Many of us long ago decided our favorite UB writer, and we excitedly await the next episode he or she will pen.  No doubt, Brian Tanen probably has the most fans amongst Ugly Betty News commenters.  Some are even, for lack of a better word, Brian Tanen goupies.

But, let’s take a look at the major writers for the show, and highlight some of their work.

• Silvio Horta - The creator/developer has penned some of the most memorable episodes, including the Pilot, The Box and the Bunny, Sofia’s Choice (which some people loved, some people weren’t crazy about), and The Manhattan Project.
• Henry Alonso Myers – Petra Gate,Secretaries Day, Something Wicked, Burning Questions, Crimes of Fashion, Sisters on The Verge, Things Fall Apart. Not bad.
• Sheila Lawrence – Fey’s Sleigh Ride, A Thousand Words By Friday, Granny Pants, There’s No Place Like Mode, (and of course, this week’s In The Stars)  Very impressive!
• Bill Wrubel - Giving Up The Ghost, Odor in The Court, Betty’s Baby Bump, Ugly Berry, A Mother of a Problem.  Pretty danged good.
• Brian Tanen – Sugar Daddy, When Betty Met YETI, The Kids Are Alright (all solid, there)
• Peter Elkoff – The Courtship of Betty’s Father, Tornado Girl (an episode I really liked).
• Cara DiPaolo – The Sex Issue, Dress For Success
• Tracy Poust And John Kinnally – A Tree Grows in Guadalajara, Betty’s Wait Problem, Bananas For Betty, Crush’d

Since we’re dealing in the present tense, I only included writers credited at least once this season.  Which leaves out several great writers, including Dawn DeKeyser, who wrote one of my favorite episodes, Zero Worship.  If I missed any more, let me know.

So, do you have a favorite Ugly Betty writer?  I think they are all wonderful, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Sheila Lawrence.  I mean, she wrote my favorite episodes from season 1 and 3 (so far), and the episode with “Tap That” in it. 

Image Copyright © 2008 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc./ PATRICK HARBRON

Post from: Ugly Betty News

Variety’s

Q. What did Daniel give Betty for her birthday in “24 Candles?” Kind of random, but we didn’t get to see her open it and I’m curious. — Cali
A. I was disappointed we didn’t get to show this scene because it turned out to be such a great moment. We had to cut it due to time — the show was too long.  After an excruciating day at work, which happened to be her birthday, Betty unwinds with Ignacio, who remembers to give Betty a gift from Daniel—he dropped it off a couple of weeks ago because, “He just wanted to make sure he didn’t forget.” Betty opens the gift to find a Shakespeare anthology. Inside there’s an inscription: “Looks like you share a birthday with another great writer…  Happy Birthday, Betty. Love, Daniel.” The gift worked on many levels because Betty was writing an article for Mode at the time and it showed how much Daniel really cares about her. But we simply didn’t have the time in the episode to keep the scene.

Excellent.  This should have been included in the episode; it would have been a great moment.  This is why it was a good idea for the show to pare things down.  Great moments were missed because the show was going in too many directions.

A little telling question and answer for Getty fans, after the jump:

Q. Did you expect Freddy Rodriguez to have such chemistry with America Ferrera, and did the relationship grow as a result? Or was their relationship always the plan? — Kay
A. I’ve always known Freddy Rodriguez to be an outstanding actor, but even so, I never expected the chemistry that he brought — it was simply incredible. Obviously, we saw this chemistry immediately and that did affect certain details of Betty and Gio’s relationship. In other words, we utilized the chemistry America and Freddy brought to the show by writing scenes with that same chemistry in mind.

OK, this was kind of a politician’s answer, but it seems to me, from reading this, that Freddy’s character wasn’t really meant to be a love interest for Betty in the beginning, but the chemistry between the two was so obvious, they had to run with it.  I guess that’s a writer’s version of “The moon was bright, the music sweet, it just kind of happened”.

