally McBeal was ahead of its time: stylistically, thematically and in what we would now call the ‘diversity’ of its cast and subjects,” says Hannah Jane Parkinson. “…This was a show that had black characters and Asian-American characters whose presence had nothing to do with the fact that they were black or Asian-American, as is too often the case. It had a genderless bathroom and featured two trans characters: the first, Stephanie, appearing in a recurring role in the first season (1997) and the next, Cindy, in 2000. The writers didn’t shy away from holding up a mirror to society’s structures and discriminations through its many case plots.”

PLUS: David E. Kelley remembers (http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/ally-mcbeal-20th-anniversary-david-e-kelley-1202551311/) being “caught off guard” by the 1998 Time cover asking “Is Feminism Dead?,” Ally McBeal was an anomaly (http://www.avclub.com/ally-mcbeal-was-more-than-dancing-babies-and-inflammato-1800804309) — defined by the talk it stirred up as much as what happened in its own heightened reality, and Ally McBeal would’ve failed miserably (https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/television/2017/09/06/been-years-since-ally-mcbeal-became-talk/UT26WrZEmrdKj6NYzNVaDI/story.html) had the Bechdel test been around back then.