Roundup: Ugly Betty Season 2 Premiere Reviews
The day is finally here! Ugly Betty has its season premiere tonight, and the media is talking about it:
Boston Herald: Ferrera’s gift is the charming way she continues to tackle the title role. Viewers can’t help but root for her. She’s buoyed by a snappy script full of funny lines.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Those are a lot of loose ends to wrap up (and, actually, there are more, including the whereabouts of prison escapee Claire Meade, played by Carnegie Mellon University alumna Judith Light), but “Betty” does a surprisingly nimble job of hopping from story to story without the hour feeling like a janitor cleaning up a mess in aisle five.
I can’t even force myself to keep thinking about the clunky lunacy and all the things that are wrong with “Betty.” Almost nothing works. I used to enjoy this show on occasion, believe it or not. It had heart and brains. Now it’s a glitzy, zany corpse.
Fort Worth Star Telegram : For more than half the episode, this feels like it’s biding its time, and I was worried that the novelty was beginning to wear off. But then we get to the final act, with several touching moments and a couple of good plot twists, and Betty is back on its game.
Newsday : Whew. That’s it. And it’s enough. Ugly-duckling star America Ferrera deserved her comedy actress Emmy just for knowing minute by minute which serious/silly tone she’s expected to deliver. (She’s also a fine physical comedian. That’s where the eyepatch comes from.) This episode so illustrates that range of rhythms - zippy, languid, bumbling, poignant - that it’s actually not a bad intro for “Ugly Betty” newbies. Several characters allude to “a fresh start.” But longtime fans may call it a holding pattern.
Obviously, Betty isn’t for everyone. Doug Elfman in the Sun-Times never liked the show, and admits it in his review. He obviously doesn’t get the premise and style of the show, so any other elements after that won’t make sense to him.
All in all, I’m excited. Remember, live blogging during the broadcast tonight!
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2 opinions for Roundup: Ugly Betty Season 2 Premiere Reviews
Brady
Sep 29, 2007 at 3:42 am
Never have I ever felt more connected to a TV show in my life until this episode. I work for Disney, and I’m on and off “stage” constantly, so I’m only able to see a TV every so often. Last week, when the marathon was going on, I was able to watch a lot of episodes through out the day. True, they were spaced, but the end of last season gripped and hurt me the same way I felt when my best friend died.
When we were watching the season premiere, it was all funny and cute, but the parts with Hilda were very touching and sweet, until the very end, when she was sitting alone in her room, in the dark, gripping a pillow, and she said to Betty “He’s gone… you know that’s the first time I’ve said that” And I realized a couple seconds later, that it was entirely her imagination, telling her he was still alive, that he was still with her. I just found myself in tears thinking about it…
Thank you, Ugly Betty, for such an incredible script and start to what will be an amazing season
alex l
Sep 29, 2007 at 7:48 pm
i loved it
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