'Ugly Betty' still looking good, but 'Grey's Anatomy' ailing

The conundrum of TV drama - or any drama, for that matter, on stage or screen - is it attempts to be realistic, but in real life people strive to be content and happy, yet they're not permitted that in a story, because there's nothing more boring than someone content and happy.

When Tolstoy opens "Anna Karenina" by suggesting all happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unique, what does he do next but leap right into an unhappy household?

ABC's "Ugly Betty" and "Grey's Anatomy" confront that head on with their season premieres today, but one proves to be much better than the other at managing the contradictions.

I'm going to issue a rare spoiler alert right away on "Ugly Betty," which premieres at 7 p.m. today on WLS Channel 7, because there's no way to write about it without revealing some secrets straight off. When last we saw America Ferrara's Betty Suarez, she was weighing the romantic pros and cons between Christopher Gorham's Henry, who was moving to Arizona with his child, and Freddy Rodriguez's Gio, who was offering to spirit her off to Rome. Well, considering that the show itself is moving to New York City this season to shoot on location, it's safe to say she chooses neither - or, rather, opts for her career over romance.

That's a daring move already, and it seems real and affirmative even as it defers happiness and contentment. Shooting on location also gives the series a burst of energy, as tonight's season opener, "The Manhattan Project," finds Betty resolving to move out of her family home in Queens and into an apartment of her own downtown.

Meanwhile, the political infighting goes on at the Mode publishing house, as Betty's boss, Eric Mabius' Daniel, has been exiled to run Player, "the third-largest non-nudity men's magazine," and Betty has to follow along. If you think it was hard dealing with the scheming Amanda (Becki Newton) and Marc (Michael Urie), try confronting a staff of Neanderthal louts instead.

Yet Betty prevails, at least to start, despite a motorcycle mishap and a food fight with Lindsay Lohan's mean manager Kimmie at Flushing Burger. (I love the names they come up with on this show, including the menopause magazine Hot Flash.) This season finds "Betty" re-energized and embarking on a series of new endeavors, while subtly re-emphasizing the importance of family. It is once again highly recommended viewing.

Not so "Grey's Anatomy," which follows with a two-hour season premiere at 8 on Channel 7. The show's fifth year begins with Seattle Grace Hospital having been downgraded to only the 12th-best teaching hospital in the nation - and no wonder. Between the apartment explosions and people coming back from the dead and Code Blacks and outbreaks of sexually transmitted disease and the nurses' strike and the chief of surgery having a brain operation and the doctors and residents practicing their bedside manners on each other as well as the patients, it's amazing the hospital is still certified at all.

All that drama, of course, has typically placed the series in the top 10 in the Nielsen ratings, but it's also strained belief, and there seems to a lot of self-referential points to tonight's dialogue, with James Pickens Jr.'s Chief of Surgery Richard Webber urging the staff to pull itself up by its bootstraps, that "we've been resting on our laurels."

Even so, the show can't resist dragging in Bernadette Peters, Kathy Baker and Mariette Hartley as three high-profile guest-star patients - and then having their insurance conveniently expire at midnight to put a deadline on their treatment. Oh, and they've got a romantic tangle going, too. If that's not enough, one person gets speared with an icicle - you read that right, an icicle.

Of course, it's all really about the relationship between Ellen Pompeo's Meredith Grey and Patrick Dempsey's "McDreamy" Dr. Derek Shepherd. They finally seem ready to settle down together, but of course they can't be permitted any happiness, because that would be boring, so Meredith obsesses over the issues of fidelity and love until even Sandra Oh's Cristina Yang is telling her, "Shut up!"

I know there has to be drama in a drama, but writer-creator Shonda Rhimes doesn't know when to quit. "Grey's Anatomy" is terminally over the top and has gone beyond the critical list; from here on, it's dead to me.

In the air

Remotely interesting: WBBM Channel 2 has officially shifted to broadcasting from its new street-level studios at Washington and Dearborn downtown. Kelly Czarnecki, 22, of Buffalo Grove competes in "Survivor: Gabon" when it debuts at 7 p.m. today on Channel 2. CBS has renewed the summer replacement "Flashpoint" for another season.

NBC's "My Name Is Earl" returns with two new episodes at 7 p.m. today on WMAQ Channel 5, followed by an hourlong "The Office" at 8 and the debut of the final season of "ER" at 9.

End of the dial: WTMX 101.9-FM was named Adult Contemporary Station of the Year in the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Awards last week.

Yet Mix morning hosts Kathy Hart and Eric Ferguson lost out in Major Market Personality of the Year to Ryan Seacrest.