Spring TV Preview: The Scoop on 26 Returning Shows

Image credit: Karen Neal

UGLY BETTY
APRIL 24 · 8 PM · ABC
EPISODES LEFT: 5

WHERE WE LEFT OFF: Betty (America Ferrera) was getting frustrated with uptight nerdy-hot boyfriend Henry (Christopher Gorham); Wilhelmina (Vanessa Williams) had coerced Christina (Ashley Jensen) into carrying her baby with the late Bradford Meade (Alan Dale); while Daniel (Eric Mabius) was dating Wilhelmina's little sister Renee (Gabrielle Union).

UP NEXT: During the strike, Betty exec producer Silvio Horta and star Ferrera spent hours watching their own show and came to the same realization. ''In the second season we lost a lot of what we loved about Betty,'' says Ferrera. As Horta explains it, ''We were getting away from Betty's point of view. The show had become incredibly funny, but it started to lose some of its heart.'' As soon as the team returned to work (with new executive producer Joel Fields, who replaced Marco Pennette), Horta wrote the word ''Heart'' on a dry-erase board for all the writers to see. ''Whenever we're lost or confused with a story line, we look at that,'' he says. Several pre-strike stories were altered or scrapped (including a musical episode) for new plots that will include Betty's love triangle with Henry and Gio (Freddy Rodriguez), a Meade publications softball game (perhaps featuring the athletic stylings of Naomi Campbell), and, of course, the return of Wilhelmina to Mode. Ferrera couldn't be happier about the show's refocusing. ''If anything good came out of the strike, it's that we were able to step back and breathe,'' she says. ''We're coming back with our heads on straight.'' —Jessica Shaw