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* Warning: This was a heavy soundtrack episode of Ally McBeal. On extended dance remix, it would have been literally unbearable. David E. Kelley: J'accuse. J'accuse.

I. Elf-Hatred

Ally began this week with Georgia in a kickboxing brawl with Santa, and several people of diminutive height - you know, those adorable little creatures who are protected under the AEDA (Anti-Elf-Discrimination Act). That's why I would never, ever make fun of them. Anyway, why would I do that? They complete me.

The melee begins because Santa's upset - "I am the spirit of Christmas, you son-of-a-bitch." Santa's upset because he's been fired from his department store job for being too fat.

Santa, stop those reindeer games and look in the dictionary under the definition of "wake-up call."

And while you're at it, could you leave me some soy milk and a Powerbar this Christmas? No, correction, Santa, could you please leave me a laxative and a copy of "The Best Little Girl In the World"? Oh, I'm sorry, did Calista Flockhart take the last copy? I'll pass.

About your lawsuit, Santa, I'm afraid I can only say: Get a hold of your elf. You're making a fool of your elf. And think of someone besides your elf. And where's your elf respect?

Wait, why is my laptop crashing? Okay, slap me. I'm better. I'll stop embarrassing my elf. Any minute now . . . .

II. He's Built Like A Gingerbread. Houuuuse.

Hired in Santa's stead at the department store is a babelicious alternative Santa. Supposedly, women are standing in line to sit on his lap - giving a new meaning to the phrase "Ho ho ho;" one that Tupac Shakur might have enjoyed. Now, girls, even with Viagra, a man can't have an erection all day and give out costly presents too… . If that were possible, even I might get married.

In this week's so-called lawsuit, John Cage and Ally represent the fired fatboy-Santa, who is the plaintiff in a suit against the department store for breach of oral contract. Georgia - having been to elf and back in her kickboxing brawl (Sorry! Sorry!) - represents the department store.

Shall I start with the conflict-of-interest issues, deriving from Georgia's prior employment at Fish & Cage? I mean, she and Cage have both seen Santa's list. Checked it twice (malpractice insurers demand it). How will they split the milk and cookies? As usual, Ally McBeal ignores these important issues to focus on frivolities.

III. Injunction, Injunction, What's Your Function?
Takin' Hunky Santa, And Makin' Him Homeless

Thus, Cage and Ally begin, on Santa's behalf, by seeking a TRO - a Temporary Restraining Order. For some of the non-lawyers in the audience, I should explain that a TRO is a form of injunctive relief. This means that if a TRO were granted, rather than awarding a money judgment the court would simply order the store to put the original fat Santa back in his chair to molest small children - I mean, embody the sprit of Christmas - to his heart's content. Thus leaving hunky Santa out in the cold.

To get a TRO, a high degree of exigency is generally necessary. The exigency here is supposedly impending Christmas, where someone must be Santa, after all - babelicious hunk or fatboy, the choice will belong to one very annoyed judge.

But the law strongly counsels against a TRO in the type of situation Ally depicts. Now, it's true that holidays often lead to the type of exigency giving rise to a TRO. Thanksgiving retail strikes, for example, are a favorite labor tactic to bring management to the bargaining table, and seeking a TRO in that situation, is at least arguably appropriate. Management's harm, in having customers permanently lost and alienated, may be hard to quantify in retrospect, so injunctive relief - simply stopping the strike in advance if it is illegal - might be appropriate.

However, here in Ally-land any harm fat Santa might have suffered in lost wages, based on the alleged breach of an oral employment contract, would seem to be entirely compensable with money damages, so that the need for injunctive relief to remedy any injury he might have suffered is slight. Damages will compensate Santa adequately, and therefore a TRO seems unnecessary.

Nevertheless, there's a hearing. Which only makes sense. Oral contracts, like oral sex, leave something to be desired. As a legal claim, they're often shaky - as John Cage expressly recognizes - for the commonsensical reason that it's best to have something in writing. (Duh, Santa!) However, bringing an oral contract claim does have one advantage: since you have to prove or disprove the contract through the testimony of the parties as witnesses, rather than using the document itself as evidence, at least you get to have a hearing.

At the hearing, we learn that fat Santa's likelihood of prevailing on the merits (another component of the TRO test) is slight, since he admits he had no expectation of continued employment, and no damages. Indeed, he admits that he has other job options that will pay him well. (As a fat white man, one would think he could automatically become the CEO of a major corporation, for example.) No wonder the judge is annoyed with this meritless, inane TRO application.

