Ally McBeal (1997–2002)
9/10
Poor justice and poor victims of that justice
17 March 2010
Warning: Spoilers
This series is hilarious and intends to be. Lawyers and lawyers and lawyers in all their antics to win cases every time they can, even more than they should. It is first of all a serious criticism of that kind of jury justice that essentially manipulates the members of the jury and at the same time surprises the judge and the various counselors and even the accused, the defendant and the accuser, and everyone in the case. Justice appears then like and as a farce, because it is a farce, the farce of a purely conventional and opportunistic institution for whom freedom and truth are absolutely unheard of as rules, and are at the most circumstantial elements. The series though is a lot more interesting if we forget about this justice. The people are mostly neurotic, if not psychotic, and they cultivate those characteristics to create some kind of funny, strange and bizarre and ah-ah of not oh-my-god plot and intrigue and never mind what else. Love in all directions and the impossibility to love in just the same number of directions. Love turned into exhibitionism or pure violence if not sadism. Fetishism turned into a fine art and hunting into a parlor activity if not a court distraction and entertainment. You laugh for sure but there is little depth in all that and it only aims at making you laugh. In the end we could even say that we are laughing at justice which is a sham, lawyers who are clowns and men and women in all their ages, colors and personalities who are all disposable pawns on the social board.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID
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