The TV Zone

While “Ugly Betty” is in network repeats -- it’s Christmas this week (Thursday at 8 on ABC/7) -- you can tune to webisodes of Betty’s fave novelas at abc.com.

“Muchas Muchachas,” translated as “Dancing Queens,” is a 4-minute serial at a pole-dancing club where a klutzy waitress shares space with two catfighting stage babes and plenty o’ hunks. Even with dialogue in Spanish, the sexual scheming and lurid overacting are universal. (Once each episode goes into the online archive, it’s beautifully-badly dubbed into English.)

Also online -- the show’s original novela, “Vidas de Fuego” (Lives of Fire), involving a cattle ranch, a hunky priest, a pregnant nun, and more outlandish fun. [ABC promotional graphic above.]

"Betty's" telenovelas also go mobile via Verizon V Cast cell phone video.