The hearing only gets worse. Nell testifies about how much Santa meant to her when she was a child. (But then he never gave her real eyebrows now, did he?) Legal genius Georgia misses the obvious cross-ex of Nell - "Aren't you testifying for the Santa-plaintiff in a case in which your colleagues at your firm are representing said, above-mentioned Santa? Deny it! You can't, can you Nell? Aha!" Instead, Georgia's cross-ex is about whether Nell bleaches her hair. Effective.

Meanwhile, Georgia and Cage keep interrupting each other and both stand at the podium - in two obvious breaches of courtroom protocol no judge would ever tolerate. Georgia argues there's no oral contract; Cage mumbles and squeaks that there is.

In desperation, Cage even tries to cheat by instructing his client to answer, "No" to a crucial question about whether there is a contract. Note to Cage: rather than giving such an instruction, simply saying: "Objection, Calls for a legal conclusion," would have been a more effective, less sanctionable way to coach your client that his answer was pretty significant to his contract claim and that he should maybe think it over.

Cage then tries to argue the "best interests of the child" standard in … a contract case. And yet he's supposed to be a brilliant lawyer?

Inexplicably, the courtroom is filled, perhaps at Cage's brilliant behest, with crying children who want Santa. (Who else will initiate them into sex? You should always lose your virginity with someone you love, or so I am told).

Georgia points out these children have no standing. That's correct. They aren't parties to the contract, of course. And, children are not protected under the Anti-Elf-Discrimination Act, see supra. This is because someday, some of them will be taller. And, if the boy children don't get taller, they'll get to become lawyers with rampant Napoleon complexes instead.

Georgia also points out that the myth of Santa is "a lie." When did they tell her? Next they'll go and take her Barbies back, too. (Come to think of it, isn't Ally a little like Skipper to Georgia's Barbie? Sort of a skinnier, browner blonde?)

In closing arguments Georgia protests, in defense of the department store, that: "My client isn't killing Santa Claus. He doesn't exist." She talks about the "disillusionment" we all suffer when we grow up, and argues for speeding it up, so that kids hear the hard facts fast and soon. In so arguing, Georgia of course ignores the fact that this may breed an entire race of little heroin-users.

As she argues, Georgia's on the verge of tears, because she's on the verge of divorce, and the disillusionment she's arguing about is her own main emotion right now. With my usual feminist bent, I'd complain about teary Georgia, and the fact that women's emotions intrude on their lawyering over and over on Ally - but as a feminist I recognize that at least on Ally, so do men's! (See, Cage's inability to control himself on last week's show).

Indeed, the eruption of emotion into the law seems to be the show's new theme, more than the law itself. To give the show some credit, this theme will hit a nerve for a lot of lawyers. The law's requirement that people play formal roles as attorneys, for clients, in courtrooms and even with colleagues, has its emotional costs for everyone.

Despite her teariness, Georgia wins the case. The judge boots this meritless TRO application, just as he should, and goes even further - ordering that attorney's fees be paid by the plaintiff's side as a sanction for bringing this meritless case. The sanctions award is an awfully aggressive move by His Honor. Yes, the case was meritless and even inane, but probably not sanctionable. That's our system - a sanctionable case has to be much more than simply meritless for fee-shifting to occur. Except in rare examples, everyone bears his or her own attorney's fees.

After the judge's ruling, the department store's CEO announces his change of heart and offers Santa his job back. As a result, Santa will live to lap again, and little girls won't have to ask for horseback riding lessons this year.

The CEO, of course, forgets that babelicious Santa now can sue, since he's out of a job for no legally-compelled reason, but merely on the CEO's whim. But have no fear. I'll represent him -as long as he'll meet me at the carwash with a Tiffany box, wearing a red thong bathing suit with white fur detailing. I know, I know, I'm so high-maintenance…..

IV. Come All Ye Unfaithful, Joyful and Triumphant

Meanwhile, while the absurd Santa Suit draws to its happy close, Ally hallucinates her own little-girl self, telling her "You have to save him."

Now, there's an obvious problem with Ally hallucinating herself as a little girl. She's already a little girl.

But let's look beyond that, and just appreciate our luck. In The Sixth Sense, little-girl Ally would be dripping vomit and have a cleaver in her skull. Here, fortunately for us, little-girl-Ally merely sulks and plays with little-boy Billy.

In The Sixth Sense, however, little-girl Ally would probably still be saying "You have to save him," since that's what the ghosts in the movie do, give instructions to the living, which the living apparently follow just so the dead stop scaring the hell out of them. Leading to my friend's comment on the Haley Joel Osment character: in the end, does he really like being an errand-boy for the dead?

