Last episode (series finale) on Monday, went on for five years… Fox is pulling the plug due to sloppy ratings…
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020516/ap_wo_en_ge/us_tv_ally_mcbeal_2
TV’s romance with ‘Ally McBeal’ comes to an end
Thu May 16, 3:20 PM ET
By LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer
LOS ANGELES - Unlucky-in-love Ally McBeal (news - Y! TV) has botched the last and most important relationship of her life: the one with television viewers.
Enough already, the audience seemed to chorus as ratings for Fox’s 5-year-old series slipped despite newcomers including Jon Bon Jovi and Christina Ricci.
Enough neuroses, said one former fan, Suzanne Smith: “Ally wasn’t just quirky anymore. She was unpleasant.”
Enough rampant male chauvinism, said another, Charla Delgado: “The portrayal of the workplace bothered me.”
Once hot, now cold, “Ally McBeal” airs its final episode Monday. But the show — which had the power to provoke a Time magazine cover story asking “Is Feminism Dead?” — remains influential despite its decline.
It’s the style, however, and not the substance of “Ally McBeal” that resonates. Witty fantasy sequences, an ear for music and innovative cinematography are part of the legacy of creator David E. Kelley’s Emmy-winning series.
When it comes to the depiction of contemporary women — which made “Ally McBeal” the watercooler darling, or villain, of its heyday — the medium already has moved on.
Played by Calista Flockhart, Ally was a 30-ish Boston lawyer obsessed more with mating than her professional accomplishments. In 1998, Time called her a symbol of feminism turned vapid and part of “a popular culture insistent on offering images of grown single women as frazzled, self-absorbed girls.”
In 1997, the series and its then unknown star, Flockhart, were welcomed as fresh, offbeat newcomers. Ally’s tiny skirts and oversize neediness were marvels, as was Kelley’s unorthodox take on the war of the sexes and hot-button issues such as workplace equality and marital infidelity.
The emphasis on music was a draw, with Elton John, Al Green, Sting, Barry White, Tina Turner, Barry Manilow and Gladys Knight among the pop stars who appeared.
While others may have tired of the series, for Tom Denove, a veteran cinematographer and adjunct professor at the film school of the University of California, Los Angeles, it’s once in love with “Ally,” always in love with “Ally.”
Denove, who worked on two episodes of the series, credits colleague Billy Dixon with an unorthodox approach to filming that relied on telephoto-type lenses, even for close-ups. It gave “Ally McBeal” a distinctive, intimate look.
“You’re so focused on the person and almost looking right into their soul,” Denove said. “It’s very personal. It doesn’t look like a TV show at all in that respect alone.”
“I hate to see it go,” he said.