Box set: Ally McBeal - The Complete DVD Collection
Ally Mcbeal: Season 1
20th Century Fox (1997)
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/ Color / 528 mins
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#1311
Plot
Ally McBeal is an American comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network from 1997 to 2002. The series was created by David E. Kelley, who also served as the executive producer, along with Bill D'Elia. The series stars Calista Flockhart in the title role as a young lawyer working in the fictional Boston law firm Cage and Fish with other young lawyers whose lives and loves were eccentric, humorous and dramatic.Cast
| Calista Flockhart | Ally McBeal | |
| Greg Germann | Richard Fish | |
| Jane Krakowski | Elaine Vassal | |
| Vonda Shepard | Vonda Shepard | |
| Peter MacNicol | John Cage |
Crew
| Director |
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| Producer | Roberto Benabib | ||||
| Writer | Roberto Benabib | ||||
| Cinematography | Tim Suhrstedt | ||||
| Musician | Danny Lux |
Episodes
Disc 01
Ally McBeal, 28, and a recent graduate of Harvard Law School, is harassed on the job by a senior associate. When she confronts the partners, it backfires and she loses her job. On the street, she literally bumps into an old classmate, Richard Fish, who offers her a position working for his new firm. She accepts, despite her misgivings about his ethical standards. While being introduced to her new fellow associates, she receives the shock of her career.Director: James Frawley
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Larry Brandenburg, Richard Riehle, Pat McNamara, David S. Dunard, Paul Collins, Michael Caslin, Susan Knight, Kim Delgado, Jeffrey Kramer, Tom Virtue, Michael Galeota, Mika Boorem, Michael Mantell, Michael Laskin
Fish's partner, John Cage faces fines, jail, and public humiliation. To her dismay, Ally is assigned to be a litigator. Fish invites Ally along to dinner with a very wealthy potential client, Ronald Cheanie. Unbeknownst to Ally, the dinner is really a double date with Fish and his girlfriend, Whipper. Ally is furious, but Cheanie turns out to be handsome and intelligent.Director: Jonathan Pontell
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Tate Donovan, Willie Garson, John Cirigliano, Robert Lee Jacobs, Betty Bridges-Nacasio
Ally senses Cheanie is withholding something when he neglects to kiss her goodnight after their first official date. Georgia asks Ally to assist her in trying an age discrimination case when the opposing litigator turns out to be Billings, the guy Ally tried to sue for sexual harassment at her old firm. Fish admonishes Ally for putting her emotional life above the firm's financial welfare while telling her to grow up.Director: Dennie Gordon
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Tate Donovan, Richard Riehle, David Spielberg, Alaina Reed Hall, Kate Jackson, Nelson Mashita, Cissy Wellman
Ally is asked to be a pallbearer at the funeral of her ex-law professor. The widow, Katherine Dawson, invites her to give the eulogy, but Ally's initial reluctance betrays the reason. In a moment of complete vulnerability, she confesses to Billy who supports her by agreeing to attend the funeral with her. This unnerves Georgia, and Cheanie, who are both feeling threatened when they realize Billy is helping Ally out during a difficult time in her life. Georgia confronts Billy, and Cheanie confronts Ally, who refuses to tell him why she's been upset lately. He doesn't understand why she chooses to confide in Billy over him.Director: Arlene Sanford
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Tate Donovan, Jerry Hardin, Brett Cullen, Kathy Baker, Jenjer Vick, Holliston Coleman
Disc 02
Ally is arrested for aggravated assault and attempted shoplifting. Renee bails her out, but word spreads quickly, and Ally is brought before the State Bar Review Board. A litany of her recent travails is read aloud, and Ally must contend with her unconventional past catching up with her.Director: Sandy Smolan
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Keene Curtis, Carol Locatell, Audrie J. Neenan, Zeljko Ivanek, Betty Bridges-Nacasio, Daniel Hutchison, Gerald Emerick
Ally has to defend a friend of Whipper brought up on solicitation charges. She is serving as second chair to Cage, whose idiosyncrasies become increasingly apparent and mystifying to Ally as well as the other attorneys. At the same time, on a different case, a severely rotund attorney passes out from a near heart attack just outside the courtroom and Ally has to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.Director: Victoria Hochberg
