Ugly Betty - Third Season Premiere
Starring: America Ferrera, Eric Mabius, Tony Plana, Ana Ortiz, Ashley Jensen, Becki Newton, Mark Indelicato, Michael Urie, Judith Light, Christopher Gorham, Rebecca Romijn, Vanessa Williams
Created By: Salma Hayek, Silvio Horta, Ben Silverman, Jose Tamez, Joel Fields (Executive Producers)
Premieres: Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 8:00 PM ET on ABC
Betty’s back! Yes, our girl is back in New York and she’s made her choice! Of course, I’m referring to the decision she had to make as of last season’s finale. Henry proposed to Betty and Gio asked her to go to Rome with him. Who did Betty choose? Oh, I can’t tell you that. Sorry, but we were asked not to. But rest assured, you’ll find out within the first few minutes of the season premiere. In the meantime, I do have some other semi-spoilery details about the first two episodes of the third season of Ugly Betty. I’ll get to that in a minute and if you don’t want to read any spoilers, heed the warning when you get to it!
The third season of Betty is off to a good start. The green-screen version of New York City has been replaced with a new backdrop: New York City! This isn’t news but thanks to those wonderful tax-cuts, the show is now being shot in NY, which means Betty, the Suarez familia and those quirky Mode employees will be surrounded by the real deal. How does the real New York compare to the green screen version? Well this could be all in my head but it feels less shiny. Even if it's not all that different, I think less shiny’s a good thing. Having worked for years in the city, I came to love the non-shiny quality of the place. So thumbs up to the location change for Betty!
Ok, here’s where I actually start talking about the first two episodes, so if you don’t want to know any specifics, read no further!
The season starts out with Betty returning from a trip to somewhere where she spent time with people. Yes, obviously I can’t say where she went, what she did or who she was with but I can say that Betty is back in New York and feeling rejuvenated. She’s ready to make some adjustments to her life, which includes moving out of her family’s house in Queens and into her very first apartment in the city. Of course, in typical Betty-fashion, things don’t go exactly as she’d panned as the place she moves into is a total dump and in need of some major cleaning, repairs and curtains to shield her eyes from the un-sexy view.
Betty’s work situation changes drastically in both episodes and this is due in large part to Daniel’s work situation changing. Without giving too much away here, I’ll just say that when the season premieres, Daniel isn’t working at Mode. Between his new job and his unruly French son, whom he really wants to bond with, Betty’s got her hands full.
Meanwhile, Hilda is still dating the married coach and after the grief of losing Santos, she seems to want to just relax and be happy despite the fact that her new man has a wife. While she’s off being the other woman, Ignacio is working at his new job! Unfortunately for him, his manager is someone with a grudge against Betty and the job proves to be less enjoyable than he’d hoped.
Claire Meade is working hard to get her new magazine Hot Flash up and running but Wilhelmina doesn’t like that the magazine is taking away funding from Mode so she takes steps to pull the rug out from underneath it. Finally, Christina’s storyline takes an interesting turn when she starts to suspect that her husband might be using again.
The season premiere is great but it’s the second episode where we start to get a better idea of where things are heading for the show this year. The ending of the second episode is not to be missed.
Having seen the first two episodes of the season, I remember what it is I love about this show. Betty is such a fantastically lovable character who seems to know how to handle almost any situation. She’s just capable, for lack of a better word, of dealing with all of the drama around her without losing her innocent charm or her resourcefulness. I’m really excited to see where things go with some of the character arcs this season and based on these first couple of episodes, I think we’re in for a treat this year.
