Right, I’m done with Season 1 and have begun Season 2. Some observations:
- Watching Season 5 before the other seasons was probably not a good idea. It’s depressing knowing that Ally’s going to end up alone and that Billy’s going to turn into a moron and die.
- Everybody looks older in Season 1 than they do in Season 5. I can’t explain it — maybe they didn’t have the money for Botox till then.
- Nel and Ling actually made the show. By the end of the first Season, watching Billy/Georgia/Ally/John’s antics gets so ridiculously tiring that I honestly wanted to stop right there.
- Nel’s character is awesome in the first season. She’s cold, ruthless and a great lawyer; in Season 5, she’s cold, kinda pudgy and can’t hold her own against a lawyer known as ‘Lolita’. I can imagine Calista Flockhart marching into the producer’s office in a jealous huff and demanding that Nel’s character be watered down. This is a huge shame; emasculating her (it’s the 21st century, everything’s unisex), ruins what would have been awesome in-office tension.
- Lucy Liu manages to look good despite her eyes being completely asymmetrical. It sticks out way more in Season 5.
- Georgia’s haircut was the result of a similar conspiracy.
- Vonda Shepard’s tortured rendition of every song is just…painful. To quote B.B. King, ‘the thrill is gone’.
- Season-5-Richard pales in comparison to Season-1-Richard, whose Fish-isms and quirky, non-PC profundity makes him seem like a real person. Season-5-Richard, on the other hand, seems perpetually high.
- John’s rise from doormat to key character is quite impressive. More interestingly though…did he do voiceovers Porky Pig at some point? That stutter is identical!
- The legal arguments and the cases being fought in Season 1 are as stupid as in Season 5.
- I’m in two minds about Ally. On the one hand, the whole I’m-a-quirky-woman thing is still appealing…but on the other hand, the fact that her only accomplice in the weird-ness is John is both telling and disturbing. Her constant pouting is starting to get irritating, and her understated, false humility (betrayed by her constant blurtings) is also a concern. I must ponder this further.
My final observation: watching too much Ally McBeal is bad for your health. It’s depressing, and it’ll make you think thoughts that verge on truly worthless.
Now I’m off home, to watch the next DVD. God bless Blockbuster!
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