Television
So effing what?
James Delingpole
One of the things that annoys me most about Ally McBeal (Channel 4, Wednesday) is the way that it has been dumped on us as, a fait accompli. A fortnight ago if we heard the name, we would probably have assumed it belonged to some footballer whom we were supposed to know about but don't because we all find the World Cup immensely tedious. Suddenly, however, we're all meant to be terribly grateful and excited about the fact that this wretched sitcom has come to our shores, just because 14 million or so Amer" icans like it.
Well, if you ask me, those 14 mill° Americans are very, very stupid. Yes, I too would like to shag Calista Flockhart. And lf I were a woman I would probably like t° look like her. But neither constitutes a par" ticularly good reason for wasting valuable life on a television series which makes Friends look like grimy social realist°, Home And Away a fount of emotional aell; ity and Sunnyside Farm the very apogee 0.` Wildean wit.
Before I continue my rant though, Per; haps I'd better explain for the benefit °: the blissfully ignorant few who Ally McBeal is. She's the titular heroine of a touchY" feely comedy about the lives and loves of a group of hot-shot, thirty-something lawYers in Boston. She's strong yet needy; PreltY, yet lovelorn; insightful yet naive; intelligell` yet intellectually insecure — and all th°sc other subtle paradoxes which pass f°r depth-of-characterisation on US Prica. e: time. She was created by ex-LA-Law-wrIte.A" and husband-of-Michelle Pfeiffer Davi' Kelley. And right now she's the hottest thing on American television. Why? That's the question. Entertainment Weekly may rave about its 'Button-pushing story lines hot off the cultural Zeitgeist' but while I'd concede that it comes closer l° capturing the essence of modern life than, say, Dixon of Dock Green, it hardly — Of, American for a moment — pushes envelope. So, the lawyers use a unisex tol" let; so, someone says `vagina'; so, it talks, frankly about prostitution, penis-sizeallie the differences between male and female sexuality. So, effing what? Apparently, we're also supposed to b ie hugely impressed by its daringly origi!!ial excursions into surrealism. When Als thinks her pushy, obnoxious secret arY L being big-headed, for example, we gel lu see her as Ally imagines her, wearing a really big, computer-enlarged head. And When the man Ally fancies proposes coffee, we get treated to a mini-fantasy sequence Of Ally and her beloved romping in a giant coffee-cup. Dali it ain't. Not that it's at all a bad idea. It just isn't stretched far enough. I get the impression that the programme- makers were terrified that too much weird- ness might frighten off the middle-market viewers.
Then again perhaps they're right. Ally *Beal is quite weird enough already — especially in its absurd pretence that its Characters and plot lines have even the flimsiest connection with real life.
Take the head of Ally's law firm. He's supposed to be a total sleazeball, whose only aim is to get even more disgustingly rich than he is already. So what on earth is he doing employing a dipstick like Ally McBeal? She's dizzy, she's insecure, she has moral principles: she's a useless lawyer who quite obviously won't make the firm any money at all. Except, of course, she will. Scriptwriter ICeIley is bound to make her win lots of cases and think up hundreds of clever .What if we tried this line of defence?' Ideas. Not because such brilliance is remotely in her character's nature but because it will help convey the series' facile, feel-good, politically-enlightened Message that you can be a beautiful woman in very short skirts and be a superb lawyer.
In much the same way, the reptilian head-of-firm I mentioned earlier is not per- mitted to be as nasty as the terms of his character might strictly demand. No. He has been given an endearing (and quite preposterously unbelievable) weakness for older women because, so we are told, he likes the saggy skin on their necks. This is tantamount to telling the viewer: 'I have no respect for your intelligence whatsoever and I intend to insult it as often as it is con- venient for furthering my risible plots and/or raising an easy laugh.'
And yet, the amazing thing is, the series has actually been praised for its insights into the human condition, especially that of the young professional woman. Huh! Could have fooled me. Ally McBeal is pret- ty, clever, talented, sensitive, cute, solvent, high-powered and unthreatening. That's not a real person.
That's a male fantasy. Would that Ally McBeal had stayed that way, existing only in her creator's febrile brain, because then I could have dedicated this column to truly excellent programmes that actually deserved reviewing. Like Ice Men (BBC 2, Thursday) or Jonathan Meades's paean to Birmingham, Heart Bypass (BBC 2, Sun- day).
Sorry chaps, I'm out of space. And like most of the world's current ills, it's all the fault of bloody Ally McBeal.
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