One more excerpt:

Q. It’s been said that Betty’s wardrobe in Season 3 would be adapting to show that she’s starting to pick up fashion ideas from having worked at Mode. Why go that way since she’s always so worried about becoming a “Mode girl”? Or do you see her developing a fashion sense separate from her becoming a Mode girl? — Sarah
A. Betty’s new wardrobe illustrates the changes Betty is making in her life — not the changes Mode is making in Betty’s life. That is to say, Betty is evolving — she’s growing up according to her own ideals, but she’s changing nevertheless. Betty has strong morals and a strong character, thus her evolution is not a compromise. It represents her own personal growth as a person.

I mention this because it’s a very good question.  Many have been upset with what they see as the idea of Betty throwing away her principles and becoming a “Mode Girl”.  I like Silvio’s answer, though.  She’s not selling out, she’s changing on her own terms.  Obviously, she’s not letting Justin help her with her wardrobe, so I’d say that’s true.

It really is a great Q&A.  Check out the whole thing!

Image: Newscom

Post from: Ugly Betty News

In his critique of Ugly Betty’s finale (episode 2.18 – Jump), he was pretty harsh. He gave the episode a “C”, and had this to say:

As I feared, ABC is looking at those sagging ratings and fixing what ain’t broken. I’m all for refocusing the show around Betty, but does it have to come at the expense of the funny?

Now, he wasn’t the only one who was disappointed with the finale; I thought it was good, and would have been great had they had more time to develop the stories, but I understand that everyone went into the episode with their own expectations.

But, Ausiello’s grade makes me think that he dislikes the overall post-strike changes made with the show, espcially how they affect the comedy. I must admit that I’ve been compiling a list of the funniest moments of season 2, and most of them happened before the WGA strike.

So, we have to ask, has Ugly Betty lost the funny?

I don’t think so; I think that the show is now a different kind of funny, and everyone has their own taste in comedy. I know that there is a significant group of people who prefer the campy, absolutely fabulous style of funny – I’ll admit, I like it, too. But, there are only so many times that Michael Urie can raise one eyebrow before it stops being funny. The show can’t rely on just that type of funny.

To me, by far, the funniest moment of the post-strike season was the Betty/Daniel seduction scene in episode 2.15, Burning Questions. Certainly it was one of the few times they’ve allowed Eric Mabius to be the funny guy.

One suggestion I would make: make Betty “ugly” again. I know her physical appearance hasn’t changed, but reactions to it have. Now, she’s just another person at Mode. Even strangers first appearing at Mode are no longer taken aback by Betty’s unorthodox (for Mode) appearance. Bow Wow flirting with Betty? I’m sorry, but that just wasn’t right. She already has two (sort-of) hunky guys fighting over her – the show has literally lost its original premise.

Not that you can tell the same joke over and over again, but part of Betty’s charm is that she is quite aware what others think of her looks, and presses on anyway. That’s gone now, because nobody seems to think she looks out of place anymore. Remember the point-of-view cafeteria scene from the pilot? Those add to the comedy, especially when Betty gets her revenge.

Some things will take care of themselves. Having Marc and Amanda back together will help (please, Michael and Becki, deliver those zingers a little slower so we can digest them!). With the romances supposedly wrapped up, the show can get back to situational comedy (think episode 2.04 – Grin and Bear It). If he’s careful, Silvio Horta can inject comedy into Justin’s “journey”, now that puberty has arrived.

Hopefully, guest stars in season 3 will be added for comedic value (think John Cho and David Blue, although the latter mostly played straight man to Micheal Urie – straight man? See? Inadvertent comedy!).

Oh, and Becki Newton needs to sing at least twice a season.

So what do you think? Has Ugly Betty lost the funny? What can the show do to get funnier?

Image:Newscom

Post from: Ugly Betty News

On Ugly Betty’s Move to New York City:

Horta says the cast was told about the move, which takes advantage of a huge tax break in New York, last week. He says that all of Ugly Betty’s regular cast members are making the move. (Whew!).

