For the past four Summers I have looked forward to the week every August when a new Ugly Betty complete season hits DVD. I have never been head over heels in love with the series, but I certainly have greatly enjoyed watching it which certainly means something.
On the face of it, the story of Betty Suarez (America Ferrera) is an incredibly relatable one – she is the proverbial ugly duckling, trying to figure out where she belongs. Betty is an incredibly good, kind, generous pe
rson who is pursuing her dream of becoming a writer. By sheer happenstance, when the series begins she finds herself working for Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius), the Editor-in-Chief at MODE, a fashion magazine and definitely not Betty's forte. However, over the course of the four seasons of Ugly Betty, she not only finds her place at MODE, she thrives there, so much so that she has some difficulty this season with the concept of possibly moving on to bigger and better things.
In essence, the majority of the fourth season, for Betty, is about whether or not she is ready to spread her wings and fly or if, just perhaps, MODE is the right place for her after all. This basic question is asked repeatedly through the season as Betty starts a blog in one episode, is offered a job in another, and finally has to make a decision about her place in the series finale.
It was decided early enough during the season that Betty would not return for a fifth year that the producers had ample time to end the story of Betty, her co-workers, and her family in the way they wanted. With television shows this can be both a blessing and a curse - the producers' goals may or may not come across on screen and fans may or may not accept what the producers had in mind.
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