Ugly Betty — All caught up!
It took almost four months, but this afternoon I finally got caught up with Ugly Betty. The irony of this endeavor being the next new episode isn’t scheduled to air on ABC until April 19th. Still, it’s nice to not be lagging so far behind (three weeks ago I had amassed eight episodes on my DVR dating back to early December).
The first dozen or so episodes of Ugly Betty were obviously strong enough for it to attract and hold an audience. Perhaps a lot of that attraction came from the desire of the larger television audience to see a show that feels legitimately ethnic, not simply looking like a cross-section of America as seen by Hollywood casting agents. Though part of what frustrated me about those first episodes was show’s tendency to dip into the “helpful Mexican†well. Every episode involved some rich white people getting into trouble and having an ugly Mexican girl remind them of their own glory. It’s the same type of “non-risk†you get when your screenplay involves a “magical black man.â€
But then something changed. Shortly after the winter hiatus the show suddenly got a whole lot wackier, helped significantly from the revelation that Rebecca Romijn is the recently sex-changed brother to the current editor-in-chief Daniel Meade. It was the type of momentum changing turn of events that can turn a passive viewer into an active viewer. Suddenly the madness of the show started to replicate the telenovela of which it was based (accented, as always by the frequent realization that the exceptionally hot Ms. Romijn was suppose to have once been a guy) – though no moment this season has been funnier than scene from the telenovela within-the-show where a pregnant woman stands next to a priest, has a beach ball fall out from under her dress, slaps the priest and then proceeds to make out with him. That’s comedy.
The show has also benefited from the decentralization of Betty from the stories. Sure, the show is still ostensibly about her and her crazy exploits in the fashion world, but the secondary and even tertiary characters have developed exceptionally strong B and C storylines within the episodes. The highlight for me being the office-hijinx raised by Marc and Amanda, easy the most underappreciated comedy-duo on television (though their own self-appreciation probably makes up for the gap in widespread acclaim).
If you, like me, hadn’t been paying very close attention you have a month to catch up.
