Betty La Fea (Ugly Betty) Mas Bella Update XXXVI

Oscar-winner Rita Moreno is apparently coming on board as a Suarez aunt on "Ugly Betty" in a finale that pulls in a bunch of former series stars I've never heard of, in this news item. She's always been even better than an Oscar so this should be good, even at "Ugly" standards. . . . CNN is just now glomming onto the America Ferrera interview we clued you to a while back, but the same quotes except for this one on Salma (!!!!): "Honestly I never saw myself doing TV, but Salma [(!!!!)] was so convincing. . . . Salma is the kind of person who could sell you, like, a used stereo. She promised me that it would be done in the right way, and I just trusted her." Excuse me, I have to lie down a minute or two . . . . Okay, I'm back. With yet more deep thoughts on the difference in quality between the original "Betty La Fea" and what its remake "La Fea Mas Bella" has turned into, whether you want to hear them or not. I keep talking about how the new one has gone well beyond what quality and care in the show would warrant. Here's what I mean. The original was a story through and through about fea-ness, the heroine's external AND the hero's internal, and how they both change through each other to something beautiful together. That was the consistent theme throughout the show, telling Colombia, a nation obsessed with beauty a lesson it needed to hear, the lesson that "Ugly Betty" is telling in a lesser way in the US. And for a long while "La Fea" had the chance to do the same. But by extending its story to milk ratings, it's lost that theme and now just carries the usual telenovela "boy-girl-boy" melodrama. Still done better than most, with characters we came to relate to early on, but without that commitment to the important moral that have made "Betty La Fea" and "Ugly Betty" distinctive. It's a shame, like what "Friends" and "That's 70s Show" went through when they decided profits were more important than quality and consistent care. Okay, that's what I've been getting at. I'm done for a while.