
Tonight, we say goodbye to UGLY BETTY, a show that was moved to a terrible late Friday night slot and never recovered. Creatively, Betty's first season was incredible - soapy, funny, dramatic and interesting.. but the show hit a creative skid in the second season when Betty's beau, a lovable nerd named Henry, discovered that his ex-girlfriend, Charlie, was carrying his child. It was impossible for the show to let the character go so they did the unthinkable - they gambled that the audience would accept that Betty and Henry were in love and that although he was planning to move out of the city to be with Charlie and the newborn, he and Betty could still be together to have great hot sex. This might have worked on Gossip Girl, but on Betty, where the narrative depends on the main character being 'good'.. I mean, she can be a fuckup, but she basically has to be the one that everyone watching aspires to, well, I believe it turned viewers off and Betty came off looking like a homewrecker and worse, selfish. It's hard to root for that.
A further slide in credibility for the show came in season three when Pat Fields (the show's costumer) dressed Betty in ever increasingly bizarre outfits. Not crazy Bjork/Gaga fashions - just loud, obnoxious patterns and clashing colors. It would have been funny except Betty worked at a fashion magazine where there were any number of characters offering to do her hair and makeup and give her better clothes. it was this kind of unreality that I think turned viewers off further. I guess you can call that superficial, but it hurts the reality of the show - how are we supposed to take the character seriously when she dresses like a clown (or in one episode, a hot dog, don't ask).
Ironically this past season has been the best yet not only featuring a same sex kiss between two male teenagers but one of the most beautiful coming out scenes I've ever had the pleasure to watch. There have been reversals, fake and real pregnancies, reunions, lots of witty banter between Marc and Amanda (always a recipe for glory on this show) and of course generous helpings of deviousness on the part of Wilhemina played by Vanessa Williams. They also realistically explained why Betty hadn't gotten her braces off even though it'd been four years (her dentist had a creepy/funny crush on her and kept them on her just to keep seeing her.. it was a funny, almost throwaway scene that, had the cancellation notice ink not still been wet, I think we would have seen expanded a little).
The strength of the material got it moved from Friday night purgatory to a plum role at the tail end of ABC's strong Wednesday night comedy block - but maybe the show was too 'out there' after the reality based sitcoms that came before it. Or maybe after Modern Family, the average American felt that they'd already had enough of the Gay. Or maybe the serial nature of it turned people off since they felt as though they'd already missed so much. Or maybe ABC, thinking that their in-house ad spots could be put to better use for the last season of LOST and the returning V , didn't promote it enough. Who knows.
I do think that network shows ought to start thinking about a different model of storytelling - one that maps out X number of episodes over X number of seasons from the get go. It would prevent shows like Betty that have loads but not finite amount of storyline potential sticking themselves into neutral just to pad out 22 episodes a season for an open ended amount of time. Whatever problems I have with LOST, I'm glad that the producers decided to take a stand and get ABC to agree to a finite number of episodes over a finite number of seasons. I think that would have helped Betty's pacing and perhaps gotten her out of outfit-hell much sooner.
Good night Betty, I hope that tonight's episode sends you off in fine fashion.