Skip to main content

"Ugly Betty" to Get Uglier

I didn't always hate Lindsay Lohan.

There was a time, probably around the era of the Tina Fey-scripted comedy Mean Girls, where I quite liked Lindsay; she had matured from a kid actor into a sexy, self-assured bombshell of a woman with fine comedic chops and a burgeoning career. Since then, she's become a punchline of a joke no one cares about any more: trashy, crotch-flashing tabloid fodder.

So I was pretty irked to see that she was joining the cast of Ugly Betty, a series which is making me slightly nauseous with all the good cheer, melodrama, and "heart" that they've been cramming down our throats since firing showrunner Marco Pennette, the man responsible for adding some much needed laughs (and for making characters Alexis, Mark, and Amanda not only likable but three-dimensional).

Yes, folks, the same people that wrote the word "heart" on the white board in the writers room of Betty have chosen to cast one of the most despicable starlets not just in a guest role... but in several episodes of Ugly Betty. Lohan is slated to appear in the season finale of Ugly Betty, airing May 22nd, as well as five episodes next season, the series' third.

Lohan will play a former classmate of Betty's who was, well, a mean girl to our heroine back in the day but whose life has--like Lohan's--taken a turn for the worse since then. Unlike Betty Suarez, who is working for Mode magazine, has a fantastic boyfriend (who impregnated his ex-girlfriend!), and an exciting life filled to the brim with, well, good cheer, melodrama, and heart.

Bets are on to see how long before Lohan's character beds Betty's boss Daniel, her boyfriend Henry, or both...

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Big Bang Theory/How I Met Your Mother (CBS); Deal or No Deal (NBC; 8-10 pm); Gossip Girl (CW); Dancing With the Stars (ABC; 8-9:30 pm); Bones (FOX)

9 pm: Two and a Half Men/Rules of Engagement (CBS); One Tree Hill (CW); Samantha Who? (ABC; 9:30-10 pm); House (FOX)

10 pm: CSI Miami (CBS); Medium (NBC); The Bachelor: The Women Tell All (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

8 pm: Gossip Girl.

The naughty teen soap continues tonight with a brand new episode! On tonight's episode ("All About My Brother"), Georgina (Michelle Trachtenberg) threatens to reveal some potentially damaging information about Serena's past; Blair and Jenny spread rumors about one another through the Gossip Girl website; Dan catches Jenny's new boyfriend cheating on her.

Comments

Anonymous said…
No offense but to get upset just because you don't like her personal life is extremely shallow and narrow-minded. I think she's a good actress and if she wants to be a trainwreck, who cares? I'm interested to see her on the show.
Anonymous said…
I completely agree with you Jace. for a show that tries to be inspirational for many young girls, I think it;s shameful that they've cast such a trashy tabloid whore like Lindsay Lohan.

Anonymous, I care that she's a trainwreck. She shouldn't be given more of a soapbox or public stage than she already has.
Anonymous said…
I am not really a fan of certain blatant stunt casting (pretty much any time Paris Hilton shows up somewhere). I am also not a fan of stunt casting that takes over a series (see: Will and Grace). Or stunt casting that is so inorganic to a show (See:Brit on How I Met your Mother).

But...

I dunno. This doesn't bother me so much. Unlike certain trainwrecks (Back to Britney again), I am actually rooting for LL to get it together. Because she was so promising and seemed like she had genuine acting talent (unlike, say, Britney or Paris), I would like to see her get her life together. And I think that if she is going to do tv, this seems like a great, natural fit.

Alcholism is a disease. I've seen what it can do to your normal, every day non-starlet. If she wants to change and get her shit together, I want her to succeed. And I would say that about anyone - starlet and non-starlet alike.

I now step off my soapbox.
Anonymous said…
"Anonymous" (I love how people who leave rude comments always hide behind this),

I don't believe Jace said that Lindsay Lohan was a bad actress. In fact, I think the article was mostly about Ugly Betty and how it's suffered lately, replacing its humor with "heart" and moxie with melodrama. Lohan's casting just seems to be one more trick they're pulling out of their sleeves, rather than a brave casting move. So, get over it. And don't ever say "no offense" when you clearly have the intent to offend. It just looks silly.

Popular posts from this blog

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

Pilot Inspektor: CBS' "Smith"

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian

The Daily Beast: "How The Killing Went Wrong"

While the uproar over the U.S. version of The Killing has quieted, the show is still a pale imitation of the Danish series on which it is based. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "How The Killing Went Wrong," in which I look at how The Killing has handled itself during its second season, and compare it to the stunning and electrifying original Danish series, Forbrydelsen , on which it is based. (I recently watched all 20 episodes of Forbrydelsen over a few evenings.) The original is a mind-blowing and gut-wrenching work of genius. It’s not necessary to rehash the anger that followed in the wake of the conclusion last June of the first season of AMC’s mystery drama The Killing, based on Søren Sveistrup’s landmark Danish show Forbrydelsen, which follows the murder of a schoolgirl and its impact on the people whose lives the investigation touches upon. What followed were irate reviews, burnished with the “burning intensity of 10,000 white-hot suns