Ally Gets Jiggy.

• Author: McKissack, Fred
• Position: Kelley, David E. - Flockhart, Calista

To mangle a line from Willie Nelson: Mommas, don't let your kids grow up to be Ally McBeal. Fox's Ally McBeal (Monday night slot)--winner of the 1999 Emmy Award for Best Comedy-has been analyzed to death in terms of its anti-feminist or neo-feminist approach to the 1990s woman. I think I'm posing a better question: Does the show suck?

After trying to watch a one-hour episode prior to the season premiere, I found myself doing a Marvin Gaye "What's Going On?"

Ally McBeal, for those not in the know, stars Calista Flockhart as the title character, a Boston lawyer who struggles through the trials and tribulations of being a professional woman in the 1990s. Ally is single (a fact that is played out too much in her daily life), and she's an associate in a law firm run by a smarmy college rival, Richard Fish (Greg Germann). To make things more interesting, Ally's longtime boyfriend, Billy Alan Thomas (Gil Bellows), is also a member of the firm. The two, we are told, played doctor together as kids. It only gets better because Billy is married to Georgia (Courtney Thorne-Smith), whom Ally initially dislikes. But soon the two become friends.

So what makes Ally McBeal different from all the other mundane shows about yuppie lawyers in the 1990s? Well, whenever Ally seems confused or upset, the visual and sound effects kick in. For example, in the first season, when Ally sees Billy again, arrows shoot into her heart as she is told of his marriage.

I just wouldn't have gotten the heartbreak without those arrows and the maudlin music that went with them. Gee, thanks, guys.

Oh, there's more. There's the time Ally fantasizes about making love in a giant latte bowl.

Then there's the recent episode where Ally is defending a woman who was accused of fraud because she married a man and then left him when he didn't live up to her ideal. While her client is being grilled on the stand by the counsel for the plaintiff, Ally, who has also been troubled by the thought of not finding Mr. Perfect, jumps up and screams, "Objection! Objection! Objection!"

At that point, the show's award-winning creator-writer-producer, David E. Kelley, flips the insipid switch. Ally looks to the jury box, where she finds a robed choir clapping hands. Then she turns to the judge, who is looking like Al Green (pre-religious Al) and singing his standard "We gotta keep on pushing love."

Ally gets jiggy wit it. She's freed her mind of the negative aspects of the case. Yes, Ally, the perfect...