1/5 So unrealistic it loses any comedic value
  by D. J. Nardi (Washington, DC)
Good comedy and satire have an element of truth. Unfortunately, Ugly Betty is so divorced from reality that it isn't even funny. I just don't get why anybody would watch the show. Everything from the clothing and sets to the relationships seems bizarre. The storylines and acting are simply unbelievable. The characters do things that no sane person would ever do in real life, such as dressing up in a hotdog suit for a news report or pretending to kiss an imaginary person at your desk at work or e-mailing a nude photo of yourself to a mass e-mail list accidentally. At the end of the day, an average viewer like me simply can't connect to the show or the characters because they are so unlike anything I deal with in life.

And by the way, for people who work at a fashion magazine, what do these characters wear? They supposedly work in a professional media publication and yet come to work dressed like clowns. In one recent episode they came dressed to work wearing beads from a cult. Really? If the producers of the show had ever stepped into a corporate office, the would notice that people generally wear business suits or slacks and a buttoned shirt. The ensemble and sets just make the show seem like a farce rather than actual comedy.

5/5 Always Fun and Entertaining
  by Kareen Land
Only the hard hearted could not fall in love with this show. It is what scripted comedy TV is meant to be - delightfully fun characters and engaging story lines. You laugh, you cry, the time flies by. The support characters tend to steal the show from Betty, especially Vanessa Williams, Judith Light, and Mark Urie. You enjoy watching them have fun with the characters. It's too bad the directors can't make America Ferrera's Betty a bit less dowdy. I watch this show while on the treadmill and the laps roll by.

5/5 Always good for a laugh.
  by A. Kunse (CLARE, MI USA)
After watching the first season, we just had to purchase the second! Well worth the money.

5/5 A Fresh Breeze in the Wasteland
  by Celia Hayes (San Antonio, SA)
It's one of those standard jokes about every hit American comedy series is a restatement of a British one... so the case of Ugly Betty is especially refreshing, drawn as it is from a stupendously popular telenovela originally broadcast - and stupendously popular in that part of the world which speaks Spanish. Think of this particular show as a fresh breeze blowing through the dry-as-dust clichéd and sterile remains of Broadcast TV-land's vast and derivative wasteland, where every third TV series is a knock-off of two other shows on different channels. I have heard legends of an original idea, spotted years ago in TV-land; a shy and elusive creature - but enough of sarcasm. Back to my original point; which is that I am near to the point of crawling over broken glass just to watch a television show in which the protagonists are not doctors, lawyers or law enforcement personnel. Looking at the broadcast TV line up of late, one might be forgiven for thinking that no one does anything else for a living.

Which is why Ugly Betty is at least refreshing, and double-points to the creators of this show, for wit, and for creating and developing completely endearing and consistent characters, caught in the entirely over-the-top and soap-opera world of high-fashion. It starts with the main character of the heroine; Betty, with her tacky wardrobe, her braces, heavy-framed glasses - a basically decent and competent naïf, finding her feet in the cut-throat world of Mode, a high-end world of a NY fashion magazine. Mode is made-up... but doubtless some of the various details are not. Betty has the backing of her oddly-assorted family, and a handful of friends - and being that this is a translated soap opera - most of the resulting incidents and adventures are wildly over the top. Some of them, nonetheless, manage to be quite touching on their own - the episode of Betty's older sister Hilda in the aftermath of the season-ending death of her almost-sort-of-significant other in a corner-shop robbery was unexpectedly moving.

So - here we have Season Two - just as quirky, with the episodic plots just as unexpected and unpredictable as in Season One; as rich a treat as an assorted Godiva chocolates in one of those impossibly lavish boxes. One of the inserts in the "second season" box is an episode guide, disguised as a suitably worn and dog-eared subway map of New York City (and environs) placing the locations of many key episodes and the various residences of key characters.

Of the extra features included, the most entertaining are a guide to the various sets, conducted by two of the bitchiest characters (in an admittedly hard-fought contest) and a complete collection of the Spanish-language telenovelas which have been part of the background, all the way along. These are presented in all their over-the-top glory. Really, the amusement value of the episode in which a character exclaims "Freeze or the snake gets it!" is alone almost worth the price of the entire set.


5/5 Thats my Show
  by Karen Richards (Stationed in Kuwait)
I love me some Ugly Betty
The packaging was great they fit a whole bunch of other movies on the cover pamphlets...Awesome marketing strategy. The shows were entertaining I loved each clip and the previews they presented before the beginning of a new show it helped me just so I'm not watching the same DVD before I realized well into the movie that I've seen the said one before.