Betty's Ugly Charms Wear Thin

When she lost the poncho, she lost the charm: America Ferrera’s Ugly Betty character “seems to be losing her very Betty-ness,” lament the Fug Girls in New York. “Ferrera and her scrappy, brace-faced alter ego” once brought “surprising heart” to ABC’s show, but “two seasons later, the antics of Betty Suarez feel both tired and tiring.” Reports of Ferrara’s off-set cattiness don’t help, either.

Titular characters often suffer from “Dawson’s Creek Syndrome,” and soon fans want more of the quirky secondary characters “and less of the insufferable lead actor with clawlike man-bangs.” In this case, the lead character is turning from a character the audience can root for into “kind of a shrill pain, and frankly, a raging buttinski.” (More Ugly Betty stories.)