In addition to tonight's season premieres of "The Office" (not sent for review) and "My Name Is Earl" (back to its roots with a winning Seth Green guest spot), ABC's "Ugly Betty" is back at at 8 tonight for the start of a new season produced in a new city.
The "Ugly Betty" pilot was filmed in New York, then production moved to Los Angeles for the first two seasons. Now the production base has returned to New York and "Betty" is showcasing its setting with many more exterior, shot-on-location scenes.
In tandem with moving the show's Mode set across the country, the Mode offices get a makeover, explained as an effort by Wilhelmina (Vanessa Williams) to makeover Mode now that she's in charge. Former editor Daniel (Eric Maibus) is now editing a lad mag called Player.
The episode also resolves, seemingly once and for all, Betty's choice between Henry (Christopher Gorham) and Gio (Freddy Rodriguez). I didn't find that altogether satisfying. The episode as a whole is OK, but not as funny as the best "Betty" hours. It seems like the writers tried to cram in so much story that there wasn't time for snarly Marc (Michael Urie) and Amanda (Becki Newton) to do their thing.
For fans of this dastardly duo, ABC now has six "Mode After Hours" webisodes starring the pair at ABC.com. The first episode, written by the writers who know Marc and Amanda best, is a lot of fun and offers exactly the kind of humor somewhat missing from the season premiere.
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On this week's Tuned In Podcast, Post-Gazette entertainment editor Sharon Eberson and I discuss the horror that was the Emmys telecast, the season premiere of "Heroes" and the upcoming second season of "Chuck." Listen or subscribe at post-gazette.com/podcast.
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I had the same initial reaction to Showtime's "Californication" (10 p.m. Sunday) last season as I do this season: I really don't like any of these characters or their hedonistic lifestyles. And yet I kept watching last year and I'll probably keep watching this year, although I think the show is already starting to repeat itself.
Last year writer Hank Moody (David Duchovny) unwittingly had sex with the daughter of his ex's new guy. In this year's season premiere there's another sexual "oops" that has consequences that are likely to continue for some time.
As the new season starts, Hank is back with Karen (Natascha McElhone) but many of the issues between them continue to exist.
The first two episode of the new season also have a lot of scenes of characters doing cocaine, completely out of their minds, that are played for laughs. I don't mean to be a squeamish prude but I found much of this more pathetic and sad than funny.
This season the real world also intrudes on "Californication." Knowing that Duchovny's an admitted sex addict (playing a guy who has a lot of sex and addiction issues) and that McElhone faced a real-life relationship tragedy during filming can't help but color the way in-the-know viewers receive the show this season.
Posted
Sep 25 2008, 02:06 AM
by
Rob Owen