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Brook Burns, Jay Leggett, Rusty Schwimmer, Jamie Rose, Michael Winters, Michael Bofshever, James Mathers, Landry Barb, Joyce Greenleaf, Kenneth Zanchi, Mary-Margaret Lewis, Vonda Shepard
Ally represents a Jewish woman who needs her Rabbi to grant her a spiritual release from her marriage to her comatose husband. Ally goes personally to the Rabbi's office to find out why he is being so rigid. Meanwhile, Georgia is the target of a senior partner's wife's insecurities.Director: Michael Schultz
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Brook Burns, Jason Blicker, Andrew Heckler, Steve Vinovich, Brenda Vaccaro, Vonda Shepard
Billy and Georgia are faced with a crisis of confidence in their marriage. Elaine threatens to sue the firm for sexual harassment if Fish and Cage don't meet her demands for improved working conditions. Ally, Georgia, and Cage take on a lucrative divorce case. Fish uses some tactics, which causes a debate between the two parties as to which side is the most amoral.Director: Mel Damski
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Brook Burns, Cristine Rose, Stan Ivar, Mark Metcalf, Sandra Bernhard, Vonda Shepard
Disc 03
The attorney, Caroline Poop, who represented Elaine in her short lived suit against Fish and Cage regarding the constant gawking directed at a beautiful delivery woman, returns. This time she is representing the beautiful delivery women, Jennifer, who now serves Fish and Cage with her own lawsuit for same-sex sexual harassment. Meanwhile, Ally makes a bet with Renee that she can tell a dirty joke and get more laughs. The duel is set for the bar downstairs in her office building.Director: Daniel Attias
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Brook Burns, Keene Curtis, Sandra Bernhard, Nate Reese
Judge Whipper Cone asks Ally to take on a pro-bono case of a young prostitute up on her third solicitation charge. Fish, meanwhile, wants to sue his uncle's church for discrimination, due to his uncle's overt bigotry towards vertically challenged people (short people). The church's contention is that they cannot support bigotry of any kind and allowing the uncle a service and proper burial is tantamount to endorsing the appalling views. Fish promises he will not propagate the attitudes in his eulogy. Renee talks Ally into double dating with the salad-dressing-on-the-chin guy if the Biscuit is invited.Director: Thomas Schlamme
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Wilson Cruz, Amy Aquino, Armin Shimerman, Harrison Page, Jennifer Holliday, Ronald Hunter, Daniel Wantland, Niles Brewster
Three intelligent, successful and motivated adults approach Judge Whipper Cone about the possibility of getting legal representation in their quest to have the courts approve a legal, binding, three-way marriage. Fish assigns Ally and Cage to the case, knowing Ally's incurable romanticism and Cage's legal acumen is a potent combination with Whipper assigned to the case. Ally is opposed, claiming the three-way relationship is morally repugnant, but Georgia, feeling punkish around the holidays, points out that the clients' triangle isn't very different from the one in which Ally, Georgia, and Billy find themselves. Georgia accuses Billy of being more relaxed and open in their marriage ever since Ally re-entered the picture. Whipper, herself experiencing an annual bout of Holiday Blues, causes Fish to propose marriage, even though both know he really doesn't want to.Director: Joe Napolitans
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Eric Pierpoint, Katie Mitchell, Peter Roth, Bailey Thompson, Amanda Carlin
Ally is shocked to discover that her biological clock is ticking, unleashing strange libidinal impulses in her. During a sculpting class with live nude male models, she and Renee become enamored by one particular model with obviously generous endowments. Meanwhile, Ally has taken on the case of the 19-year-old son of an important client, who has been charged with assault because he slugged a guy in a bar who was verbally harassing his date. The boy tells Ally he felt justified because he warned the guy first, which serves to increase Ally's cradle robbing interest in him.Director: Allan Arkush
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Michael Easton, Michael Winters, Henry Woronicz, Eddie Mills, Dirk Cheetwood, Nicolette Vajtay, Sharon Omni, Karen Elyse, Barry Livingston
Disc 04
Ally has a chance encounter with Glenn, the well-endowed artists' model, at a local Starbucks, and makes it very clear that she is irritated with him. On the legal side, John Cage takes on a wrongful death case that Fish is convinced will reap big bucks for the firm. Two adult siblings are suing an airline after their father is killed in a plane crash.Director: Sandy Smolan
