Pilot

"Pilot" is the first episode and the series premiere of the American comedy-drama series Ugly Betty. It first aired on September 28, 2006 on the ABC network in the United States. This is also the most watched episode of the season and the series with more than 16 million viewers. Plot Betty Suarez, an unglamorous woman in her 20s, starts work for a fashion magazine called MODE, and in the process is introduced to the harsh treatment she will have to deal with from her more beautiful co-workers. She also meets with her boss, Daniel Meade, who was just named the new editor in chief by his father, Bradford Meade. Daniel succeeds the revered Fey Sommers, who was killed in a suspicious car accident. The announcement of Daniel being named editor-in-chief does not sit well with Wilhelmina Slater, the magazine's creative editor who has been vying for the position herself. Daniel is not keen about having Betty working with him because she is homely, so he plots to have her quit by giving her difficult and outrageous tasks. When Betty gets wind of this from the company seamstress, Christina McKinney, she is badly hurt and says that perhaps that is the way she was supposed to land a job. After Daniel makes Betty stand in for an embarrassing modeling shoot, he has a change of heart after realizing what he is putting her through and halts the shoot as Betty walks out in anger and tears, leaving a regretful Daniel behind. In her personal life, Betty has to deal with her sister Hilda Suarez, a single mother who thinks that her college-educated sister is not cut out for work in the fashion world, and wants Betty to join her in selling Herbalux. Betty takes responsibility for her father Ignacio Suarez by phoning his HMO to get treatment for his health condition. As well as this, Betty's boyfriend, Walter, dumps her for her neighbor Gina Gambarro. After going to Gina's house to complain about her dating activities, and walking in on her making out with another man, Betty learns that Gina was using Walter in order to get a discount on a plasma TV. Fuming, Betty storms out of Gina's house, accidentally destroying the TV in the process.