(Courtesy B&B)

Sometimes I forget, because of all the drama, just how funny America Ferrera is.  I especially like her good nature in the sections where her braces cause her spit uncontrollably.

She seemed to be funniest when paired with Freddy Rodriguez or Chris Gorham.

There’s a great section where each of the actors forgets his/her line.  Becki Newton is funny because, unlike the others, she does not change expression at all.

There’s a quick snippet of Eric Mabius doing the soft shoe.

Speaking of the full season DVD, what I most want to see is the “Enhanced Versions” of the episodes we’ve seen in the reruns this summer.  They would be worth the price of the set alone.  At Amazon.com, the description of the bonus features is:

“Going home to New York City, look who keeps popping up video commentary, webisodes, Betty Bloops, alternate takes, deleted scenes.”

I’m going to hopefully assume the “look who keeps popping up video commentary” is the same as the enhanced versions.  Woot.

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Man, watching all those little snippets, I had forgotten how much the show changed over the course of season 3.   Those Lindsay Lohan scenes seem like they were from several seasons ago.  Some of them were pretty good, but I don’t think her appearance was worth it.  It certainly didn’t help the ratings. 

I am really looking forward to this DVD – I have a feeling several of the episodes will get better as they are viewed again (and in the context of what happened later in the season).  I know that in the course of doing episode recaps, a couple of the episodes grew on me, even though I didn’t care for them at first.

Of course, the bloopers and behind the scenes footage are always fun, so that’s another reason to get the DVD.

Ugly Betty, The Complete Third Season will be released on September 22, which will give you enough time to get revved up for Ugly Betty season4!

****A LITTLE HOUSEKEEPING****

Ugly Betty News is on Twitter now – tweet tweet!  If you follow UBN, we’ll follow you!  Many times something is out there that is cool but maybe not bloggable; I’ll tweet them as often as I can!

Also, I’m aware of some weirdness going on with the comments – y’all hang with us – our crack technical team is working on it as we speak!

UPDATE: The comment problem has been fixed!

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This is (primarily) the scene from episode 3.22, In The Stars, in which Adele makes an appearance, and ends up singing the song “Right as Rain”.

It also features some of the best moments and characters from the latter half of season of season 3.  Before everything fell apart.  Although I greatly enjoyed the heart-wrenching season finale, it’s nice to see all the characters happy.

Above all, I love this song.  I’m an old R&B guy, and the production of Right as Rain, along with Adele’s wonderfully soulful voice just lift the spirit and bring a smile to one’s face.

I think Adele might have been my favorite celebrity guest star in season 3, although her speaking part was minimal.  I know it’s hard to fit musical sequences into too many episodes, but I hope we can see more moments like this in season 4.

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Now, any show is going to have its highs and lows in a 24 episode season (especially one with ensemble writers, directors, and actors) , but the highs and lows this year were quite extreme.

These opinions are my own, and everyone has one, so I’d love to hear yours.  Here is my list of hits and misses for Ugly Betty in season 3.  I’m an optimist, so I’m going to start with the misses and end with the hits. 

Misses

• The soapy elements.  They just didn’t work for me this year, because there was less intrigue (like the season 1 Fey Sommers mystery). This leads to…
• Sisters on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.  I really thought this was the low point of the season.  First, Papi has what turned out to be the most harmless heart attack in the history of mankind.  It was also the height of the Wilhelmina/Connor romance, which was interesting, but turned Willi into a totally different person.  The sister drama was a little too heavy handed.  (There was one part of this episode that is a “hit”, though, which I’ll get to in a bit)
• Betty’s Independence - I wanted so badly for this to be a “hit”.  At the start of season 3, I had had enough of the “who did Betty choose” drama, and was wondering whether the “single girl in the city” storyline would work.  I thought, OK, a somewhat strange-looking, modern-day Mary Tyler-Moore would be pretty cool.  Then, inexplicably, they dropped the whole idea.  YETI ended up only being necessary to introduce Matt.  Pah.
• Jesse – Don’t get me wrong.  I like Val Emmich.  His music video dream sequence was very funny.  But his character was a needless distraction.
• Betty wins! I added this because I think that every now and then, Betty needs to lose.  She needs to not “save the day” at the end of every episode.  (Most of them, yes, but if can predict it, then it probably isn’t very interesting).  I don’t want to press the issue, because, of course, I want Betty to save the day most of the time – but every now and then, a loss would be pretty cool.
• Betty moving back home. Did the producers REALLY feel that what was missing from the show mid-season was Betty at home?
• Lindsay Lohan.  Fail.  (OK, the food fight scene was good.  But it wasn’t worth the turmoil and distraction).

