It went a bit more dramedy with the L.A. Law/ER/Gray’s Anatomy professional workplace relationship drama, that’s its legacy. Turn the comedy fraction any higher and you’re in sitcom territory though.

Hard to say, it was parasitic on ER and its knockoffs to set up expectations, which means it was kind of a comedy about being in a soapy medical drama.

Contrast Ally McBeal, which while comedic was a soapy legal drama, and probably had more to say about How We Romance Now (er, Then) – the dancing baby protomeme about the way professional women’s romantic adventurism was constrained by a felt need to be partnered and childbearing by a certain age; the unisex-bathrooms-as-kibbitz-zone about the gender-integrated professional workplace as a crucible of intimacy…

hey remember when it was supposed to be a cultural touchstone signifying… something that the law firm in Ally McBeal had unisex restrooms?