“They’re all moving, they’re all excited, some more than others,” Horta said of the cast’s reaction, who noted that the news of the move was “a lot to process.” “People who have families — it’s a little more difficult. But by and large, they’re excited about it.”

“The move will allow us to use the city more and to use the city in that very romantic, ‘Sex and the City’ way. That was my goal from the get-go, to capture that,” added Horta. Speaking of ‘Sex and the City’, costume designer Patricia Field, who worked on the pilot, will be coming back to the show. Eduardo Castro, costume designer for seasons 1 and 2, will not be making the move.

And thank goodness, Mark Worthington, responsible for those incredible Mode sets, will be making the move.

On the ‘refocusing’ of the show:

As Horta has said before, he repeated, “We lost Betty’s point of view. We kept adding layers and layers to the cake.” (Amen to that!).

“We’d have seven or eight story lines and it started to feel more sitcom-y,” he noted. “We needed to get back to the basics of what you felt in Season 1 and the first few episodes of Season 2. … We think there’s much more that the show can be.”

The show will now be firmly centered on Betty and her journey. Even the upcoming appearances of Lindsay Lohan will fit the new template: “The mantra now is, we will only do [a multi-episode guest arc] in so far as it illuminates our characters and the relationships between our main characters,” Horta said. “We felt this could be a guest arc that could really inform Betty’s journey — where she’s been and where she’s going — in a really cool, fun way.”

Lohan will be seen in the finale in a flashback scene. Her character was a “mean girl” in high school, but her life has taken a turn for the worse when she is introduced.

She and Betty run into each other,” Horta said, and next season Lohan’s character is “going to re-bond with Betty and things are going to be different — but things are going to go a little bit awry,” as they usually do in the magazine assistant’s world.

As far as the drama that is LiLo, Horta says she was “really nice”, and showed up early. “Lindsay now is just known for the tabloids, but she was – she is – an amazing actress,” Horta said. “I hope the magic can be recaptured here, and we all believe it can.”

More (some spoiler-ish) after the jump!

On the Finale and Season 3:

Wilhelmina will be back at Mode, and once again trying to ruin Daniel’s life. “Daniel almost can’t help himself — almost without Wilhemina’s help, he gets himself into trouble. He’s so afraid of her taking over that he’s his own worst enemy,” Horta said. “He’s going to have a shocker of a reveal [in the finale] and it’s going to end up playing into Wilhemina’s hand. It’s going to inform what he’s going to be doing next season.”

[So, the kid IS going to be Daniel's...]

There is, of course, going to be a cliffhanger on the Benry/Getty front: “Betty’s got a choice to make. I can’t say which [romantic interest] is or isn’t going to be coming back,” Horta said. [Note: watch imdb over the summer and see who has more side projects scheduled...]

And here’s some great news: Cliff will be back! The writers have been looking for an opportunity to bring him back and put in him in a story that will have him interacting with Betty and the show’s main cast. The writers don’t want to put him into a “satellite story” that only involves Marc. (This is excellent news! He is, after all, a Mode photographer – put him to work!)

On Rebecca Romijn/ Alexis: “Rebecca is wonderful. [But] there were so many episodes where we had so little for her to do. When we used her, we wanted to make sure we really used her and she was not someone who was just there. [Alexis] is not dying. She’ll be around and hopefully as long as the show is around” the character will occasionally reappear.

Horta also gives the most in-depth answer I’ve seen so far about the departures of riter Marco Pennette and director James Hayman. There were a lot of people who were unhappy – writers, cast, crew – and I was unhappy. There were different styles of working, different ways of seeing the show that just weren’t in keeping with what I had wanted and started. [Their departures were] just growing pains. It happens with every show, every organization – everything’s not going to be perfect, everyone’s not going to get along. They’re really talented and great. They were a big part of the show and what made the show [successful], and sometimes you grow and just grow in different directions.”

