ABC's very successful hit series, Ugly Betty has made its mark on American television history, but that won't be the case when it heads to Colombia , which is ironically where the original series, Yo Soy Betty La Fea, began. Ugly Betty has just begun airing in Latin America , but many express their dislike towards the Emmy Award-nominated comedy series. Colombians think that the show is merely a pale imitation and counterfeit of the original series.

Watching the gringo version would be like reading [Gabriel Garcia Marquez's] 100 Years of Solitude in English, said Fabian Sanabria, an anthropologist at the Universidad Nacional who studies television. "It makes no sense."

However, the executives at Sony Entertainment Television, which operates a Latin American cable channel that does reach more than 17 million viewers, disagree with Sanabria's statement.

"Even though everybody in Latin America knows the story from Betty la Fea, I think Ugly Betty brings something different," Carolina Padula, a chief programmer for Sony, commented. "It's an adaptation and a very successful one."

Surely, there are a lot of differences between Ugly Betty and its Colombian counterpart. For one, the original Betty worked at a design shop, while in the U.S. version, Betty Suarez, played by Emmy winner for Best Actress America Ferrera, is working as an assistant at a fashion magazine.

The shows' presentation are also very different, as the original was a soap opera with daily cliffhangers. The American version is a weekly show with fewer cliffhangers.

Despite the initial viewer reactions and all the talk about the show, Padula is confident that Ugly Betty will become a hit for her network as well.

"The show has a lot of attitude, a sense of humor and high quality," she said of the show, which debuted in Latin America early last month. "It portrays, in a very positive way, Latin American culture. It sets aside stereotypes, in a very positive way. It has a lot of differences from the original Betty la Fea, but it still keeps faith with the original version."

However, it seems that the Colombian communities refuse to accept this.

"This series could be a moderate success around the rest of Latin America, or it could even be as successful as The Sopranos or 24," Omar Rincon, the TV critic at Bogota 's El Tiempo newspaper, said. "But in Colombia , no one will watch it."