``Ugly Betty" has ``The Devil Wears Prada" and ``Working Girl" stitched into its DNA, but it is adapted by executive producer Salma Hayek from a Colombian telenovela. The premiere quickly sets up the story, as brainy Betty (America Ferrera) wins a job at a glossy New York magazine called Mode. Her presence in the Mode offices, from the kitschy baubles on her desk to the empanadas in her lunch box, defies every fashionista tenet. She even smiles, and smiling is so out. But publishing magnate Bradford Meade (Alan Dale ) has specifically hired the unattractive Betty to stop his Mode editor son, Daniel (Eric Mabius ), from his playboy ways.
Yes, Betty has been hired for her looks.
The evil force here -- the Meryl Streep from ``Prada" and the Sigourney Weaver from ``Working Girl" -- is Vanessa Williams's Wilhelmina. She lusts after Daniel's job, and she schemes like Cruella De Vil to bring him and Betty down. Devising evil plots in her office amid Botox shots and foot rubs from her toadie assistant (Michael Urie ), she embodies everything that's cynical and manipulative about the business of appearances.
If ``Ugly Betty" were a more satirical and self-conscious show, Wilhelmina would also represent the TV industry, which routinely sneers at ``ugly" women like Betty. But this is a fluffy underdog comedy, with the slightly campy soap-opera tone of ``Desperate Housewives," and its ironies only reach so far. Williams tarts up the series with dragon-lady villainy, but of course the spunky Latina from Queens is the star and she sets a generally upbeat, go-girl tone. We always know that Betty is a resilient heroine destined to win in the end, even with her fashion-backward red poncho.
