Rewatching the 70s Wonder Woman TV Show

[lorenzovanmatte]

Continued from the proposed remake thread, thought I'd seperate them to avoid arguments

Wonder Woman in Hollywood
Again this smacks of the cheap and cheerful, "Let's film this on the backlot and not even have to pretend it isn't a movie set". You wonder towards the end of the season was the budget running out? Last appearance of Drusilla (Debra Winger NOT happy in the role by all accounts) and a third different actress playing the Amazon Queen. Great guest cast with Harris Yeulin who'll later be Quentin Travers on Buffy, Robert Hays who'll find fame in the Airplane series and Charles Cyphers who will later become one of John Carpenters rep cast. Dru likes hot-dogs and ice cream which don't seem to exist on Paradise Island (maybe they're not so advanced after all?) Another girly crush from Drusilla, this guy at least not a secret Nazi so that's a step up for her. We also have the infamous WW and Wondergirl running sequence which must have inspired Baywatch. 6/10

The Return of Wonder Woman
So here we are in the 70s! For me this is the real WW, the one I remember watching as a little girl, I never saw the WW2 series growing up, they may not have shown it in Europe?. Personally I think it works better in modern times, it also has the added bonus of being a lot cheaper to make, you don't need to put everyone in period costume, rent classic cars etc, you can just film it on the street. Coming up to modern times means that Diana Prince can be a full agent of the IADC and not just Steve's secretary (although her bosses are still all male). Interestingly the Amazon's on Paradise Island actually overule their Queen, perhaps WW brought the concept of democracy back with her in the 40s. Maybe they wish to once more intervene in the world of men AND women? The costume has changed and Lynda looks fabulous in it, the breastplate softened to make it look less hardened and more feminine, accentuating WW's breasts more than ever. More highly cut hot pants turning them into bikini bottoms, no more satin tights either so they had to change the theme tune but even more delectable Lynda Carter flesh on display. I always thought she looked rather cherubic in the first season (especially evident if you look at the DVD cover) but now she looks superhot, the straightened hair also an improvement. Lyle now in suits and looking like he's going to die of polyester poisoning if all the vaseline on his teeth doesn't get him first, he really does resemble a Ken doll. He's on the screen for 5 minutes and he gets knocked out, he takes after his old man alright. The opening titles are a lot less cartoony although they do actually contain some of WW's infamous bondage theme, her freeing herself from being tied to a stake. The ep itself deals with nuclear power and insurrection in South America which were big concerns at the time. The Amazons have been keeping up with technology and WW's invisible plane is now a jet. She makes now attempt to try to make any money this time but maybe Yeoman Prince left her bank account acquiring interest for the last 30 years, Highlander style?
So, where's Drusilla? Did she marry the guy she had a crush on during Wonder Woman in Hollywood? What happened to Steve and WW at the end of WW2? Did she just decide to leave the US after the end of the war? Who did Steve marry? His son refers to him in the past tense and WW doesn't think to ask after him or visit him so are we to assume he's dead? Presumably he must be if WW is able to use the same alias as she did in the 40s otherwise he'd surely twig something was up if his son's new agent had the same name as his old secretary 6/10

 

[Isub_Zero]

How many Actresses portrayed Hippolyta during this show?

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

3 I believe, one in the pilot, one in The Feminium Mystique and one in the Return of Wonder Woman and The Bermuda Triangle Crisis. But none of them are ever actually named, they're just the Amazon Queen

 

[Isub_Zero]

You mean you've seen 3 so far or during the entire series?

