Salma Hayek, Silvio Horta, Ben Silverman, Jose Tamez, James Parriott and James Hayman, executive producers “Pilot” written by Mr. And we’ll see.ĪBC, tonight at 8, Eastern and Pacific times 7, Central time. In any case the two have a valet-hero back-and-forth that, if the writers really explore it, might make them a prime-time Wooster and Jeeves.īut I’m getting ahead of things. He can hold his own with her, and Betty’s crush on him is so hopeless as to seem genuinely and tragically muted.ĭaniel, for his part, is sexually drawn to Betty too, but out of perversity - She’s his servant? She’s ugly and thus would be grateful even for abuse? - that this show should probably never make explicit. Ferrera have a sparkling rapport that is the making of this show. That wonderful moony side of her comes through even more in her scenes with Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius), her boss Mr. Karen Neal/ABCīetty also likes the show - she’s smart but not skeptical - and that’s a nice touch. ![]() Whether there’s a show without that gag, though: that is the question.Īmerica Ferrera sheds her sexy looks to play Betty Suarez, a frumpy assistant in the ruthless world of couture and fashion publishing. They’re a free-standing gag, and that gag cannot last long. Commedia characterization on pseudorealist television can be exhausting: just as not every rich person has to wear an ascot, not every provincial girl has to dress like a mental patient.īetty’s clothes, in other words, the most flamboyant side of her, have not been integrated into her character. But for a literate, sentient, self-aware young woman to prefer bulky belted layers in clashing patterns and cacophonous shades of red and orange to (at least) the affordable A-line skirts and cotton button-downs at Old Navy or Target, that makes no sense. Naïve and touching, yes, but just to play devil’s advocate what kind of college graduate, as Betty is supposed to be, wears a gift shop poncho on her first day at work, thinking it’s what she’s seeing in magazines? This error is less evidence of a mind on higher things than it is a cognitive disability.įor a serious-minded girl not to understand couture or street-trash ensembles like the designs of Jeffrey Sebelia on “Project Runway” might be admirable. The big joke of tonight’s episode is that Betty interprets the comeback of the poncho as permission for her to turn up at work in a red eyesore emblazoned with the word “Guadalajara.” This improbability causes some problems in characterization. And because she’s also “ugly” she’s assumed to have made the ultimate personal sacrifice in our vain world, and her intelligence and wholesomeness are meant to be not only absolute but perfectly compatible. So who is Betty in the midst of these grotesques? She’s meant to be nothing but smart and good, though in life the two traits rarely fit perfectly together. She’s bravely playing a character who’s coded as ugly, which means she’s still eating food, which is apparently about the bravest thing a television actress can do. As Betty Suarez, the sexy actress America Ferrera, here defaced by braces and bangs, sets her mouth, squares her shoulders and takes on the part like a linebacker. ![]() Seems dubious, but “Ugly Betty” is onto the doubts about it and stands ready to turn them into plot. Can this sitcom setup work in an hourlong format? She’s hired by the father of the party-boy editor in chief because she’s too homely to tempt him into dissipation. This ABC melodramedy, which has attracted big attention both for being an American telenovela and for being funny and good, has a slight premise: an ungorgeous Latina goes to work at a fashion magazine. Let’s let Betty find her locker and her lunch table, and observe her without asking that she be more than she is. It’s too much to ask of this mostly guileless, slightly ungainly series that it be another “Lost” or “Desperate Housewives” for ABC this year, so maybe we should watch aloofly, starting tonight.
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