I'm going to keep this as brief as possible since frankly, the abomination that is 'Ugly Betty' deserves very little of anyone's time.
In one respect, it is a remarkable achievement: I honestly can't remember when I last saw such a cliché-ridden, predictable and utterly unamusing 'comedy' series. Even your average production-line American sitcom usually bothers to include the occasional dash of humour but what have we here: hey look, Betty is walking towards a plate glass wall... anyone want to guess what happens next? Well, if you can't then clearly this puerile mess is for you.
Furthermore, the very premise of the series is itself fundamentally hypocritical: if the makers really wanted to make a point about beauty being skin-deep (this coming from a show filmed in California!) then why not cast a genuinely 'cosmetically-challenged' actress in the title role? Instead, they have supposedly 'uglified' America Ferrara by giving her glasses and a brace - I can't help wondering how many thousands of similarly-accessorised schoolgirls will be eternally grateful for that masterstroke. Overall, this "hey - YOU can be beautiful too" angle just smacks of a collective guilt-trip by misguided TV executives; personally, I find it so patronising that it makes me want to get my teeth bent and stained yellow.
This is neither the biting satire it thinks it is nor the heartwarming comedy it tries to be. It's a bad soap opera that relies on one-dimensional characters, recycled slapstick set-pieces and dialogue that's about as sharp as a wet sock in order to take pointless potshots at the media and fashion industry (shooting, fish, barrel etc.) I could go on but I've probably already spent more time writing this than the writers of 'Ugly Betty' spend on their scripts. Enough!
In one respect, it is a remarkable achievement: I honestly can't remember when I last saw such a cliché-ridden, predictable and utterly unamusing 'comedy' series. Even your average production-line American sitcom usually bothers to include the occasional dash of humour but what have we here: hey look, Betty is walking towards a plate glass wall... anyone want to guess what happens next? Well, if you can't then clearly this puerile mess is for you.
Furthermore, the very premise of the series is itself fundamentally hypocritical: if the makers really wanted to make a point about beauty being skin-deep (this coming from a show filmed in California!) then why not cast a genuinely 'cosmetically-challenged' actress in the title role? Instead, they have supposedly 'uglified' America Ferrara by giving her glasses and a brace - I can't help wondering how many thousands of similarly-accessorised schoolgirls will be eternally grateful for that masterstroke. Overall, this "hey - YOU can be beautiful too" angle just smacks of a collective guilt-trip by misguided TV executives; personally, I find it so patronising that it makes me want to get my teeth bent and stained yellow.
This is neither the biting satire it thinks it is nor the heartwarming comedy it tries to be. It's a bad soap opera that relies on one-dimensional characters, recycled slapstick set-pieces and dialogue that's about as sharp as a wet sock in order to take pointless potshots at the media and fashion industry (shooting, fish, barrel etc.) I could go on but I've probably already spent more time writing this than the writers of 'Ugly Betty' spend on their scripts. Enough!