Wonder Woman gets us out from under

When the marketers of this DVD set call this the complete "first season" of Wonder Woman, it's a bit of joke. They may as well call it the ABC years, because this set actually covers all of the episodes that network aired over the course of two full seasons. ABC was reluctant to pick up Wonder Woman, never giving her a regular spot in its schedule, yet even more reluctant to let her go. Be that as it may, fans of Wonder Woman tend to agree that this is the best of the TV series.

ABC's previous effort to bring Wonder Woman to network TV in the early 70s tried to update and sophisticate Charles Moulton's famous female answer to Superman. It put blonde Cathy Lee Crosby in the title role. Although interesting to watch, the pilot failed to sell as a series. Warner Brothers went back to the drawing board to give Wonder Woman fans the World War II character they loved so much. Stanley Ralph Ross's teleplay for The New, Original Wonder Woman, which first aired on ABC November 7, 1975, faithfully follows Moulton's origin story and is simply ...er, wonderful. It should do Gloria Steinem proud.

WWII pilot Steven Trevor crash lands on Paradise Island, a refuge for the remaining Amazons of Greek/Roman mythology. They—especially Princess Diana—nurse him back to health. Their queen, Hippolyte, realizes one of her subjects must be sacrificed to return Trevor to his home. Hippolyte organizes a competition to locate the best woman for the job and forbids her daughter, Diana, to enter. Diana, who has fallen in love with Trevor, defies Hippolyte by entering the masked competition and wins. She returns Trevor to his post, only to find him and the rest of the world threatened by the Nazi regime. Diana, dressed in the American patriotic costume given to her by her mother, won't rest until the fascists fold.

Lynda Carter may not have had the Jean Harlowish face first depicted by artist H.G. Peter, but she is a perfect physical match as Wonder Woman. She is tall, brunette, and fills out the costume the way many other women would like to. Her poise and sense of humor capture the "sophisticated camp" quality the producers aimed for without going overboard. Her youth at the time the pilot was filmed also gives the naiveté of the character an aura of credibility.

Cloris Leachman (Bad Santa) makes a delightful Queen Hippolyte. She gives the Amazon liege dignity, motivation, and a whimsical quality the audience can always enjoy. Lyle Waggoner (The Carol Burnett Show), who was Playgirl's first centerfold, as Steven Trevor is always a pleasure to watch. Considering Trevor is a character that has never been properly defined no matter which medium he's been found in, Waggoner manages the light approach well. Other members of the pilot’s cast include John Randolph (Prizzi's Honor), Red Buttons (Knots Landing), Stella Stevens (The Poseidon Adventure), Fannie Flagg (Fried Green Tomatoes), and Henry Gibson (Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In), giving this TV movie an impressive lineup.

Director Leonard J. Horn and Producer Douglas S. Cramer do a fantastic job recreating the look of the Golden Age comic book for the screen. The bullet-deflecting bracelets, magic lasso, and invisible plane are all there. Kudos to Donfeld on creating Wonder Woman's costume. It may not have the culottes it did when it was first published, but the integrity of its original design (which has an eagle on her chest, not the stylized W of today) is otherwise kept intact, along with some new accessories. The animated panel intro and comic book captions, which help set the scenes, are an endearing imaginative touch. The only flaw, which is tolerable, is that Steven Trevor's hair should have been blond.

For the record, the following episodes are included in this set:

“Wonder Meets the Baroness Von Gunther”: Spies are everywhere and Trevor is charged with enemy collaboration. In addition, Wonder Woman’s lasso ends up in Nazi hands.

“Fausta: The Nazi Wonder Woman”: Word of Wonder Woman’s abilities reach Berlin and appeal to their Arian philosophy. Fausta Grables (Lynda Day George), an Olympic champion, determines to learn the Amazon’s secrets after capturing her.

“Beauty on Parade”: Diana Prince (a.k.a. Wonder Woman) goes under cover as beauty contestant in order to catch a spy ring that’s sabotaging the operations of U.S. military operations.

“The Feminum Mystique,” Parts 1 & 2: When Diana’s kid sister, Drusilla (Debra Winger) goes to the man’s world on an errand for their mother, the Nazis learn the secret of their bracelets are feminum, a rare metal found only Paradise Island, where they invade to mine it for themselves.

“Wonder Woman vs. Gargantua”: An intelligent ape, Gargantua, is trained to defeat Wonder Woman, but Nazi scientists never anticipate how her compassion affects the attack.

“The Pluto File”: When a scientist develops the technology to create earthquakes, the Falcon (Robert Reed), a Nazi agent who is also a carrier of bubonic plague, steals the notes and sets Washington up for the biggest shaker it will ever see.

“Last of the Two-Dollar Bills”: The Nazi regime tries to sabotage the American economy by flooding it with counterfeit cash and replacing important officials with lookalikes.

“Judgment from Outer Space,” Parts 1 & 2: An alien council decides that humans’ propensity toward violence is intolerable and Earth must be destroyed. A dissenting member disagrees and goes to Earth to prove his humankind’s value to the universe.

“Formula 407": Steve and Diana go to Buenas Aires to pick up a special formula that gives rubber the strength of steel. Although Argentina is a neutral country during the war, the scientist developing this formula prefers to see the Allies win. Unfortunately, the Nazis want the formula too.

“The Bushwhackers”: During rationing, the illegal beef market is almost as hot as alcohol was during the Prohibition. With Wonder Woman’s help, Steve goes on assignment in Texas when someone is stealing cattle from one large ranch, where the proprietor is a good friend of General Blankenship (Richard Eastham).

