Rating: 
Summary: THE BIGGEST LITTLE INSECURITY IN TOWN!
Review: No matter what she does for the rest of her career, Calista Flockhart will always be known as the neurotic, short-skirt wearing Bostonian lawyer, Ally McBeal. Writer/producer, David Kelly's acclaimed series was a breakthrough comedy in many ways, not the least for its attention to character development and scathingly accurate humor. The series tanked in the ratings near the end of its run on Fox, but this is primarily due to the fact that Kelly had already departed, after the first two seasons, to write and produce "The Practice" on ABC, thus leaving "Ally McBeal" in less competant hands.
If you don't know the premise behind the series by now, everything hinges on Ally, a waifish love-lorn lawyer who is dumped by her boyfriend Billy while the two were still in law school. Ally returns to Boston and finds employment with another alumni from her university days, Richard Fisk, who just happens to be starting up his own law firm where, no kidding!, Billy is already working.
Sparks fly as Ally realizes that, not only is Billy married to another sexy young lawyer, Georgia, but she(Georgia) is coming to work at the same firm. All this happens in just the first hour long episode featured on this two disc DVD set.
All in all, you get six episodes from this Emmy-winning Fox series. Each episode illustrates why this is probably one show that we will be speaking of fondly in decades to come.
Fox really ticks me off with this double disc! In their zeal to quickly release a DVD during the show's height in popularity, Fox not only does not give us an entire season of the show on DVD, but they have the guts to randomly picked out episodes from their chronological order. Since every episode pretty much hinges on the one before it, characters like Judge Whipper (Dyan Canon)just sort of randomly appear and then disappear from the plot lines without any explanation for the first time viewer.
Although we get hints of Ally's neurotic behavior, the absence of a progression, fueled by these missing episodes, makes for a really dismal cohesion of plot elements.
Also, two of my all time favorite episodes, one in which Ally sues the Catholic church and ergo God on behalf of a little boy dying of cancer, the other, a bitter sweet episode in which a trans-sexual prostitute turns legit, befriends Ally and co. and is ultimately gunned down in cold blood in front of the law firm, are not presented on either of these discs.
Quality wise, the discs are pretty decently mastered, with minor aliasing, color smearing and edge enhancement just part in parcel of the overall disregard for television fare mastered to DVD. In light of Fox's dedication to releasing complete seasons of "The X-Files" on DVD, this brilliant little jem of a comedy/drama series definitely needs to be reissued by 20th Century-Fox. Here's to hoping!
Rating: 
Summary: where are the others!
Review: How can they possibly expect an "ally" fan to be happy with a boxed set that contains less than half of the episodes of the season? And when will the other season come out? if they ever will?!
Rating: 
Summary: Go alley go
Review: This ones a show about a lawyer who is really funny. I termendously enjoyed it and you will ,too. I didn't see this particluar DVD yet but I will no matter which episodes the extract has - they are ALL good - and that is why I feel qualified to write my review. You won't be disappointed in this show. Make cetrain you have the right DVD code cbecause the regions are differet. I am Harold McInnes.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't be shocked by the one star
Review: Entertaining? yes... Fun? yes... Satisfying? no....(the one star is because of this)
I don't understand how a nice series like this is not being released like all the successful TV series i.e. boxed sets. The only answer i can think of is that they do not consider it as a successful one. I'm a big fan of TV series like Friends, Stargate,...etc so i would really like to add another series to my collection.
Rating:
Summary: Back when Ally was the most fun
Review: The first season finds Ally, a lawyer in her mid-20s, taking a job at the newly-formed firm Cage & Fish, formed by the two most eccentric guys in her graduating class at Harvard, who just want a firm where people do work but also have fun despite not fitting the lawyer mold. Also at the firm is Ally's childhood love Billy, who broke up with her to transfer to a law school in Detroit. He is back with a gorgeous wife, Georgia (who also works wth them) and Ally is still in love with him.Rounding out the cast is Elaine, a rather hyper-seductive secretary who is in everyone's business, and Renee, Ally's roommate and a lawyer with the DA's office, who often bears witness to Ally's fantasy life. For she has a very rich one -- where she plays out scenarios of what might have been, especially when she starts dating up a storm (she is by no means just hanging around pining for Billy!) So there is our beloved Ally, in all her strappy-sandaled, short-skirted, neurotic glory, as she is, in her own words in the very first episode, "just starting out".