Hits after the jump

Hits

• Amanda – OK, Becki Newton’s probably going to hate me for this, because she hasn’t had her own story line since mid-season, but I LOVE how they are using her.  She pops in, says something that makes everyone scratch their heads, and leaves.  When I see Amanda in a scene, I know there will be comedy.
• Claire – I think making her a bigger part of the show was a great idea.  I love her rivalry with Wilhelmina, I love her mentoring of Betty, I love her mother-son moments with Daniel.  The only part that didn’t seem to fit in was the whole shoplifting thing.
• America Ferrera doing comedy – They didn’t let her do it often, but America is very funny when she’s given something funny to do.  The seductions of Daniel and Matt really stand out.
• There’s No Place Like Mode – Y’all know I’ve raved and raved about this episode.  The character Heinrich was so ridiculous, you couldn’t help but like him.  And the ending, with Wilhelmina presenting her baby ala The Lion King, well, that was classic.
• Sexual Ambiguity - I might be alone in this, but I thought the Suzuki / Byron Woo story line was hilarious.  The Jodi/Marc one was sort of funny, too.  Confusing, but funny.
• Ralph Macchio – I don’t know why, but everything about his character worked.  I liked the Archie/Hilda romance, I liked how Ignacio fawned over him, I liked him playing straight man in The Born Identity.
• Molly – Hate me if you must, but I love what she brought to the show.  When you think of Daniel beginning the season hiding at Player, and ending it with that wonderful heartfelt speech, whatever growing his character did, Molly was the reason.  My only complaint is that they didn’t even bother to make her look sick.
• Closure – Betty Suarez Land was almost the perfect tone (Gio hating Betty, then deciding the be her friend).  AND, it came early in the season.  Henry didn’t get his till the 23rd episode, and it was VERY good, I just wish it had come earlier.
• Goodbyes – Alexis, Christina, Molly. Each was done in exactly the right tone.
• Matt – On balance, I think he was good for the show.  Is he Betty’s true love?  No, I don’t think so.  But he added some interesting story lines, not the least of which, Victoria and Cal.
• The Finale – Especially the last 20 minutes or so.
• Michael Urie - Outside of Betty, the show revolved around Marc more than any other character.  He went seamlessly from Betty’s rival to her bestie, and his interactions with Justin have been some of the best moments of the season.
• The Cherry 7-Up Thing – It reminded me of the old Bob Hope movies, when he’d temporarily leave character, look at the camera and make some wisecrack.

So, what hits or misses do you have for this season?

Image: Pacific Coast News

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For the uninitiated, Jump was Ugly Betty’s season finale for season 2, and it left the show in a mess.  Gio fans were mad.  Henry fans were mad.  Fans of Betty and all the other characters wondered, “What the heck is this all about?”  (Not to mention ABC hyped a 30 second Lindsay Lohan appearance, that foreshadowed her disastrous stint on the show in season 3). Like I said, it was a mess. And Silvio Horta,the show’s creator and executive producer, was solely responsible for the script.

As he was for the final hour of last night’s season finale, entitled, “The Fall Issue”. 

Incredible.  Bravo.  I wish I had an “11″ paddle.

The first hour, entitled “Curveball”, was OK.  It was a good setup, with a properly sad and cliff-hanger-ey ending.  But, there was a noticeable change in the writing (and even the acting), once the second hour. It was much crisper, with the smart-alec banter we all love (which was almost entirely missing from “Curveball”). 

For some strange reason, Amanda totally changed personality once the episodes changed.  In “Curveball”, she reverted to downright mean.  Then, she came back to wacky Amanda in hour two.  This is the problem with back-to-back episodes, written by different people.

I’ll save the spoilers for the recap (boy, two hours is a real haul!), but I can tell you that there were more OMG moments last night (especially in the second hour) than in the entire season.  The last 5 minutes, all I could do was stammer in the live blog.  Some of the moments we knew were coming, but the way they were executed still was shocking.

In case you haven’t figured it out, the writers of the show like to make Betty’s suitors less likeable before a breakup.  They really did that with Matt last night.  Although, to be honest, I don’t blame him for being mad at Betty.

