Ally McBeal: Season 2

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Calista Flockhart, Peter MacNicol. Laboring to get over her feelings for childhood sweetheart Billy, Ally still goes to work everyday for the Boston law firm where her ex-love and his wife are working. Annoyed by a gossiping receptionist and steadied by advice from her best friend, lovable Ally wears her skirts short and her heart on her sleeve in 23 second-season episodes on 6 DVDs. 1998-99/color/18 hrs/NR/widescreen. .com ---- The second season of Ally McBeal is when the show really hit its stride. Introducing two new cast members, the willowy Nelle Porter (Portia de Rossi) and the (almost literally) fiery Ling Woo (Lucy Liu), this season of Ally compounds the sexual tension around the politically incorrect law offices of Cage & Fish--as if that randy group needed more encouragement. Calista Flockhart's performance as Ally is truly career defining, and she makes her acting look so effortless that it's easy to overlook the fact that she is in nearly every scene. Ally is smart, capable, and a blithering mess when it comes to her social life--a combination many fans can relate to. And the plot twists are demonically hilarious. In one episode, Ally and her bosses (the wryly funny Peter MacNichol, as John Cage, and Greg Germann, as Richard Fish) are asked to defend a 39-year-old woman accused of having an affair with a 16-year-old boy. When Ally meets the now-18-year-old dreamboat, professional demeanor leaves her completely--as it does often. A big bonus of this boxed set is the inclusion, finally, of all the episodes' original music, including original and cover songs by the great soul singer Vonda Shepard--and even Barry White, who appears as one of Ally's frequent, and extremely entertaining, hallucinations. This season, Ally seems determined to conquer her neuroses and has enlisted the help of a therapist (Tracey Ullman) who glibly reassures the self-involved Ally that "Narcissism is a wonderful thing." Ally, surprised: "It is?" Therapist, crisply: "Yes. For me. Nuts like you heat my pool." Ally McBeal also features great performances by Jane Krakowski, Lisa Nicole Carson, Courtney Thorne-Smith, and Gil Bellows--with any or all of the lawyers gossiping, eavesdropping, and most importantly, taking pratfalls in that famous unisex bathroom. Ally is a heroine of the postfeminist era, and one who's willing to laugh at herself--and that makes Ally McBeal a must-watch for fans of TV comedy, drama, romance, and anything else in between. --A.T. Hurley