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

During the entire series

Anschluss 77
Where there's Wonder Woman there has to be Nazis off course! Once again a very real concern in the 70s with the rise of the neo-Nazi movement and many Nazis still hiding out in South and Central America, the Irish Free State and elsewhere . This ep contains the famous scene where Lynda Carter dangles from the helicopter rather than her stunt double, even today it's an impressive and gutsy thing to watch. One hilarious aspect is that the one Nazi who has had his leg regrown is the only one to be rather conveniently wearing a rather effeminate pair of shorts. Also they decide that rather than to just shoot Diana Prince they'll tie her up (again!) and set off some dynamite in true Penelope Pitstop style. We have the very unusual sight of WW disguising herself as a nurse, something of a rarity, it's normally Diana Prince who assumes the disguises. Does she kill Hitler? Arguably yes. We also have the most graphic ever example of her strength, able to defeat a tank. WW's return is worldwide news with her featured on the cover of Time/Tempo. Once again Steve's dad is referred to in the past tense whilst Jo Atkinson refers to serving in the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA. Anschluss is the term used to denote the unification of Nazi Germany with Austria in the 30s as featured in the Sound of Music. Interesting to compare this ep with some episodes of The New Avengers which also deal with Nazis, clones and suspended animation. It also marks the introduction of the unseen President (a southerner, like Jimmy Carter) briefing the team very much in the style of the contemporary Charlie's Angels. I always thought that if there's a new Wonder Woman series she should save the life of an unseen and unnamed US president who in the last scene is revealed to be Lynda Carter, the secretary from the 1940s now the most powerful person in the world. Steve actually proves himself pretty useful here which makes a nice change, acting more as a team with WW than just needing to be rescued. WW uses acupuncture skill much as Xena will later utilise. One scene I'd have liked to see would have been Diana meeting up with a US goverment scientist and recognising him as a Nazi war criminal she tangled with in the 40s, now resettled Dr Strangelove style in the US and his past covered up by the goverment keen to exploit his genius.
6/10

The Man who could move the World
Once again the series returns to the subject of the internment Japanese Americans during WW2, a brave move to do at the time. Interesting scene where we see WW looking at a collection of her own memorabilia dating from the 40s. Here we see WW depowered once more but by her own choice, removing her bracelets and belt to face her foe. A very very strange mind control fetish film based on this clip with WW controlled by Ishida, the opening sequence makes it look like WW is doing the dance from 'Thriller' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzZ4NocrpkA&NR=1 . Allegedly there's a goof during this ep where you can actually glimpse one of Lynda Carter's stunt doubles in the background with WW in the foreground but I've never been able to spot it during numerous rewatches. One thing that is obvious though is that when we see WW in the WW2 flashback she's wearing her 1970s era costume. Of course maybe she changed it before the end of WW2 so it's not necessarily an anachronism.
Here we have a sympathetic villain rather than the usual 2-D baddie and the series is probably better for it. 6/10

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

The Bermuda Triangle Crisis
Once again we have a possible clash between the interests of the US and the Amazons, nuclear power controversial once again (and this is BEFORE 3 mile island). We see WW communicate with home via her magic mirror although I'm not really sure why she feels the need to transform into costume first, surely her mother would recognise her as Diana Prince. We have a downed US aviator as a prison of war being tortured which is pretty near the knuckle, the last Vietnam POWs having only returned a few years previously. We have some very blatantly installed stock footage garnered from the old TV series 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' and the classic WW2 film 'The Enemy Below'. Best of all though we have WW in her skintight figurehugging drysuit which is really quite something to behold, especially for mummification fetishists (yes they exist, google it) http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments=1&v=u7_oEd5ZUoY . The scene where she plants the mines on the side of the sub is quite blatantly shot in a swimming pool but we're so busy gawping at Lynda we really don't notice (which could be pretty much a description for the success of the entire series). Reputedly the inital Wonder Woman swimming outfit was a skimpy red, white and blue bikini but it wouldn't stay on Lynda as she did her stunts so they switched to the bodyhugging drysuit instead. LOVE to see THAT footage sometime!
http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=wonder+woman++bikini#/d2p14td
http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=wonder+woman++bikini#/d284vih
http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=wonder woman bikini&order=9&offset=72#/dsubwx
Love her punch the air gesture as she surfaces, rare to see her make such a triumphant action. We also see her in action as Diana, very nearly rescuing the prisoner. One question, if she's able to hold her breath for so long underwater how come she's always getting chloroformed, couldn't she just hold her breath?
7/10 worth it for swimming WW alone
　
Knockout
We're off to LA and Steve get's kidnapped, of course! Here we have terrorism in it's recognisable 70s form, memories of Munich, Patty Hearst and the SLA etc still fresh. We also have a black female ex-cop which must have been a great rarity back then. Ted Shackleford will recur later and go on to soap stardom in 'Dallas/Knot's Landing' and 'The Young and the Restless'. We also have a character called 'Tom Baker' who was the contemporary Dr Who which may be just coincidence or the writer was a fan.
5/10, not much to recommend it really. I think one way for WW to have been a better series would have been to have had more powerful villains, the one's she deals with are just normally so lame they never seem much of a threat. You'd love to have seen the Joker or Catwoman or someone on the series but you would suspect they would have been too expensive.