Well, like it or not, Ally's an errand-girl for her child self, too - although unlike in the movie, Bruce Willis does not hang out with her, looking pained (Death will do that to you). So, she sets out to follow her girl-self's command and "save him" as she's been told to do.

While we originally believe that the "him" who must be saved is Santa, Ally decides "he" is actually Billy, with whom Ally grew up. When they were little, as she reminds Billy, Billy was going to be a doctor or a fireman - so he could help someone "every single day."

But then he grew up, and discovered irony, and nothing was ever quite the same again. Where is Jedediah "Don't Call Me Jed, Man" Purdy when you need him?

And Ally? What happened to Ally? "I was going to be an artist. And paint the world in beautiful colors," she reminisces, "And we became lawyers. How did that happen?"

As it turns out, Ally decides that what she has to "save" is actually Billy and Georgia's marriage. After Ally gets over a little jealous hissy-fit over Billy's kissing Farrah - "I thought that our deceitful little affair meant something," she spits - Ally sincerely tries to reunite Billy and Georgia.

She starts by explaining to Georgia that because Billy's mom didn't work, he grew up with "a home-castle thing." Also, she notes, Billy was a quarterback in high school, with all the cheerleaders rah-rahing him on the sidelines, including Ally. Finally, in a burst of nickel Freudianism, Ally explains to Georgia that because Billy was "raised in a patriarchal world," and "everybody's marriage is connected to the marriage of your parents," he can't help being a sexist Neanderthal.

In the end though, even Georgia isn't having any. She won't put Billy's ring back on, even when he offers it to her.

V. Some Deep Thoughts From Your Reviewer Or, Whither Ally McBeal?

At the end of the show, Billy walks beside his ghostly child self. (Again, where is Bruce Willis?) And he informs Ally that: "You became exactly what you planned. Someone who's out there painting the world beautiful colors, or at least trying to."

While this comment is sweet and well-meant, it also suggests that Ally can just play matchmaker and concentrate on her personal life, while forgetting all about having a career that matters. The suggestion is quite sad. It also seems, oddly, to be the show's prescription for itself.

Uninterested (rightly) in becoming a "serious" legal TV show like The Practice, or Law and Order, Ally McBeal has retreated into an ever more personal, romance-driven comic fantasia, in which its legal cases are so absurd that viewers can't even pretend to care about them - even in the way we are used to vicariously caring about events in television or movies. The show urges us, now, to escape from career into personal life - just as Billy urges Ally to do. That alone isn't the problem with Ally, however.

The problem is that, while the show has correctly decided to be a comedy and not a "real law" show, its humor turns ever more to odd pathos, and its plots ever more to melodrama. As Lenny Bruce (my idol) knew, the best humor is real. It hurts. It tells the truth. Ally is losing that humor for a different, strange humor that is equal parts escapism and despair.

Why? Is it an aspiration to seriousness that can never be reached? I mean, it's become Kafkaesque. Virtually everyone on the show is miserable now, except Ally, who is alternately miserable and hopeful (like the rest of us) - one reason, in addition to Calista Flockhart's consistently strong acting, that Ally remains the show's most compelling character by far.

The other characters - trapped in a legal world in which nothing is real (or even realistic) and therefore nothing matters, are always seeking meaning in their sitcom lives - thus they inevitably suffer from ennui and want to break out. But they can't. The "new Billy" is only the "old Billy," still losing and winning absurd cases that we (and he) can't ever really care about. And the characters' weird, cheating clinches are equally meaningless. They feel like a Francis Bacon version of that Levi's commercial where the empty clothes have sex with each other.

Believe me: The real world of law firm practice has more than its share of ennui and anomie, too. But it's not this ennui and anomie. It's ennui that's about mounting student loans, long work hours, narcotically boring document production, and having to cancel every dinner you schedule with your friends. It's ennui that's about working every day, every weekend, every month. It's also ennui from stress that makes you break out, lose sleep, and cry. And the stress is because you do usually care about your cases and clients - and that's because they are, after all, real.

Weirdly, then, Ally's attorneys suffer like real law firm lawyers. But they don't live or think like them. For that, we have "Bleak House."

Next week on Ally: Elaine finds, and apparently seeks to keep, a baby, with whom everyone boogies down. I will have to check with my friend Dahlia, who reviews "Family Law," to see if we can call the Child Protection Agency on this one.

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