Caught the repeat of this tonight on the Family channel and I thought it was a total hoot. Apparently it's based on a Columbian telenovela that has already been remade in several countries, including Mexico, Russia and India. The US version did surprisingly well last night. It was the most-watched new show pilot of the season so far and gave ABC their best numbers in the timeslot since a 1995 episode of MATLOCK.

The premise is as follows: Betty Suarez [America Ferrara], a chubby Latina girl with glasses and braces, gets hired as the assistant to a fashion magazine's editor-in-chief by said editor's father, Bradford Meade, the owner of the magazine. She was chosen for the job because the playboy son Daniel [Eric Mabius] tends to sleep with his assistants and Bradford doesn't think this will be a problem with Betty. Daniel landed the top job over colleague Wilhelmina Slater [Vanessa Williams] through nepotism and Wilhelmina will do anything to bring him down. Meanwhile, Daniel tries to get rid of Betty by treating her like crap so she'll quit. But Betty prevails, with a little help from an Irish[?] wardrobe girl [Ashley Jensen] and her supportive dad [Tony Plana].

The show is produced by Salma Hayek, who has a cameo playing a nurse on a telenovela that Betty's nephew watches. The cast is great. Williams camps it up, but Ferrara has real heart and she doesn't play Betty as self-deluded. Eric Mabius gives the 'man-whore' Daniel more depth than you might expect. I was kind of hoping I wouldn't like the show since it's on at the same time as MY NAME IS EARL/THE OFFICE and SMALLVILLE. I can record one and watch another but something's gotta fall by the wayside, unless there's a schedule change.

I had a good time watching the initial episode of UGLY BETTY, and much of that credit does belong to America Ferrara. She was just so tremendously watchable, more so than any other network star of the new fall programs I've seen thus far. There are a lot of other fun elements to the show, and it was a pleasure too seeing veteran character actor Tony Plana - so often cast as a villain - get to play a warm-hearted role.

SIX DEGREES also ran on Thursday night - I'm guessing this was the second episode? The story lines didn't exactly knock me out with any sense of freshness but the cast of film vets - Campbell Scott, Hope Davis, Erika Christensen, Jay Hernandez, Bridget Monyahan - made it worth watching.

I think NBC will sooner-rather-than-later move EARL and THE OFFICE, which have been getting clobbered in the ratings.

I had watched the EARL-OFFICE hour and recorded UGLY BETTY to watch later, but yeah....BETTY bested SURVIVOR in the ratings and that left NBC in third position. If they were to move those programs back up to 9 pm they'd be contending with two other ratings titans - GREY'S ANATOMY and C.S.I.

Where could those shows find a home and not wind up in third spot?

If EARL continues to be as awful as it has been so far that summer, NBC would be better off moving THE OFFICE someplace else far away from the stench. Not even the EARL hotties in stripper outfits and Burt Reynolds could save last week's episode.