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Michael Easton, Harry J. Lennix, Elizabeth Ruscio, Ben Siegler, Adrian Sparks, Susan Merson, Daniel Mahar, Dale Weston, Vince Brolato, Dean Purvis, Christopher Michael
Ally and Renee are bridesmaids at a friend's wedding. They both bristle at the absurdity of the rituals performed, and swear to never do it. Richard asks Ally to flirt with a wealthy new client. To Ally's chagrin, Cage offers no protest on her behalf, admitting he's undergoing smile therapy which has renewed his appreciation for behavioral reinforcement. Ally and Georgia try a case about overturning a prison warden's decision to refuse marriage for a life-term inmate.Director: Mel Damski
Writer: David E. Kelley / Nicole Yorkin
Guest starring: Kathleen Wilhoite, Lawrence Pressman, J. Kenneth Campbell, John Thaddeus, Linda Gehringer, David Doty, Jeffrey von Meyer, Carrie Stauber, Evan O'Meara, Bil Dwyer, Annika Brindley, Eric Mansker, Nancy Stephens
Fish brings in a client, an 80-something world famous artist, who is battling his heirs to regain control of his estate. Ally and Billy co-counsel the case, and as a result of spending several late nights together, separately conclude that the artist's love of his recently deceased wife parallels their own relationship in many ways. Meanwhile, Cage begins to sense that Ally is losing interest in the possibility of getting together when she behaves in an overtly irritable manner that is obvious to the entire office. Fish loses his patience and decides to get to the bottom of Cage's problem with Ally.Director: Elodie Keene
Writer: Jeff Pinkner / David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Richard Kiley, Brigid Brannagh, Steven Flynn
The firm takes on a high profile case involving a jilted spouse who is suing a US Senator for "interfering with happy marital relations". The Senator's case takes on perversely similar parallels to the Ally / Billy / Georgia love triangle, causing Georgia to quit the case, Fish to try the case, and Cage to keep the Senator from losing his career. Ally, meanwhile, doesn't hide much from Renee, and while trying to deny her feelings, experiences another dancing baby visitation, and thus causing Renee to wonder about Ally's sanity. Cage taps Fish to help litigate; knowing his utter lack of legal experience is just what they need to discredit the merits of the case. He advises Ally to match her adversary with smiles and ingratiating behavior.Director: Jeremy Kagan
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Dina Meyer, J. Patrick McCormack, Marty Rackham, Gary Bullock, Andrew Bloch, Elaine Giftos
Disc 05
Ally, Georgia and Renee sign up for a kick boxing class to relieve stress. Ally and Georgia wind up having to fight each other because they're both beginners. As they start to carp more and more at the office, all pretext towards civility drops in the ring and their matches in the class increasingly intensify. Ally takes on a case about an attractive surgeon accused of performing an unauthorized and controversial transplant procedure. Cage insists it's time for her to visit with his smile therapist and she agrees. Fish, meanwhile is in hot pursuit of Janet Reno, who is still in town, and is once again busted by Whipper, when she smells perfume on his wattle finger.Director: Dennie Gordon
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Liz Torres, Dawn Stern, John Fink, Paul Guilfoyle, Linda Gehringer, Don Perry, Sally Wingert
Ally is a passenger in a car accident with the firm's client Greg Butters, a handsome doctor to whom she finds herself attracted. She attempts to handle the doctor's case herself, but finds she just cannot. Ally confides in her "therapist" that she is attracted to the doctor and is enthusiastically encouraged her to use her sex appeal to take the initiative with him. Ally decides the therapist should meet the entire cast of characters in her life and talks her into showing up at the bar after work one night. Fish argues a case of sexual discrimination on behalf of a client who missed a promotion because she didn't sleep with her boss.Director: Jonathan Pontell
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Josh Ryan Evans, Christine Dunford, Wrenn T. Brown, Michael Winters, Shea Farrell, Miriam Flynn, Jerry Sroka
