#1: The Law of Attraction
Original airdate: September 9, 1997
Production no.: AM-101
Written by: Martin Vale & Elise Pritchard
Directed by: Leonard K. Ames
Guest stars: Helen Drake as Judge Hopkins; Victor Bell as opposing counsel
Screen capture from my EP tape. Please credit this site.
THE WHOLE STORY (SPOILERS!!!)
Nine-year-old Alan tells us Bethany called him the smartest boy in the reading group. There were four boys. One could not read. By 1997 she is married to someone else and Alan, now thirty, is fired by Margaret Lyne for asking accounting whether women would want equal pay if men had stopped inventing bridges. He calls the partners “the matriarchy.” Three are women. There are eleven partners. “It’s a slippery slope.”
Rachel Fish hires him on the street. Her philosophy of law: “Money is justice with a better tailor.” At Fish & Cage the bathrooms are unisex and an animated Roman Empire collapses behind Alan. He also meets Bethany again, then her husband Daniel, who knows about the pencil eraser Alan ate to impress her.
At home Ronnie, his roommate, tells him the world doesn’t owe him a particular life. Alan says maybe the world’s problem is that it hasn’t given him that life. He wanders into THE FINAL APPEAL and is sold a book. Payment: his soul. He asks about installments.
The Codex gives him a world where women adore him and he’s a senior partner by lunch. Then in the unisex bathroom his reflection asks the question the whole series is built on: “What if you were just unbearable?”
⚖ CASE OF THE WEEK
McBurger v. Lyne & Associates: Alan is dismissed for “philosophical inquiries.” HR files it under “Other.”
💭 INSIDE ALAN’S HEAD
Alan narrates his own cross-examination as a Wes Anderson trailer. Nobody asked.
📖 CODEX LORE
RULE 1: The Codex only grants wishes phrased as complaints.
My Two Cents
Okay this is the one that got me. I rewound the basement scene 3 times. Alan is ME if I were a lawyer!! Great pilot. I give it 🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔 out of five burgers.
★ READ THE FULL PILOT SCRIPT (my transcript)
Best Quote
RACHEL: Money is justice with a better tailor.
Continuity Watch / Theories
The book is glowing before Alan touches it. Also listen for the laugh track at the very end; it keeps going after the cut. Theory: the audience is IN the building.
A second screencap from my VHS archive
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Last updated: June 10, 1998 | Webmaster: McBurgerMan97 | McBurgerMan97@aol.com