Dave: "OK. The guy who quit this morning…his desk…needs to be cleaned out…by you for me." Beth: "Speak…not to me as if a child I am. OK, Yoda?" ("The Song Remains the Same" [2-14])   "Oh my God. That must be so demeaning, making coffee all day for people…wait a minute!" – Beth ("Review" [3-2])

Vicki Lewis’ Beth quickly grew into a very strong character. She was initially conceived as a cynical slacker with a trashy fashion sense and ‘easy’ romantic standards. The character was refined, and by the second season we saw some of the girlish demeanor that made Beth the most compassionate character on the show. Lewis seems to possess natural girlishness, and I think that playing to her true personality was what allowed her to deepen the Beth character into a more multidimensional creation. This was also the reason why Beth seemed much, much younger than Vicki Lewis’ real age.⁸

Lewis also developed a physical acting style for NewsRadio. Beth was especially entrancing when she was hamming it up, showing a flair for such melodramatic antics as in "Bitch Session" [2-12] (Beth and Bill perform a one-act play) or "Apartment" [5-12] (Beth and other members of the staff spice it up for the WNYX web site). Beth was no mere firebrand but a subtle firebrand with a sense of style. Her extrovert girlishness also seemed to work especially well in situations where she individually rounds up staff members for a staff meeting (for example, in "Daydream" [3-7] and "Rap" [3-12]) or when she tries to get voted into the men’s restroom in "Assistant" [5-15]. As Vicki Lewis once described the character: "Beth looks zany, but she’s the most together person in that office. That’s the irony. She’s a great secretary." Consequently, that ring of truth meant that I was most struck by Beth when she actually had recourse to do her job, such as when she really plays the role of Dave’s secretary by laying out his cards in "The Cane" [2-9] or when she has to coax and coach Lisa in "Pure Evil" [4-6].

No scene demonstrates Beth’s paradoxical combination of innocence and hard-boiled cynicism better than a scene from "Christmas" [3-10]. Bill is looking for someone to do an ad demo with him, but after Catherine and Lisa turn him down without hesitation, he asks Beth to do the spot. She is flattered and joyfully agrees but also immediately asks, "How much does it pay?" Similarly, when Beth, Catherine and Lisa find a cache of porno magazines in Dave’s office in "Kids" [3-16], Beth naively rationalizes the finding.

Beth: "…we all know that men need to look at these on a regular basis or they can get really sick."

Catherine: "All right, Beth, which one of your former boyfriends told you that?"

Beth: "All of them."

Beth’s main contribution to the show was to provide compassion to the characters’ relationships, adding heart to what could be described as mean or bitchy. It was Beth who protected the secret of Dave and Lisa’s affair from the rest of the staff in the early part of the series. Also, her relationship with Mr. James became touchingly like daughter and father. She was truly concerned for Mr. James’ safety in "Balloon" [4-17], and Jimmy went out of his way to protect Beth in episodes such as "Zoso" [2-16] (Jimmy teaches Beth the art of negotiation), "Stocks" [3-9] (Jimmy gives Beth stock tips), and "Spooky Rapping Crypt" [5-10] (Jimmy becomes distraught when Beth temporarily quits in protest over the lack of employee profit sharing). She was touchingly sisterly towards Matthew in "Big Brother" [4-16] and "Review" [3-2] and charmingly girlish in "Boston" [5-9]. A paternal aspect to the Bill-Beth relationship added a touch of the taboo to their potential romance (which always seemed to be a relationship filed away for future use).

Note: Many see the Kathy Griffin character on Suddenly Susan, a wacky redhead secretary named Vicki, as an outright copy of Beth. When asked about this in Time magazine, Lewis’ reply was, "I do find it coincidental that I was on the air for a year and a half, and my real name is Vicki, and there appeared a character named Vicki dressed like my twin on a new show. They basically copied our set, and there’s all the characters with their names different." Lewis’ creation Beth is just another of the completely original aspects that NewsRadio can take pride in, and if the charge is true then we can perhaps take heart that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

⁹ Duffy, Mike. "Playing bent Beth a delight for Vicki Lewis" in Knight-Ridder Newspapers. (Nov. 14, 1995)

¹⁰ Time magazine, May 10, 1999.