 

[Isub_Zero]

Are you rewatching the series on DVDs or via the net?

 

[Metallo]

I really enjoyed the series. Especially that first season. The 40s setting was great. And Lynda Carter...

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

I really enjoyed the series. Especially that first season. The 40s setting was great. And Lynda Carter...

Yeah, Lynda as WW in 1978 is possibly the most beautiful woman ever. Not a fan of the WW2 series however I seem to be in the minority. I'm rewatching the series on DVD (do like a Lynda Carter commentary)

The Pied Piper
Beware the perils of rock music groupiedom! Ok, a deleriously bad episode but one that's so bad it's brilliant!
Very much Jo Atkinsons ep with very little Steve, nice to see him get something more to do than just provide exposition.
Rule refers to the bicentennial and how WW would have been the perfect groupie for him then, you can't help but agree. Diana in her cape once more and she uses her tiara for the first time this season.
Considering that Wonder Woman's return was heralded in the national media how can she just turn up at Rule's mansion and no one recognises her, she's pretty damn distinctive. Mighty convenient too that helpless Diana has the good fortune to be in a spinning chair allowing her to achieve transformation.
Martin Mull one of those faces you see everywhere on TV on everything from Ellen to 2 and a Half Men. I remember him best as Sabrina's headmaster (and romancer of her hot Aunt Zelda) on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, in one ep he confesses that as a youth he tried to be a rockstar which may be a mighty clever in joke. He also returns to the DC universe in The New Adventures of Superman.
Obviously this is the ep that gets the Wonder Woman mind control fetishists all hot and bothered with both Diana and Wonder Woman surrendering to Hamlin's domination. Check out this fan film; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r26aoOF11d8
She's also not so much tied up as trapped in an iron maiden like chair. And she's gassed although she doesn't pass out for once, maybe all the times she's been chloroformed has allowed her to build up some form of resistance?
Almost ashamed to admit it but one of my favourites 8/10

 

[Isub_Zero]

How much does the DVD cost, lorenzo? Do you know if i can see the entire series via the net somewhere?

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

Don't know about the net but you can get the whole series on DVD for about $20

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb...ld-keywords=wonder+woman&sprefix=wonder+woman

 

[theMan-Bat]

I enjoy the third and second seasons much more than the first season. The first seasons song lyrics and how ridiculously it's sung makes me cringe. "In your satin tights, fighting for our rights and the old red, white and bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-uuuuuuuuuuuuuue! Wonder Womaaaaaaaan! Your a wonder Wonder Womaaaaaaaaaan!" Commenting about her "satin" tights in the theme makes it pretty obvious that they were going for laughs at the characters expense rather than sincerely paying tribute to the character, and then there's the sparkling eyes and teeth in the intro.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_blOQEu9ws
One of the worst parts of the first season is that they would always play the annoying woman singing "Wonder Womaaaaaaaaaan!" right in the middle of the fight scenes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jJrgpTzQxE
Wonder Woman losing her powers by removing her belt was the creation of lazy TV writers and is far to easy a way to defeat her and this happened in nearly every episode of the first season. The first season is too repetitive. In the comics she fought a wide variety of villains, but in the first season of the TV show she's almost always fighting Nazis. The Wonder Girl in the first season is Diana's younger sister, named Druscilla, which was another creation of the first season, not Donna Troy. Also setting Wonder Woman in the 1940s made the character seem very outdated, especially with the conservative 1940s version of the costume with the big bra and big granny panties.