“Wonder Woman in Hollywood”: In order to boost moral, Steve and a few other war heroes go to Hollywood to recreate their feats on film. Unbeknownst to the department, it is a Nazi plot to abduct the men.

Some tampering was done to the original episodes after their initial broadcasts. For example, “New, Original” was dropped from the title logo, since the Crosby version has faded from most viewers’ memories. In “The Pluto File”, some of the dialog was dubbed over to accurately “predict” true earthquake occurrences that actually happened after the 40s.

After the pilot, the series deviates from the comic book to better adjust to the film medium. For instance, the bracelets are something all Amazons are condemned to wear as reminder from a time they when they were all enslaved. If they remove them, they go amok. This part of the mythos was eliminated. What was also disappointing is the heavy emphasis on the Nazi regime. Granted, it was an evil mindset, but as the series originally aired, the anticipation of seeing Wonder Woman’s arch-antagonist, the Cheetah, never bore fruit.

The introduction of Drusilla, who appeared in three episodes, was probably an improvement over Wonder Woman’s comic book sister, Nubia. Nubia was black and the story that introduced her was poorly written and came off as a contrived whim to appeal to the ethnic market. She was given no meaningful purpose and quickly ignored. The comic book explains that Hippolyte molded a couple of statues from clay that one of the gods brought to life. (It’s hokey, but there is a precedent among the Greek legends.) One just has to assume that Drusilla came about the same way. It’s more benevolent than established Amazon legends. When they reproduced, their sires were killed after intercourse and baby boys were left to die on mountain sides from exposure. (The TV series definitely ignores and revises that aspect of Amazon mythology.) In addition, the unclarified aging element throws another inconsistency in the TV series continuity.

“Judgment from Outer Space” is the weakest script of the lot, despite being a two-parter. It touches on a topics to make viewers stop and think, yet the logistics are hideous. The motivation of the alien council to destroy Earth are too simplistic. How does Earth affect them? Why are they so concerned about a planet so distant from them? A viewer might see their point if the atom bomb had been dropped, but destroying the human race because of something they might do? This alien council needs a precedent to make their conclusions credible.

After the pilot, Richard Eastman took on the role of General Phil Blankenship, who was an original character introduced to the TV series as Steve’s immediate superior. Despite the series’ light approach, Eastham (Falcon Crest) conveys the dignity of authority. The Holliday Girls were dropped and Etta Candy (Beatrice Colen) plays Blankenship’s lonely secretary. Colen (Happy Days) gives her character the melancholy and humor required.

The guest cast that appeared on the show was quite impressive. Casting Winger (Urban Cowboy) as Drusilla is a point of pride for the series. It was Winger’s first major screen appearance. Carolyn Jones (The Addams Family) took over the role of Queen Hippolyte as the show progressed into a series. Barbara Anderson (Mission: Impossible), John Saxon (Genghis Khan) and Hayden Rorke (I Dream of Jeannie) were also noteworthy names. After a long absence of regularly seeing Roy Rogers (The Roy Rogers Show) on the screen, he appears in “The Bushwackers”. Unfortunately, his monotone dialog provides the weakest performance of the set.

At a time when almost all scripted TV shows were set in contemporary times, Wonder Woman had the distinction of taking place during the 40s. It is impressive how well the crew recreates the period sets with the cars and clothes of the decade. According to Cramer, Stevens used dresses worn by the likes of Joan Crawford or Virginia Mayo for her scenes, except this time they’re filmed in color. The special effects are amusing by today’s standards, as computers were tools that had yet to be developed for the film medium. It is obvious stock footage was used for some battle scenes. It works well with the campy approach it took. The invisible plane Wonder Woman flies in was a real prop and the sparks that burst off the bracelets were actual bursts developed by the company’s prop department. Unfortunately, budget restraints put limits on some of the bolder stunts Wonder Woman should have been able to do when the Sulkinds were able show the full extent of Superman’s powers at around the same time.

As for the DVD set, the colorful cover does a great job of capturing the tone of series. It is capable of English, French and Spanish subtitles. The English subtitles looked well done, dropping very little of any dialog. Among the special features it offers are an overlapping commentary of the pilot with Carter and Cramer. Carter says she was down to her last $25 when she offered the part and that the costumes (there were many copies) fetch around $30,000-$40,000 on the collector’s market. There is a recently filmed short documentary on the making of the series’s ABC tenure and Carter still looks good. Two of the discs are double-sided and when the viewer hits play from the main menu, they all will. The viewer needs to go to the episodes menu to play them one by one. There is no feature for chapter selections.

Wonder Woman is meant to be pure fun. Anyone who takes it too seriously needs to remember this material was adapted from the golden age of comic books, before they became the overcomplex things they are today. Think about it. People with superpowers running around in costumes with secret identities? Would any rational person actually walk out on the street like that? They’d have to have an exhibitionist streak to attract that sort of attention to themselves and would be too cocky to want to spend time around. Superheroes should not be taken so seriously. Wonder Woman, “the complete first season,” makes a worthy companion piece to Christopher Reeve’s Superman movies. After nearly 30 years, it's about time Warner Brothers let us watch Wonder Woman fight for our rights and the good old red, white and blue on DVD. This is actually a 4.5 rating, but Epinions lacks that option.


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Originally posted at Amazon.com on July 10, 2000. It has been updated and revised for Epinions.