Horta says the Betty White episode is the perfect example of what went wrong in season 2. “It’s sort of a tricky thing with serialized shows – you’re going to start a path and it sounds great, but then if something isn’t working and if you’re already in there and you want to shift gears, it’s a little harder to do it. With a show like ‘Law & Order,’ it doesn’t matter what they did last week. I think we felt like the show’s still good and there are good moments in it. But I look back at the Betty White episode, and we had the paintball war going on, the Betty White story line, Betty and Gio dancing and Henry [too]. And it’s like, maybe we could have done without Gio and Betty dancing, what if they were involved in the paintball war? What if [the plot] was a little more of a piece and the stories all blended in more?”

[Why, oh why, could they not have done that? It would have been perfect!]

Finally, Horta talks a bit about stunt-casting. “I will take a pledge: I will never ever hire Paris Hilton for as long as I am associated with this show, which I believe will be ’til the end. There will be no Paris Hilton.”

Read your lips, eh Silvio? Never say never…

Source: The Watcher
Image: Newscom

Post from: Ugly Betty News

Image details: Fox Searchlight Pictures "Under The Same Moon" Screening – Arrivals served by picapp.com

There is a GREAT interview with America Ferrera in USA Today, in which she talks about her life the past few months, and the direction of the show. Apparently, it wasn’t just Silvio Horta who had been upset with the direction the show had been taking.

“I’ve always loved the show, but we went through some creative shifts,” says Ferrera. “Because so much was happening in each episode, there wasn’t enough time given to certain story arcs.”

I’ve felt this way for a while. I’m hoping that in season 3, now that Ugly Betty is pretty well established, the writers feel comfortable enough to spread the different story lines out – even skipping episodes. It looks like that’s actually going to start this year.

Silvio Horta says, “You’ll find there’ll be two or three story lines — the biggest one being Betty’s. And when we get into Marc, Amanda and Christina, there will be a little more interaction with Betty and her point of view.”

Bravo! Ferrera agrees. “I think the show’s journey is Betty’s journey. There’s a lot going on in these five episodes, but it’s very focused. An arc begins and kind of ends for Betty, specifically concerning her love life.”

Ahem. Just remember, fellow shippers: I’m just the messenger here.

But that quote from America sounds awful “final”, does it not? Benry folks, you might want to turn away before reading the next quote.

Ferrera describes Betty’s two-year romance with Henry as “the type of love that makes you sick.” Gio represents “the type of relationship where everything seems so easy…When Gio’s character got introduced, I found a whole other side of Betty,” she says. “He brings out the side of her that is the street-smart girl from Queens and dares her to be her most stripped-down, raw self.”

As for Henry: “They definitely have obstacles. And that’s definitely going to be confronted in these five episodes.” Horta refuses to reveal if both actors will be back next season).

Ferrera also talks about her looks, and how they’ve changed since the pilot episode of Ugly Betty. “My face looks different. My body looks different. I definitely feel like I’m growing up, which … means Betty will have to grow up, too.”

Apparently, Horta is accounting for these changes. He says, “There’ll maybe be a little something next season and down the line something more.”

There is much more in the interview, and an awesome video here. Check it out!

Post from: Ugly Betty News

Image details: The 11th Annual Impact Awards Gala – Arrivals served by picapp.com

Ugly Betty producer Silvio Horta recently spoke with the Los Angeles Times,and in the process revealed some interesting specifics about the upcoming Ugly Betty Episodes. More on those in a bit, but first, let’s look at some of the other things Silvio said in the interview.

On the process that caused him to make moves to bring Betty back to its heart: “Well, I moved into a new place last year, so it was kind of bare and empty. So I started to actually furnish it. So I was picketing, and then I did some traveling around Christmas time. I went to Cuba for a week at one point — and I knew the strike was coming to an end, and when we started working, there’d be no downtime for the foreseeable future — so I cashed in my miles and went to London and Paris. And there I broke my foot. . . . Having that time to do nothing but sit down and think and reflect, I started to just gain a lot of perspective on the show and what we’d done and what we’d done well and what we hadn’t done well. I came back with renewed energy, a renewed clarity on what the show was and what I wanted to do with it.

