Ally McBeal – Season 2 Part 1 DVD – Gil Bellows, Peter MacNicol

At the start of Series Two of the Boston law firm drama, nothing much had changed at Richard Fish’s rather kooky establishment. Ally (Calista Flockhart) was still a skinny, whimsical woman-child looking for Mr Right. Billy (Gil Bellows) was still married to Georgia (Courtney Thorne-Smith), John Cage (Peter McNicol) was still too eccentric to be considered for romantic involvement, Elaine (Jane Krakowski) was still a nosey meddler and Fish (Greg Germann) himself was still looking for ways to make money. Lots of it. Greed prompts him to hire new litigator Nelle (Portia DiRossi), a tall, blonde power-dresser who leaves the other women bristling in her wake. But their antipathy towards their new colleague is nothing compared to the forces of hatred spiky Ling (Lucy Liu) inspires. Before long John (The Biscuit) and Nelle are embarking on a tempestuous romance, Ally is stealing Elaine’s new boyfriend before going out with one of Georgia’s exes and Billy begins to show the signs of instability which lead to him to bleach his hair blonde in the following season. Ally’s outspoken flatmate Renee (Lisa Nicole Carson) got a welcome increase in her time on screen in this second season. Despite the sheer number of episodes David E Kelley and his team turn around each year, this second series consistently provided entertaining viewing to the last, despite–or perhaps because of–some of the characters being so unlikable. The inter-office banter reached new heights of inventive bitchiness, the comic CGI illustrations of Ally’s imagination still felt reasonably fresh and the court cases managed to combine oddity with emotional involvement. All in all this group of dysfunctional and rather incestuous workaholics proved curiously engaging yet again. –Emma Perry