The updated costume of the second and third seasons is a huge improvement.

Lynda herself preferred the second and third seasons. In her biography Intimate Portrait: Lynda Carter she said, "I got an updated costume and got to wear regular clothes (as Diana Prince) and there was a lot more places to go with the storyline. I thought it was good."
[YT]9PKQuMUFrfs[/YT]
In the second and third seasons the theme song became an instrumental.
[YT]_TrS-G_EbtA[/YT]
As in the comics, she had a wide variety of adventures and fought a wide variety of villains.

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

Both gorgeous although the second pic clearly has the edge, her bottoms more bikini like, her breasts more pronounced and exposed. Lynda's season 1&2 photoshoot and especially her 'I dare you' classic superheroine pose are just the amazing, she's never looked more beautiful (has anyone?)

The Queen and the Thief
David Hedison and John Calicos, two famous faces from 1970s fantasy. Hedison the only man to have played Felix Leiter twice in the Bond films and also naval officers in 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' and 'The Enemy Below' (both used in The Bermuda Triangle Crisis). John Calicos the original Baltar from Battlestar Galactica.
For all the show's femininst credentials when it comes to going undercover Diana is still the domestic servant and Steve still gets to be the President of the American/Malakar Cultural Association. But it does mean we have Diana in a rather fetching maid's outfit. We also have her turning into Wonder Woman and leaping her way to work just because she's a bit late in the morning (does Bruce Wayne use the Batmobile when he's late for board meetings?)
For once it's Steve who get's chloroformed. Aside from that not much remarkable or to be recommended for it
5/10

I do, I do
Henry Darrow again and once more in an ep with lots of horses. Lynda in a wedding dress (she'd just got married in real life) and in a swimsuit. We actually see her kiss a man, the only time I can think it happens in the series. I've heard if WW marries a man she loses her powers, can anyone fill me in how and why? She's gassed again but doesn't get the bizarre 'truth button' treatment the other wives get. Beyond that little to recommend this one. One obvious question, why couldn't they have had her marry Steve Trevor?
4/10

The Man who Made Volcanos
Roddy McDowell makes the first of his appearances on the show, a veteran of the DC universe having also appeared as The Bookworm in Batman and will go on to voice the The Mad Hatter in the animated series. We have competing Cold War powers including the Chinese and USSR, the first real acknowledgement that the conflict exists. The title sequence is revised with much of the cartoon and comic art removed. Very good performance from McDowell (what we can see of him through those specs) as a man prepared to cause great destruction in the name of peace and pretty thrilling scenes where WW stops the laser and is faced with being crushed by the walls closing in. One query, if McDowell's character is so dedicated to peace why does he pick such a sadistic way to try to kill off Diana? Last ep for Joe Atkinson, maybe now he can spend more time with his daughter?
7/10

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

Mind stealers from outer space pt1&2
Who could resist a title like that? Certainly not the studio hoping to ride the Star Wars mania sweeping the country! So Andros IS back or rather his son is, I just never realised it. So what happened to his dad? I guess that's a story from between seasons 1 and 2? Andros Jr played by the gorgeous and magnificently named 'Dack Rambo' who would go on to great fame in supersoap Dallas before becoming one of the high profile victims of the terrible AIDS epidemic which swept through the homosexual community in the early 80s along with Rock Hudson, Freddy Mercury etc. Ironically Rambo was his real surname (the book First Blood had been published at this point but Sylvester Stallone's film had yet to be made). But his real first name was Norman. We also have Earl Boen who'll go on to play Dr Silverman in the Terminator films. The Skrill are pretty stupid looking as is Sardor who may be influenced by Bigfoot on The Six Million Dollar Man. More weirdly re-edited fan films of their fight on Youtube. So the prescence of alien life is known to the general public in the Wonder Woman universe. We see WW address the UN, so why do so many people throughout the series still act as if they don't know who she is? IRAC know's Diana's true identity and there are actually hints of attraction between her and Andros. Sardor's wheezing and appearance is very Darth Vader. But nothing can distract the fact that the villains are really just a bunch of kids/midgets in outfits spraypainted green, even if they do make the R2D2 noise. Another new ability for WW, able to astral project.
5/10 no match for real Stormtroopers

