This show is really growing on me. The plots have all been done before but I don’t care.
I was a bit worried this week, because Betty got a “makeover”. I know it’s got to happen eventually – at least a good haircut, but I didn’t want it to happen so soon. But it was a hoot! I loved when the guys whistled at her and she says “Me? Thank you!”
The only downside is Vanessa Williams’ character – not enough snake. Joan Collins would have been so much better in that part.
Anyone else watching?
I’m no TV exec, but it seems to me that if I had a new quirky sitcom, I might go for a timeslot against a standard sitcom (like “Yes, Dear” or something) or a one-hour drama.
What I wouldn’t do is put it up against an already established, popular quirky sitcom.
It just seems moronic.
So, anyway. . .no, I’m not watching. It looks like something I might watch, if I wasn’t already watching “They Call Me Earl”.
I watched the first two episodes, and I think America Ferrara is great.
The show itself was cute, but terribly predictable IMO. I know that over-the-top performances are standard in telenovelas, but sometimes so many of the characters were played way too big and clichéd for me. Especially Betty’s sister.
I enjoyed some aspects of it, but I, too, had to choose “Earl” over “Betty”.
I am.
And the makeover did fix her eyebrows, even if everything else still didn’t fit into the Meade/Mode sensibility. My guess is that that’s what’s going to happen slowly over the series, a slow, slow transformation from original Betty to revamped Betty.
I like the soap opera-y elements, I like the characters (though Vanessa Williams could use a little more edge), I love the background Telenovela. (“I’m going to name him after his father, ‘FATHER’” is one of the funniest things I’ve seen on tv in a long time. Those actors have to be having fun with that.)
I really enjoy the show. I loved last night’s scene with Daniel commenting that they don’t need another article on eating disorders and then the impossibly thin girl goes storming out of the room.
“Ugly Betty” tickles me. I hope they don’t think they have to “pretty up” Betty in order to satisfy the audience. Me, I like Betty just as she is. I can identify with her. If she is gradually glamourized, as I suspect will be the case, that’ll weaken the show.
The only “ugly duckling turns pretty” tale that I’ve ever really enjoyed was the movie The Girl Most Likely To…, in which Stockard Channing went from being a lumpy, unattractive girl to being a gorgeous babe, and then set about taking revenge on all the people who had put her down when she was unbeautiful.
Yes! The Stockard Channing movie was excellent.
The only thing I’d change on Betty is her hair, and that’s only because she’s always having to brush it out of her face. That’d drive me nuts.
Does anyone know how or when the Daniel’s brother died? Are we supposed to assume Daniel’s dad is the one who tampered with the brakes on mom’s car? He doesn’t seem evil enough to do murder.
Fey Sommers isn’t Daniel’s mom. She’s the woman who was Editor In Chief of Mode before she “died”, which is how Daniel got the job.
I’m really liking the show. Although I did find myself cringing a bit at last night’s episode. I can buy Betty being clueless enough to not know how to make herself look like the girls at Mode. I can **not ** buy her being clueless enough to not recognize the difference between the way the girls at Mode look, and the way she looked when she left the salon.
“I’ve never had a manicure” is not the same thing as “I can’t tell the difference between a french manicure on a shortish natural nail and a bedazzled red acrylic.”
Thank you! I was sorta wondering why there was so much talk about the dead brother and nothing about mom.
Now I’m wondering if we’ll be seeing Daniel’s mother.
Speaking of Betty’s cluelessness, is she really interested in fashion or is it print media in general that she’s good at?
I think the idea was that she was interested in magazine work, but not interested specifically in Mode. I think the Mode gig was a complete out of the blue offer.
I think that, until she got the job at “Mode,” Betty knew little and cared little about fashion. It’s her kid brother who is the fashion maven.
Thank you both. 
I love little brother. And Christine.
They’re doing a good job blending the secondary characters into the show. They get just enough screen time.
It’s her nephew.
And, she was just hitting publishing houses when she was first looking for a job. She wants to work in magazines.
D’oh! You’re right. Googling turns up the fact that Justin is Hilda’s kid. I bet I’m not the only one who took him for Betty’s little brother.
Betty has been picked up for the rest of the season by ABC.
That’s good news.
And thanks for setting us straight on the relationships. I guess I haven’t been paying very close attention.
I buy that she didn’t understand her makeover was for crap. After all, she thought her Guadalajara poncho was “glamor” wear for work. She’s a Queens girl, is their point, who’s never really been out of Queens, so she grew up idolizing the girls with the red acrylic nails and big hair. That’s beauty to her. Which is one of the reasons that her working at a fashion mag is fascinating – her idea of what’s beautiful is in line with her community but out of step with the larger fashion community.
And maybe that’s part of the point: we kind of buy into this larger idea about what’s beautiful and what’s fashionable, but there’s a disconnect between what the industry tells us we should want to be, and what we see in our neighborhood that we want to be.
(DMark in his best Gay voice) Girlfriend, you should see what women wear in the office where I worked! I don’t think half of them own a full length mirror, and one woman had skirts so short, and so tight, you knew when she had a new bikini wax. (DMark gives three snaps of his fingers).
Trust me, little Miss Betty ain’t the only woman buying into today’s fashion - gone to a mall recently? Seen any chubby teenage girls with hip huggers, navel rings and love handles?
I really like the show, and I love the colors and sets…very cool. Plus, at least so far, the show has some heart. I agree though…Vanessa Williams just doesn’t have the punch…in a show this broad and wild, you need a real bitch, and so far, her assistant seems to have the potential to be bitchier than Vanessa.
Which differes somehow not at all from his regular voice, go figure…
Plus this ep they went with the hoary old “She’s not evil, she just wants her father’s love” chestnut, which, come on, how many times must that plot device rise from the grave before someone puts a stake through its heart?
But that was *before * she’d spent time at Mode. I completely understand what you (and DMark) are saying about how she grew up, but what I’m saying is that just because you grow up surrounded by velvet Elvises, that doesn’t mean you think that you can put one up in a room full of Mondrians and have it fit in.
I can believe that she would have thought her makeover was beautiful. What I *can’t * believe is that she would think it was “MODEish”. She’d spent enough time there to see the difference. Especially since Betty has been portrayed as lacking in confidence and fashion savvy and understanding of the ways of the beautiful people, but NOT in taste and discriminatory ability. See, for instance, her eye for photography, and fine child-labor-free shoes.
The show is a joy to look at, isn’t it? And Vanessa’s assistant is awesome! I love that kid.