New show: Ugly Betty

Posted by Maggie September 29th, 2006 at 01:06pm In General

I don't know if it's the marginally familiar world of magazine publishing, the refreshing focus on a minority family, the acknowledgment of actual class differences, the truly funny scenes, the still-too-fresh experience of a first job and a bad boss, the memory of bawling my eyes out during America Ferrera's scenes in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, or a combination of all of the above, but something about Ugly Betty really hit me the right way. 

This is Betty. She lives in Queens, or a set that actually looks very much like Queens. She wants to work in magazine publishing.

She gets hired at Mode (like Vogue) so that the editor-in-chief won't sleep with her, as he does all the rest of his helpers. The scene where Betty learns this was very touching, and may be the greatest single reason I liked this show. That scene made Betty into a real person, relatable, not just a caricature with huge braces. 

The editor-in-chief, too, really came off well. He's a pretty boy, entitled, womanizing jerk, some of the time — but at other times he seems human. And he's clearly in way over his head. 

I'll be rooting for this one.