UGLY BETTY Season 2 DVD Review

With her trademark thick framed glasses and braces, America Ferrera aka Betty Suarez aka Ugly Betty quickly won sudden fame with her debut in 2006 as an ugly duck among a gaggle of reality shows. Now this week sees the release of the second season of ABC’s Ugly Betty, collecting all eighteen episodes together onto a five-disk DVD box set. Miss Suarez lives with her family in Queens, but the real drama revolves in New York City at the high-pressure world of high-fashion publishing in Mode Magazine. Her boss is a jerk and doesn’t recognize her full potential, her co-workers conspire to undermine her success, and her boyfriend in accounting has knocked up another woman. Oh the drama.

Originally adapted from the Colombian telenovela series Betty, la Fea by Fernando Gaitan, the debut of the English language version was hailed with great critical acclaim, garnering first season accolades such as a record 11 Emmy nominations, along with Golden Globe wins for best comedy and best actress for America Ferrera who plays the title character. America clearly shines as the central character in this series, creating a unique quirky character that specializes in nervously facing her personal and professional dramas within approximately 42 minutes. However, since this is essentially a prime time soap opera, the plot lines continue across multiple episodes, which makes DVD the best way to follow the many plot developments arcing throughout this second season.

But like all television shows, much of the credit to the success of the show goes to the exceptional ensemble cast. The central antagonist, one of the best characters, is Mode’s Creative Director Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams) who continuously schemes with her henchman Marc (Michael Urie) along the lines of Machiavelli’s The Prince Chapter 17; Concerning Cruelty: Whether it is Better to be Loved than to be Feared, or the Reverse. Whereas Wilhelmina prefers to be feared, Betty’s boss Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius) only wants to be loved, mostly by really hot women, which is the reason he ignores Betty allowing her the freedom to act as the real boss, with disastrous results and whacky jocularity. Assisting with this wackiness is receptionist Amanda Sommers (Becki Newton) and seamstress Christina McKinney (Ashley Jensen), and of course the love interest Henry Grubstick (Christopher Gorman) as Betty’s boyfriend.

Betty’s personal life centers on her family in Queens, with her father Ignacio (Tony Plana), sister Hilda (Ana Ortiz) and nephew Justin (Mark Indelicato). All these characters are very colorful and honest, and I actually found myself liking these scenes more than the silly dramas in the Mode world. These other implausible side dramas focus on Alexis Meade (Rebecca Romijin) who is Daniel’s brother after a sex-change, and their mother Claire Meade (Judith Light). Unfortunately I can’t say the same for the boring scenes focused on Betty’s love life, with Henry competing with Gio Rossi (Freddy Rodriguez) for Betty’s attention, I just found myself fast forwarding to the next scene. Also special mention goes here to guest stars like rock legend Gene Simmons and Lindsay Lohan, who seems to be very popular, not sure why.

The five disk DVD box set contains all 18 episodes of season 2, presented in the Widescreen format, enhanced for 16x9 TVs, with the original English audio track and subtitles in English, Spanish and French. The bonus features are all collected on the last disk, thus there are no commentaries for any episode. There are two tours of the sets, with the Mode set featured with On Set with The Besties and the Suarez house with The Suarez Tour, both are curious but ultimately rather dull. A featurette focusing on Wilhelmina Slater Love To Hate Her, is an analysis of this multifaceted character, with another featurette about Betty’s love life, I Love Betty, but both featurettes fail to shed much light on the characters themselves. A rather large collection of deleted scenes is presented here, along with a funny Blooper reel. Also included are two Telenovelas produced especially for the show, utilized as TV-shows within the TV-show that the characters watch on TV. The two telenovella, Los Pecados Del Corazon and Asesinato Por Muerte are over-the-top melodramas true to the telenovela form, presented in both English or original Spanish audio track.

Despite the claim on the cover as ‘Brighter, Bolder, Bettyer’, this box set contains five fewer episodes (due to the Writer’s strike), no audio commentaries, and unenlightening bonus features that all make this actually a skimpier release compared to the season 1 box set. Since I’m not the ‘target audience’ for this type of show, my appeal is limited. America Ferrera is great, but I found the two men vying for her interest rather dull. The style is very original, with split screen editing and fantasy dreamscapes, but the plots are too melodramatic for my tastes. Devoted fans of Betty will enjoy this collection, but I just can’t recommend this season 2 set to anyone who hasn’t seen the show from the beginning.