Ally is in denial about her birthday but her co-workers aren't. Elaine orchestrates a party at the bar and asks Dr. Greg Butters to sing a romantic ballad dedicated to Ally. He does, and knocks the socks off everyone in the room. Renee is especially moved, and jumps up on stage to join him in a seductive duet. Meanwhile, in the courtroom, Ally is forced to take the position for a new client that his foot fetish qualifies him as temporarily insane. Renee, as the opposing district attorney, maintains that sneaking into a would-be date's apartment uninvited to tickle her feet is breaking and entering.Director: Thomas Schlamme
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Harriet Sansom Harris, Barry Miller, Alaina Reed Hall, Danny Borowicz, Roberta West, Jesse L. Martin
A wealthy client is brutally murdered and the wife is implicated. Her only defense when caught red-handed is that she has no recollection of what had taken place. Billy, anxious to take on bigger cases, is the lone voice advocating for the firm taking the criminal case, but Fish and Cage ultimately decide it should be farmed out. Georgia, meanwhile, takes on a case about a heterosexual waiter suing for discrimination and wrongful dismissal when he's fired from his job for not being gay. Renee seduces a fellow attorney.Director: Michael Schultz
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Dylan McDermott, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Steve Harris, Camryn Manheim, Kelli Williams, Kelly Connell, Isaiah Washington, Alaina Reed Hall, Michael Brandon, David Burke, Tony Amendola, Al Pugliese, Daniel Dae Kim, George Cedar, Donna Murphy
Disc 06
Cage prepares Ally for Renee's trial. Renee is fast becoming a basket-case because she's convinced Cage's untraditional tactics are going to cost her job. Georgia tells Billy that she took a home pregnancy test, and it came up positive. Ally is of course thrown by the news, but recovers just in time to reclaim Renee's defense. Ally forces Renee to confront her problem with sexual aggressiveness. Ally and Renee have a sleep over and for the first time, Ally appears to be the grown-up in their friendship.Director: Mel Damski
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Isaiah Washington, Michael Easton, Gibby Brand, Eric McCormack, Erica Nicole Dickerson, Shannon Welles, Herb Corben, Patricia Tate, Earl K. Kim
John Cage must confront the cowardice of his convictions when he comes face to face with an ex-law school classmate who is coincidentally trying the case he's representing. It becomes obvious to Ally that John is deeply in love with this woman. Cage admits he took the safe way out, protecting the friendship versus risking losing everything if he were to be rejected by her. Ally encourages Cage to tell the woman, Hayley, that he has feelings for her, which he does as part of his closing arguments. Meanwhile, Georgia and Fish take on a case about a jilted bride-to-be who sues for emotional and physical damage. The judge for this case is Whipper Cone, who finds it difficult to hide her bias against her ex-lover, Richard Fish. He takes the opportunity to confront Whipper one more time and tells her that he misses her. Whipper in return, finally smiles, leaving the door open by telling him she'll take it all under advisement.Director: Dennis Dugan
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Cynthia Stevenson, McNally Sagal, Michael G. Hagerty, Gibby Brand, Neal Lerner, Jocko Marcellino, Dabbs Greer, Landry Barb, Bill Bishop, Bill Finkelstein
Cage must represent his second cousin, a harmless but eccentric man with a Cupid Complex. His cousin was brought up on assault charges for swatting couples in the head with a paddle to goose them into realizing they're in love. On the way out of the courthouse, the client swats Ally and Bobby Donnell, who have grown considerably closer over a case they are co-counseling. The matter entails two men who want the court to order/force a hospital to perform a heart-swap surgery. The judge turns the tables on the lawyers and asks Ally to role-play by pretending she's the judge who must render the ruling. Billy and Georgia realize their relationship is in a rut. They resolve to be less predictable, and spontaneously decide to have sex in the conference room. Ally who always seems to be at the wrong place at the wrong time inadvertently walks in on Georgia and Billy.Director: Jonathan Pontell
Writer: David E. Kelley
Guest starring: Dylan McDermott, Willie Garson, Richard Schiff, Albert Hall, Rhonda Dotson, Ken Abraham, Bob Gunton, Gerry Vichi
Edition Details
| Series | Ally McBeal |
|---|---|
| Packaging | Custom Case |
| Layers | Single Side, Dual Layer |
| No. of Disks/Tapes | 6 |
Personal Details
| Links |
Ally McBeal: Season 1 at Core for Movies
IMDB TheTvDb.com |
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Images