You could tell, the whole Henry storyline was the producers’ way of saying “I’m sorry we didn’t give you Benry fans your proper closure…we’re making up for it tonight”. And it was good closure for the story line, better, I think, than Gio’s – which would have been great had he and Betty remained on-screen friends.

Horta really knows how to write the Marc/Justin scenes.  You can tell, they are really coming from his heart.  Michael Urie and Mark Indelicato are on the same page as Horta – last night’s scene was one of the best the show has ever had.

I want to watch the episode again before I say anything about America Ferrera’s performance. Betty was bounced around like a pinball in the finale, so Ferrera’s job was mostly to react.  Although her kiss with Chris Gorham was hot. 

Eric Mabius proved he could bring the drama last night.  I didn’t really care for the “Molly joking about being dead” story line, but it was carried out beautifully.  When Daniel finished his speech, and Molly wasn’t there next to Betty anymore…we knew.  Then the music started and the tissues came out.  So well executed.

(For those who complain about this – does anyone remember East Side Story?  This was one of the best ever UB episodes.  Remember Hilda and Betty falling to the floor sobbing?  It’s part of Ugly Betty, especially season finales).

The Claire/Wilhelmina story line gave us the two things we’ll wonder about all summer.  Who and where is the adopted child, and who did Wilhelmina see at the end? (OK, I’m slightly giving away spoilers).  It all happened so fast.

The Detty moment at the end just felt right.  The whole Marc/Betty rivalry did not. 

Next season will be interesting.  If it didn’t separate Marc and Amanda, I’d love to see Marc go work for Vogue.

I’m working on the monster recap.  Had “The Fall Issue” been at the level of “Curveball”, I’d really be complaining right now.  But hour two of the finale was so good, I think it made what was a lackluster season a success.

Image: SplashNewsOnline.com

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Ugly Betty 3.05 “Granny Pants” looks like one great episode! They seem to show the evolving relationship between Betty and her old high school “friend”. Thanks to MJ for cluing me in on these three sneak peeks! Enjoy the clips.

Two more clips below.

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Now, we focus on the Henry/Gio/Betty love triangle here, but there are going to be many story lines in season 3 left over from the season 2 finale that are almost as compelling. I wonder, which one are you looking forward to the most?

Plus, we have ongoing subtexts, like Amanda’s father (who she is no longer searching for), and Justin’s discovery of himself.

So, what storyline (aside from the love triangle) are you most looking forward to?

Image: Newscom

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Image details: Diesel Hosts The 13th Annual Gen Art Film Festival Launch Party served by picapp.com

Actor Val Emmich (Cashmere Mafia) is joining the cast of Ugly Betty as a recurring character.

I’m always glad to see new faces on the show.  What I didn’t expect, though, is the story line Emmich will be involved in.  According to The Hollywood Reporter, Emmich will play Jesse, a potential love interest for Betty (America Ferrera).

What????  Another one?  Of course, this gives credence to my theory that Betty “chose herself”.  It also makes me wonder if EITHER Henry or Gio will have major roles this year.  That ought to make for some interesting conversation.

But I worry about this.  I’m afraid Betty’s love life just isn’t enough to sustain the show.  Are we going to have still another “ship” pop up?  And what the heck would you call it?

There’s also this (and this is where I get into trouble, I’m afraid).  If the premise of the show is that Betty is not-so-beautiful, and is trying to fit in where everyone IS beautiful, isn’t it quite a stretch that every man she runs into wants to be her boyfriend?  Even Bow Wow?  Yes, I know she’s beautiful in her way (I love her, too), I’m just thinking of how things are out there in the real corporate world.

But then again, these romances stir interest in the show (and subsequently, this blog), so what do I know?  I trust Silvio Horta and the new writers to do what’s best.

I will be REAL curious to find out the story line of this one.  I hope they keep it at the “sexual tension” level throughout the season – that’s always funnier.

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Woot!

Not that there was ever any doubt but it’s good to have it official.  Now, we’ll not only have spoilers for the remaining episodes this year, but now we’ll be able to gossip and speculate about next year’s season as well. 

Let’s all do an Ugly Betty happy dance!

Also being renewed are Brothers & Sisters, Desperate Housewives, Dirty Sexy Money, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, Samantha Who?

Note: please, if you haven’t already, stop by my Valentine card post and comment about who you’d like to send one to.  I’m entered in a comment contest with the other Spekked blogs, and I’d rather Ugly Betty News not be voted  off the island.

Source: ABC

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