Rating:
Summary: we want all episodes!
Review: being a die-hard ally fan,I would just like to see all episodes sorted and produced chronologically so we can purchase.Is it so hard to produce boxed sets of all the years from 97 till 02 I wonder?Please don't let us down.As for the series,great real-life drama only colored by instantly likable quirks,funny situations and peppered with 'trials' where it is really hard to determine who is just right or wrong and happiness and sorrow.Ally is a character living in her own 'matrix' if you know what I mean.
Highly recommended for everyone who has some heart...
Rating:
Summary: Where's the rest?
Review: I absolutely loved "Ally McBeal" when it was on television. My mother and I used to get together and watch it every Monday night, never missed an episode. We never made any other plans on Monday nights and we called it, "Ally night". We both loved John Cage "The Biscuit" and in the later episodes, we just adored Robert Downey Jr. as Ally's love interest. He was a great addition. I would very much like to have this show on dvd, but when I saw that they only offered a select few episodes, I refused to buy it. I don't understand why the powers that be can produce first complete seasons of every other show new and old, including "Beavis & Butthead!!!" but they wouldn't recapture those old Ally episodes in their entirety. This show was so unique, different than anything anybody had ever seen. The bizarre humor and the eccentric characters and storylines got great ratings, because it wasn't the same old cliche humor like all of these sitcoms with canned laughter. If you would release the complete first season of Ally, and then the rest of the seasons to follow later, I assure you, a lot of people would purchase them. It was a terrific show that I was sorry to see end. I hope eventually someone will put together a "real" dvd set of the Complete First Season. If you won't do that, don't put a lesser quality out. It's the stupidest idea I've ever seen to put a few episodes and sell it for the price tag that's on it. Ridiculous!
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable, Good Entertainment for One Viewing
Review: I got this from my public library and am glad I did not buy it myself. Although it is enjoyable and well written, watching it once is enough. I had no idea that episodes were missing from this set but I found it plenty long enough as is. I am a lawyer so perhaps that is why I am not as enthusiastic as many others are about this series. Let's just say this is fantasy romantic comedy based law as opposed to terribly real world law. What really works in this series though is the well written human interest material about some very interesting characters in their 30s. It is set in Boston. Ally works in a firm owned by someone her own age. The firm takes only high retainer cases of rich clients. The actor who does the best job as a lawyer is Peter MacNicol as John "the Biscuit" Cage. He is actually a very believable, existing "type" found in the real legal world. The premise that the set opens with is that Ally finds herself working for the same firm that has her old boyfriend on board. Problem is that he is now married to someone else and she is still single. Worse, he's married to another very attractive lawyer who also comes to work with the firm. I got a little tired of this duo about half way through the series and found John "the Biscuit" Cage's scenes with Ally a lot more interesting. Much is made of the unisex bathroom in the law firm which everyone in the firm uses together constantly. I found this bizarre and thought it really took the show's credibility down a big notch. However, I liked the computer generated special effects, especially the one of a fully dressed Ally swimming underwater through the law firm's offices. The music is also very good. If you are interested in romance genre material set amidst legal trappings, you will enjoy this set.
Rating:
Summary: great show, bum deal
Review: There's no reason to offer the consumer short weight; these cds are inexcusably short in the # of episodes.
Rating:
Summary: ally mcbeal boxed set
Review: I would like to have the chance to get ALL the seasons of Ally McBeal as I can do it with Sopranos' mini series, I like Ally's show very much and would like to know if there is a possibility Ally McBeals' seasons are going to be available in DVD format soon. Thank you...
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