The Deadly Toys
Frank Gorshin of course another DC alumni having played the Riddler on the Adam West Batman and a lawyer on The New Adventures of Superman. He's excellent here as the Toymaker although you'd wonder how he learned to make perfect robot doubles of people, it's never explained (maybe he's a Nazi war criminal in hiding, his accent suggests so). And if you could make perfect doubles of Wonder Woman why bother with crime when you could just sell them as sex-bots? John Rubenstein is also great (love the afro!) and will later also guest star in The New Adventures of Superman and as the villainous Linwood on Angel. I remember as a kid the melting men effect scared me and even now it looks pretty gruesome, not 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' gruesome but still. Another WW double and a truly bizarre scene where she faces off with a very surprised Diana Prince. Of course the Wonder Woman vs her robot double fight is the stuff of legend. This time it's Diana under the truth serum and knocked out again, this time by drug laced butterflies (trippy!). Good thing they never thought to ask her the obvious question. One rather lame aspect is that she's imprisoned in the most feeble cage ever, I mean chicken wire, really?
Very, very popular amongst the WW fetishists, both mind control and ASFR (people transformed into statues, living waxworks, robots etc), some people would actually have taken great delight if WW had been defeated and transformed into the Toymaker's latest plaything to judge by their comments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rk5iUPVOnU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvNstZTs8FY
One, question, what happened to the WW robot? We last see her knocked out in the Toymakers basement, could she still be up and about? Is the WW we see spraying 'Merry Christmas' on the shopfront at the end the real one or the recovered robot? What I like about her is not only the subtle way Lynda plays her differently from the genuine Wonder Woman (her acting skill really grows over time) but the fact we finally have a decent foe for her to fight, not just some more obvious stuntmen for her to throw around. The fight between them is imaginative and quite thrilling. We also have the 'arms race' referred to, a very real concern in the 70s. In the end Diana and Steve decide to allow the fake scientists to be shipped out of the country rather than the real ones, spreading disinformation and putting back the oppositions research for years, the sort of thing real spy agencies do.
8/10, kinda love this one

 

[blksuperman2]

lorenzovanmatte I apologize for being such a jerk in the other WW thread.

 

[theMan-Bat]

The Deadly Toys is one of my favorite episodes.

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

lorenzovanmatte I apologize for being such a jerk in the other WW thread.

No you were right, better to divide the threads up. And yeah, The Deadly Toys was a winner and no mistake.

Light fingered lady
Wonder Woman does heist movie. We see her in her swimsuit again and see her ability to communicate with animals when she charms the guard dog. We also have Bubba Smith who'll later go on to fame with the police academy films. Steve finally gets a kiss from Diana but sadly only on the cheek. Lovely line;
Villain; "You see what you get? You see what you get when you trust a woman?"
Steve; "Yeah, you get the job done!"
Story goes that Bubba Smith was reluctant to have his macho reputation tarnished by pretending to be thrown by a 'little white lady' (one of the few people who could call the statuesque Lynda Carter 'little') but Lynda Carter convinced him by doing it for real.
5/10

Screaming Javelins
Am I missing something? Who's this Mariposa guy and when did he meet Diana before? Why is he skydiving and why did Diana think he'd drowned in the North Sea? To judge by his comments he is the monarch of a non-existent country and owns a fleet of submarines. A great performance nevertheless from Henry Gibson, homicidally deranged yet somehow charming. His exit is actually pretty creepy but at the same time he seems to have a thing for Diana/WW with the flowers and chocolates. And to judge by her expression when she examines the flower he left her and his suit maybe she's at least intrigued by him.
Guest starring Rick Springfield who would go on to have a huge hit with Glee favourite 'Jessie's Girl' and would play Apollo's brother Zac in the original BSG (has the noteriety of being the first person to die in the series). Note Diana thinks that the roses are from Steve, hmmmm? Of course they're not and she get's chloroformed, again! Maybe I'm trying to find logic in the actions of a madman but surely the authorities would disqualify WW from the Olympics as they'd consider her magic belt and bracelets cheating?
This ep of course playd on the excitment to the build up towards the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the irony being that the US would boycott them in protest at the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Interestingly at the end WW tells the athletes they can compete for whichever country they want, which may be a subtle dig at the Warsaw Pact's restrictions on their athletes due to their habit of defecting whilst visiting the West.
7/10, pretty intresting