The heart is really what it comes down to. The show’s always been good and funny, but I started to feel in the beginning of the second season we got away from Betty and her point of view. It came down to basics — and going back to what made the show a success and touched people. It was Betty.”

On how “gay” Ugly Betty is as a show: “Surprisingly heterosexual. A lot of straight white males that are actually fantastic at writing the show. And a lot of females. And a nice assortment, a couple of gays. It’s eclectic. How gay is the show? I think its having a strong kind of delicious villain as Wilhelmina is incredibly appealing to gay men. I loved Joan Collins growing up, and my mom thought I had a crush on Alexis — she didn’t realize I wanted to be Alexis.”

I knew Silvio read here. After all, if you want to know what the most intelligent, loyal Ugly Betty fans are thinking…

Spoiler-age tidbits from Horta after the jump.

• “So the first episode back is going to be Betty’s birthday. And she is imagining a fantasy of the most amazing birthday of her life. It’s going to be her one and only birthday with Henry. And it’s not going to be exactly what she expected. . . .
• And the episode after that, Wilhemina’s sister Renee, played by Gabrielle Union, has become involved with Daniel and things are going to start getting a little crazy. Literally. And Betty will find herself involved in this, and it’s, it’s going to get a little scary. We’ll learn some secrets about Renee. It’s going to inform what Betty’s going through on that episode. And Betty’s going to find herself at Justin’s junior high school dance, and she’s going to have to get a chance to do things that she never got a chance to do in junior high.
• And we’re going to have this finale where there’s a big Elle versus Mode softball game for charity that Betty’s going to be drawn into playing even though she has horrible memories of dodge ball in junior high. But she’s going to get sucked into it, and it’s going to come at a time when she’s going to have to make a big choice in her life. And Daniel’s gonna have a couple surprises — Wilhelmina’s going to come back to Mode. It’s jampacked! Really juicy.

There’s more. Read the rest!

WHat I think I am looking forward to MOST is seeing Marc swinging a baseball bat (oh, please include that Silvio! Remember how funny his “hitting” of Wilhelmina was?)

Post from: Ugly Betty News

Image details: Bebe Spring Ad Campaign Announcement With Rebecca Romijn served by picapp.com

AfterElton.com has a two part, in-depth investigative story about the state of gays in prime time television, and Ugly Betty’s co-creator Silvio Horta is featured prominently. The story itself would have been worthy of a referencing post here, but it gets even more interesting because Horta drops a few little Ugly Betty spoiler-ish nuggets into the interview.

For one thing, Justin is gay.

OK, that sound you just heard was the sound of thousands of readers simultaneously saying, “ya’ think?”

Horta says, “It really just popped into my head. … I tried five different types of kids, and they all felt the same. Then suddenly, I thought – What if you had a little gay kid? I wrote him that way, and it was like: This is fun! This is interesting and different.”

I do believe this is the first time anyone in an official capacity with Ugly Betty has ever revealed anything about Justin’s sexuality. I mean, yeah, I know…showtunes, obsessive over his “figure”, the gift of a fashion eye – but the producers have always remained amibiguous. Considering his age, this was most likely a smart move. I just found it interesting that Horta broke the longstanding policy of being coy about the whole thing.

More after the jump!

Other interesting Horta quotes from the interview:

About ABC: “…things have gotten to a point where it doesn’t matter” whether a character is straight or gay, he acknowledged, “Maybe ignorance is bliss. I mean, I am creating gay characters on a network that doesn’t have a problem with it.”

About a possible kiss between Marc and Cliff: Ultimately, Horta said he wouldn’t want to include a kiss just as a political “statement,” but that if it did happen, he wouldn’t want it to be a mere throw away either, because it is something still rare on television.

