Tonight’s the night–the long awaited premiere of ABC’s irresistible Ugly Betty. This one-hour comedy has been the most talked about new series of the fall since last spring, when critics and advertisers got their first look at pilots that had been picked up by the networks for the 2006-07 season.
Several fine freshman series have already made their debuts, including NBC’s steadily improving Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Kidnapped and Heroes; CBS’ Shark; Fox’ inexplicably flailing Justice, and ABC’s work-in-progress, Brothers & Sisters. Still to come are two of the best: NBC’s Friday Night Lights (Oct. 3) and ABC’s The Nine (Oct. 4).
But Betty is something special, in a class by its wholly unique self.
Although I recently named Friday Night Lights the Best New Drama of the fall season, a designation that series richly deserves, it doesn’t seem adequate to say that Betty is merely the Best New Comedy. Early in July, after watching rough cuts of almost every new fall show, Betty emerged not only as my favorite of the batch, but the clear best of the bunch. I said at the time that Betty was the Best New Series of the fall. I’m standing by that conclusion, and I’m happy to report that next week’s episode lives up to the promise of its promising premiere.
When ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson announced last May the addition of Betty to his network’s fall schedule (originally as a Friday night entry), there was much excitement about the fact that a major broadcast network was adapting a telenovela for American television. This had never been done before, even though telenovelas (nightly serials that run for a fixed number of weeks, telling a full story from beginning to end during that time) are the top-rated programs in many Spanish speaking countries (and they do spectacularly well in this country on Telemundo and Univision).
In recent weeks, however, we have been exposed to discouraging English-language versions of other telenovelas on the new mini-net MyNetworkTV, in the form of Desire and Fashion House. Don’t be put off: Betty in no way resembles those shows (two brainless, low-budget efforts that might have played better during the summer months rather than the arch-competitive fall season). Desire and Fashion House are near literal Americanized translations of existing telenovela scripts. Betty, on the other hand, is a lovingly crafted reworking of the Colombian series Yo Soy Betty La Fea.
Betty is the story of a sweet, hard-working, naive young girl with obvious fashion and style issues who is hired by a publishing mogul to be the executive assistant to his son, the newly installed editor of the fashion industry bible, Mode (a magazine not unlike Vogue). It’s a highly competitive position, one for which Bradford (the mogul) chooses Betty (the girl) only because he knows that Daniel (the son) won’t want to sleep with her. Daniel, a self-centered, spoiled but not unlikable fellow, likes to have pretty women around him all the time, not so much for their skills in the workplace as their talents in the bedroom.
In what may or may not be a jab at the staffs of high-profile fashion magazines, Mode is a giant nest of rats, vipers and other vermin, all busily kissing the asses of their superiors, stomping on the spines of their subordinates, stabbing each other in the back and watching over their own shoulders. They’re unnaturally skinny, dressed to impress (each other, anyway), perfectly groomed and perfectly awful people, and they feast on outsiders like the assertively ordinary Betty. They do rotten, childish things, like humiliating poor Betty by having her stand in as a model in a glam photo shoot, or kidnapping her beloved stuffed bunny and sending her photos of it being comically abused.
Betty, however, refuses to change what she is just to suit those around her. She may have image issues, and she may be socially insecure, but she has a big heart and the support of a strong, supportive, loving family. The members of the working-class Suarez family–dad Ignacio, daughters Hilda and Betty, and Hilda’s son Justin–are so well defined, so easy to relate to, so utterly real and so very funny that they could be mistaken for characters created by Norman Lear.
The cast here is first rate, most especially America Ferrera as Betty, an actress poised to become the breakout star of the 2006-07 season. (So far, the only performer to pop in a similar manner is the excitable Masi Oka on Heroes.) But pay ongoing attention to all of these people: Eric Mabius as Daniel, a horn-dog with a heart of gold; Vanessa Williams as Wilhelmina, Mode’s legendary diva-in-residence; Becki Newton as Amanda, the scheming and seductive receptionist who wanted the job Betty received; Ashley Jensen as Christina, the in-house seamstress at Mode and Betty’s first friend in her toxic new environment; Alan Dale as Bradford, the mogul with a dark secret or three; Tony Plana as Betty’s loving, old-fashioned dad; Ana Ortiz as Hilda, Betty’s sharp-tongued sister; and two genuine scene-stealers: Michael Urie as Marc, Wilhelmina’s acidic assistant, and Mark Indelicato as Justin, Betty’s young nephew and a future fashionisto. Also keep an eye out for Salma Hayek, one of the executive producers of this show, playing an actress only seen on the Suarez’ television screen as one of the stars of a telenovela and, in tonight’s premiere, Gina Gershon as a fearsome fashion-industry entity known only as Fabia.
From the over-the-top, cutthroat capers at Mode to the instantly recognizable challenges facing the Suarez family at home, there is never a flat moment in this show. It is funnier than most sitcoms and more heartwarming than just about any other show on television. Betty does include sexual content, some of it crude (this is, after all, the fashion business), and it is not recommended for children. Betty herself, however, is an excellent role model for kids, especially young girls who are so vulnerable to body and self-esteem issues. She’s pretty in a way that is naturally occurring rather than created through anorexia, bulimia and generous airbrushing. In all the ways that count the most, the equally beautiful Betty and Betty glow from within.
