Saving Santa

Well, well... I'm catching up on the third season, watching the taped eps I missed while out of the country... I gotta say, the third season is looking magnificent!!! If anyone were to ask me which ep(s) I'd show to a newbie-fan, "Saving Santa" would definitely make the list... It's eps like this that have us chant silently to ourselves "I love "Ally McBeal", I love "Ally McBeal"!"... Eps that make you laugh one minute and cry the next... Calista once said in an interview that what she likes most about the show is how it "turns on a dime", using the phrase from Vonda's "The Wildest Times of The World" (Soundtrack #1)... I'll have to second that: the show really is full of twists and turns that are hilarious yet heartbreaking...
Sooo, things I liked:
I. Everything. Short yet full answer. Even the things that didn't touch me at all I still liked cuz they were part of the entire scheme of the episode... But in particular, to point out the things I liked THE MOST:
1. At first I thought the case would be boring, but the more the characters brought personal problems into it, the better it became...
2. I just have to comment Courtney Thorne-Smith on the wonderful job she did in the episode... I hafta admit, I had tears in my eyes when Georgia said in her closing that "We're not killing Santa... He doesn't exist..."... That had a really deep meaning, and the way she portrayed Georgia's emotions was just fabulous...
3. I LOVED the scene where Ally & Georgia have a "talk"!!!! From the yelling part to the "home castle thing" to the "don't make me scream!", the whole scene was played fabulously from both sides!!!
4. I love David, I love David, I LOVE David! The writing of this ep was superb, and especially the inside jokes: the manager with the nervous tick, the judge, Fish's "This is America! It's always Ok to hire somebody, it's never Ok to fire them..." and so on and so forth... Wow!
5. Back to Fish: his short but hilarious presence in this ep was fantastic! I just noticed now that somehow, everything Fish says seems funny... Maybe it's just the way Greg talks, with his "matter-of-fact" voice like he's not really trying to make a point but in the end he does...
6. The thing with Ally & Billy's past, showing her visions of them as kids was really really cute:) I highly doubt that Ally really was mad at Billy not for betraying Georgia, but for betraying her, though. Billy thinks the whole world revolves around him and that everyone's concerned only about him... Ally is probably still a bit in love with the 18-year-old Billy she loved long ago, but she's definitely cold towards the Billy of today.
That's really all I can think of right now, since I'm sorta in a hurry, but I'll try to finish later... This episode was probably one of the best Christmas presents an "Ally" fan could get!:)
See ya, and happy "Ally"-watching!