Diana's disappearing act
Ed Belgley Jnr enters as Harold Farnum. Well at least it's someone else to be knocked out, means Steve doesn't have to be the stooge all the time. This ep deals with the price of oil which was a real problem for the West during the energy crisis in the 70s. Lot's of stage magic and it seems that WW has dealt with the villains family 200-300 years before. So did they come to Paradise Island or has WW had adventures in the outside world before WW2? Morganna Le Fay's name is derived from Arthurian legend and maybe might be King Arthur's sister with whom he had his son, Mordred.
If you'll pardon the expression they missed a trick with the ending, they should have had WW defeat the villains on stage then turn to a baffled audience and go 'Ta-daaaa' like the classic magician's assistant.
5/10, not great

 

[Dave McFly]

I personally am a long time fan of the old WW tv show. I have all 3 seasons on DVD and I have the animated movie on blu ray (only 5 bucks too!). Lynda was probably next to Christopher Reeve the best casting of a DC comic character in live action. I hope that if they do the 'new series' or 'movie' she is involved hopefully she can play the 'new' WW's mom aka the Queen, that would ROCK!

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

I personally am a long time fan of the old WW tv show. I have all 3 seasons on DVD and I have the animated movie on blu ray (only 5 bucks too!). Lynda was probably next to Christopher Reeve the best casting of a DC comic character in live action. I hope that if they do the 'new series' or 'movie' she is involved hopefully she can play the 'new' WW's mom aka the Queen, that would ROCK!

Great avatar! It was almost worth not having Katy on Seasme Street just to have her in that SNL sketch. That said her live action appearance on The Simpsons was pretty risque too
"That's not my belly button....but I didn't say stop"t:

Death in disguise
Assasins in disguise were very popular in the 70s, largely due to Frederick Forsyth's hugely successful book 'The Day of the Jackal' and it's film adaptation. Here we have Diana horseriding, you always wondered what she did for a hobby. Indrezzano is a sexist jerk "That's impossible, you're a woman" but WW shows him the error of his ways. Note the team of assasins make their only female member work as their secretary and it's her that mispells IRAC as CARI.
6/10, ok

IRAC is missing
2 episodes featuring IRAC under threat in a row. Hilarious now watching these 'incredibly adavanced' 1970s style computers when you now know that your mobile phone probably contains more computing power than they did. But powerful mega-computers with personality something of an obsession in the late 70s. Here we have Rover allowing to IRAC to get out and about more. You do think of Twiki from Buck Rogers but also at the networks suggestion that the X-files employ a 'cute talking robot' as a sidekick for Scully and Mulder. You get the idea that they may have had an eye on the toy market with it? We see more and more of Diana Prince without her glasses, by this stage her disguise hardly seems necessary. But you could argue that when folks see Wonder Woman they're normally not looking at her eyes?
6/10

Flight into oblivion
Diana Prince back in uniform and looking mighty fine. Mind control once more but not on Diana/WW this time. This ep rather reminiscent of an old ep of Bill Bixby's pre-Hulk TV series The Magician which also had sleeper agents triggered by a special phrase (an idea Joss Whedon uses in every one of his shows). Some good skills from Steve who actually manages to rescue himself for once by using his watch alarm. They must have had a lot of co-operation from the US Air Force to do this but who wouldn't want Wonder Woman shooting at their base?
4/10

