A couple of months ago, when news of Ugly Betty's move to Friday nights was finally unveiled, there were gasps of horror and scepticism wailing in the air amongst TV critics and fans alike.
From what I've read, people in America do not watch TV on Friday evenings- they prefer to go out instead. Plus, in TV land it is considered the start of the beginning of a show's decline. In fact, the shows that are on Friday nights in U.S. tend to be ones that people do not care for in the slightest. For the last three seasons, Ugly Betty had occupied the Thursday night slot and whilst the first two seasons- or be it the first season- was a major success story, Season 3 in U.S. has been struggling in the ratings. Viewers were deserting this show in droves and for many ex-Ugly Betty fans, who loved seasons 1 and 2 but were left unimpressed by season 3, for them enough was enough.
The fourth season will bring a lot of challenges and it will be interesting to see whether Ugly Betty's quality still holds up. Fans have signalled this move as the death of Ugly Betty and that as a show, there is no way it will recover from it, for as long as they do not watch it on Friday nights.
It is rather a pity that in the States, for a show as hugely massive and popular as Ugly Betty is to be aired on Friday nights, fans are really starting to buy into this doubt and not watch the fourth season; here in the UK, when Ugly Betty first arrived on British shores a year later after its debut in the States in 2007, there was a lot of hype and publicity by Channel 4, who bought the rights to this show for the UK market.
The first series had aired on Friday evenings at 9.00pm, and it was an instant ratings smash and as the episodes got better, so did the viewing figures. According to Wikipedia, from what I've read, the pilot episode attracted almost 5 million- which for a relatively small channel such as Channel 4, is very impressive. The series 1 finale episode, 'East Side Story' achieved 3.2 million in the UK alone. The second series fared well too, even though I am not a personal fan of it; again this was on Fridays.
Channel 4 on Friday nights in the UK, back then was a massive showcase for American imported TV- it was always that way- the likes of Friends, Frasier and Ugly Betty were occupying the time-slots, and British viewers had always looked forward to sitting in front of the TV at home watching the likes of Marc, Amanda, Wilhelmina and Betty get up to all manners of mischief and hilarity.
Just recently, the third series of Ugly Betty was moved to Wednesday nights- and then onto Monday nights, and as much as I miss watching it on Fridays, it is still doing very well.
I do hope that the American Ugly Betty fans will especially take heart from this and be encouraged by the success of this show in the UK when it was on Friday nights here, and see this as not as the beginning of the end but that the time slot is not so much of a factor. As long as the quality of the storylines and episodes get better as the fourth season goes on, then that is all that really matters at the end of the day and show will live another day.
Or be it another season :).
Waiching
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