This is, in my opinion, why Silvio Horta is so successful. He gets it. He won’t introduce controversy for its own sake, but he’s not afraid of it, either.

On Ugly Betty’s diverse fan base: “If you’re a young kid struggling with your sexuality,” or a Latina dealing with body issues, or a trangender person, or “any number of these pieces that stem out of our show … it’s important because people see themselves in these characters and they feel a sense of pride and a sense of ‘I’m not alone.’ There’s something I can look forward to; there’s someone I can relate to.”

He also believes that for the average “middle class, straight, white guy” or for viewers who “don’t necessarily fit into these pieces … it’s funny, and they’ll enjoy it and they’ll be moved by it. And I think subconsciously it has an effect.”

“middle class, straight, white guy” – hmmmm. Silvio, have you been reading Ugly Betty News?

Post from: Ugly Betty News

First, there’s the nuts-and-bolts, inside baseball answer. The show’s production company, Reveille, has a great track record of scouring the world for hit shows and adapting them for US audiences. The company, founded by Ben Silverman in 2002, is responsible for importing the British sitcom The Office. Silverman had also previously adapted British game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, the Swedish reality show Expedition Robinson (later Survivor) and the Dutch reality show Big Brother. So, of course, they found the Columbian telenovela “Yo soy Betty, la fea”, which was wildly popular.

But, importing an overseas hit is no guarantee of success (Reveille had a miss with the BBC show Coupling). It takes what I think are essential three ingredients for any hit show: great characters, great actors, and great stories. The characters in Ugly Betty are all over the top, yet they are all human. Yes, each character could easily border on being a stereotype. However, the writers handle each chracter with a finesse not usually seen in a dramedy.

As Tony Plana (Ignatio) says, “Betty is a Latino based show but it’s not just about us being Latinos, it’s just about us being in the world. People in the world who happen to be Latinos.” He adds, “You have an anglo world at the office, you have an anglo, aristocratic family who’s dealing with their own brand of dysfunction and then you have us dealing with our working class dysfunction and that at its very core is a wonderful contrast to the upstairs downstairs kind of dynamic. I think that’s part of the attraction”.

More after the jump

This is important: the same could be said of ALL the characters in the show. It’s about people in the world who happen to be …something. People who happen to be gay or transgendered. People who happen to be ‘normal’ sized. People who happen to be accountants or sandwich guys. The characters in Ugly Betty are anything but one dimensional. This is what so many other shows miss that Betty gets right. The people in the show are not their characteristics. They are people.

But even with the great characters, the acting has to be good for a dramedy to be successful. It all starts, in my opinion, with America Ferrera. An early review put it best: “There is a decided separation between good and evil in the typical telenovela. America Ferrera’s Betty Suarez is the endearing embodiment of goodness. She is a character that could have been wholly annoying and inappropriately whiny, but Ferrera’s juicily perfect creation may just have made being good the new evil….She has made a character so lovably imperfect that the obvious imperfections of the flawed ‘Ugly Betty’ become as unimportant as the anti-fashionista is to her unforgiving co-workers. And it all, in one way or another, perhaps by some unexplainable luck, becomes quite consequential.

As luck would have it, ALL of the actors in Ugly Betty are top-notch. I am amazed at the way Rebecca Romijn has played Alexis since ‘the accident’. She could have been a “tranny mess”, swallowed up by the drama of being a man born in a woman’s body. But since the start of season 2, she’s played Alexis as a man who woke up one day in a woman’s body, happy with the results. Unbelievable? Yes. Hilarious? Definitely!

Vanessa Williams plays Wilhelmina in such a deliciously evil manner, we just HAVE to watch. You can tell, she’s having a ball.

Add in the comedic chops of Michael Urie (many watch just to see his one-liners), the over-the-top camp of Becki Newton, the sweetness of Ana Ortiz and Mark Indelicato, the vulnerability of Eric Mabius and Chris Gorham, the grounding of Tony Plana and Judith Light, and you have one of the best casts on television.

