This smart series proves that the Desperate Housewives formula wasn't just a one-time gimmick.
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Betty Suarez (America Ferrara) couldn't be farther from the women of Wisteria Lane. She's no raving beauty, with or without make-up. If she turns heads, it's because her short stature, red-framed glasses, frumpy dress, and purple-blue braces (which project like a billboard because of her perpetual smile) are startling enough to stop traffic in the trendy high fashion district where she works. Then there's that gaudy poncho of hers.
In the world of models and those who try to look like models in order to wear the latest designer clothes, Ugly Betty, as she's called behind her back, is also "fat." If she's desperate, it has nothing to do with being a housewife and balancing a relationship with her children or husband and a budding affair. First of all, who would have her, besides the geeky Walter (Kevin Sussman), who acts like a cross between Napoleon Dynamite and Gomer Pyle? Or the nerd from bookkeeping at work, whose idea of "flair" comes from wearing a S-uperdollar tee under his collared shirt?
And yet, ABC's latest hit is unmistakably similar to the network's successful dramedy, "Desperate Housewives." Call it "Desperate Housewives" meets "The Devil Wears Prada." There are even moments when the music plays it's darkly whimsical xylophonic strains and you're left briefly hanging from a plot-cliff having flashbacks to that showcase for suburban chicanery.
But the suburbs are far, far away. "Ugly Betty" has one foot in unfashionable Queens--where she lives with her widowed father, single-parent sister, and flamboyant nephew--and one foot in Manhattan, where she was hired at the insistence of publishing magnate Bradford Meade (Alan Dale) because she was so ugly that she wouldn't be a temptation for his sex-o-holic son, Daniel (Eric Mabius), whom he's elevated to the position of editor-in-chief at Mode magazine following the car-crash death of its long-time editor. And so Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams), the high-powered creative director who was passed over, conspires with other employees--and a woman shrouded in a rehab center who, in shadows, is posed and poised to suggest the Emperor talking to Darth Vader--to discredit and undermine the new rookie editor's efforts and ultimately take over the magazine. In a plot parallel, ruthless employees who wanted to be Daniel's assistant scheme to force Betty to quit. If you thought "Mean Girls" were mean, you haven't seen anything yet. And on the home front? It turns out that just as there are suspicious phone calls at work from a woman which lead people to think that maybe the former editor-in-chief was murdered, Betty's father, Ignacio (Tony Plano), has a dark secret that threatens their family's stability, and her good-looking, snappy-dressing sister (for a "hoochie") is having issues with her son's deadbeat dad, and the fact that little Justin (Mark Indelicato) seems to her to take an unhealthy interest in fashion and dance. She wants to hide him almost as much as Bradford wants to closet away his alcoholic wife. Then there's the Suarez' family's problems with Immigration.
Now, if all of that sounds a bit like a soap opera, there's good reason. "Ugly Betty" was created and developed for American TV by Silvio Horta, who based it on the Columbian soap-opera "Betty la Fea." In a fun textural tribute, Betty's dad sits glued to Spanish-language soap operas, and sudsy scenes flicker on the family TV in every episode--kind of a thematic counterpoint and fun white noise.
Like "Desperate Housewives," this show weaves elements of comedy, soap opera, and mystery-drama. But it also spoofs the world of fashion magazines as roundly as "The Devil Wears Prada." Mode may not sound a lot like Vogue, but it's hard not to notice that the editor who presumably died in the car crash, Fey Sommers, also wears the trademark bobbed hair and sunglasses of current Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Sommers? Wintour? Ahem.
Also like "Desperate Housewives," the production values are closer to film than television, the performances are strong, and the writing is clever. Example? When Walter cheats on Betty in one of the series' "go-figures," he tries to downplay the length of the affair: "For just two days," he says. "And it takes longer than that to digest corn." Betty doesn't blink. "Well, as beautiful an apology as that is . . . ." she deadpans. There are some laugh-out-loud lines and situations, as well as brief moments of emotional drama and mystery--all of which makes for a fairly riveting hour. Much of the humor derives from conscious references to "Prada" and other films, as when a drunken Christina (Ashley Jensen), who works in "the closet," sits on Santa's lap and asks for "a heart for Wilhelmina, a brain for Marc, and a heart for Amanda." Yep, we're definitely not in Kansas. "Ugly Betty" also has a riveting visual style, with inventive segues and sequences that make it fun just to watch the photos or graphics scroll and roll.
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[release]21908[/release]