Plus, it’s obvious that the members of the Ugly Betty cast genuinely like one another. As Eric Mabius says, ” I think the attitude on the set is my favorite thing. There’s a crew around us that is so positively bubbly. They are excited to be there. It makes our job so much easier. It’s inspiring for us. They have to watch us do the same scene over and over. If they’re excited it’s a great barometer that we’re making work that’s authentic. There is a desire on the set for people to do extraordinary work.”

But even with such a great cast, Ugly Betty would fail if there weren’t great stories each week. It could easily be a mess: it’s a classic fish out of water comedy, mixed with an underdog story, with touches of family drama and a little soap opera mixed in. Somehow, producer Silvio Horta and crew pull it off each week. They draw us in and keep us interested, mostly due to Betty’s heart.

I used to be in the camp that said that Betty should NEVER end up with Daniel. now, I’m not so sure. Yes, such a plot turn is highly unrealistic. But, those of us who live vicariously through Betty aren’t really looking for realism, are we? Most of us who identify with her don’t get the job at the magazine. And even if we do, our bosses don’t listen to what we have to say.

We watch Betty not to see what is, but what should be. We imagine what it would be like winning the respect of people who normally hold us in contempt, of not only getting romance, but having two people fighting over us.

I think most of us watch because we see Betty in ourselves.

Source(s): Blend, El Paisano, Amherst Bulletin,Forbes

Post from: Ugly Betty News

Did you see the Spring TV Preview recently posted by EW? It’s quite a handly little reference guide, and the page that focuses on Ugly Betty gives us some great new insight on the refocusing on Betty we’ve previously talked about.

After giving a recap of “where we left off”, they let us know where things are going, and provide a much more in-depth quote from America Ferrera (about the direction of the show) than we’ve seen before. Apparently, she spent hours with Silvio Horta watching the show. What they realised was surprising:

”In the second season we lost a lot of what we loved about Betty,” says Ferrera. As Horta explains it, ”We were getting away from Betty’s point of view. The show had become incredibly funny, but it started to lose some of its heart.” As we know, Horta wrote the word “Heart” on a dry erase board and left it there to inspire himself and the writers.

They started working with a new executive producer, Joel Fields, the replacement of Marco Pennette. They’ve forged a new direction, which focuses on the love triange (Shippers Unite!), the return of Wilhelmina to Mode, and, get this: a Meade Publications softball game, perhaps featuring Naomi Campbell! I LOVE this idea, it could be an even better version of the paintball match.

Ferrera is happy: ”If anything good came out of the strike, it’s that we were able to step back and breathe,” she says. ”We’re coming back with our heads on straight.”

Post from: Ugly Betty News

The deal will also give him the opportunity to develop new projects for the Disney-owned studio.

It’s good to know there aren’t any hard feelings remaining over the WGA strike, in which Horta was quite outspoken.

Horta was the key in adapting Columbian telenovela “Yo Soy Betty La Fea” for American audiences. He was the man to whom Salma Hayek and Ben Silverman turned to find the proper way to present the show to American sensibilities. We all know he succeeded quite well.

“Silvio is a tremendously gifted writer,” Hayek said. “He knows how to mix comedy and drama in a way that very few writers do. He took the premise of the original Colombian soap opera and made `Ugly Betty’ his own. Anyone lucky enough to work with him would kill to do it again.”

Horta told Variety something I find VERY interesting. He said that the show will go back to focusing more and more on Betty. Horta has even written the word “heart” in big letters in the writers room, in order to emphasize the need to bring the stories back to the underdog spirit of Betty. I have no doubt that the sacking of producers Marco Pennette and James Hayman was related. They are going to focus the show back on its biggest strength.

If this is true, this is good news indeed. The best episodes of Ugly Betty are the ones in which she is the underdog, and the moral center in what is a crazy, cutthroat world. I can’t wait!

Congratulations Silvio!

Post from: Ugly Betty News