Seance of Terror
Spiritualism on Wonder Woman. Diana is a believer in magic whilst Steve is the skeptic. Suprising considering he's seen what Wonder Woman can do and there's no rational explanation for that. Great scene where Diana manages to spin into Wonder Woman by rolling off the conveyer belt but by the time she's recovered the villains are gone, defies your expectations. Psychic photography was all the rage in the late 70s and also during the Victorian era, no less than Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle a believer. Does Diana ever pick up an object that doesn't knock her out? (TWICE!) Steve actually takes Diana off the case and tells her to have a holiday, their argument about it all quite heated. That's one BAD wig Lynda wears in her merry widow role. Unusual to have an episode of a show with such a large kids following dealing with the occult, nowadays you think the Christian right would be outraged. Once again this is another storyline used in The New Avengers, a lot of similarities between the 2 series. If Mathew's power is real why does his guardian need to rip people off, surely his kid's powers are amazing enough to make money from anyway? At the end of the ep Steve makes Diana take a holiday, does she go back to Paradise Island to visit her family?
5/10

 

[theMan-Bat]

Great avatar! It was almost worth not having Katy on Seasme Street just to have her in that SNL sketch.

We see more and more of Diana Prince without her glasses, by this stage her disguise hardly seems necessary. But you could argue that when folks see Wonder Woman they're normally not looking at her eyes?

True.

 

[Thundarr]

I really loved this show as a kid. I must admit I remember very little of the individual episodes. I'll have to buy the series on DVD some time and rewatch them to refresh my memory.

 

[ultimatefan]

I watched the pilot recently. It has the flaws of a seventies TV show, the FX are terribly crude - they actually use black and white stock footage of WWII planes flying mixed with the colored one, and people b**** about CGI... -, the dialogue is atrocious and some of the acting is shamefully over-the-top, but it was kinda fun and actually fairly close to WMM´s original origin story.

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

I really loved this show as a kid. I must admit I remember very little of the individual episodes. I'll have to buy the series on DVD some time and rewatch them to refresh my memory.

Yeah, for the most part it comes across as very dated and cheesey, some individual eps are great and Lynda is marvellous but it's like Charlie's Angels or any other show of the period.

Yeah, I'm no fan of the WW2 eps and the air combat montage was indeed lame, I prefer the 70s eps but from the polls I've run it seems I'm firmly in the minority, the WW2 eps are by far more popular amongst the die hard comic fans

The Man who wouldn't tell
Off course Gary Burghoff is Radar from MASH but did you also know he grew up with Lynda Carter's and was actually in her old band? Actually I find his character here pretty annoying and as a whole don't like this ep much. Kinda hard to believe he's some sort of womaniser. Phillip Michael Thomas show's the sort of suaveness that will bring him superstardom as Det Rico Tubbs in Miami Vice. Aside from that really nothing much to recommend this ep.
4/10

The Girl from Ilandia
WW acts as a role model for a little girl with powers not to different from her own. Alan Arbus, another MASH star featuring this week. An awful lot of submarines in Wonder Woman or maybe a lot of stock footage of submarines that the studio likes to use as a cheap option (I swear these clips reccurred over 25 years later on The Unit). WW also has knowledge of Ilandia, another lost society like Paradise Island but can't get to it. Wonder Woman in a tube very popular in the conquered-superheroines fetish genre. For once WW fails and isn't able to return Tina to her home but makes her understand to that the important thing is to accept the reality of her situation and make the best of it without ever giving up the dream of returning home one day. If we ever have a new WW series or film I'd love to see an updated version of this ep where 'Tina' does indeed get to return home. Obviously a dream come true for many little girls to not only have their idol of Wonder Woman as a friend but to actually share her abilities, much like the ep where Xena inhabits the young girls body due to Aphrodite's screwed up spell.
5/10

The Murderous Missile
Or the faintly pathetic missile quite frankly, the rubbish special effect letting the rest of this ep down. Motorbiking WW is too cool for school though although her motorbiking suit looks remarkably like her swimsuit. An ep that must have had the bondage/conquered superheroines fetishists salivating as not only is she chloroformed in the traditional WW manner but chained up and spreadeagled in the jail. However they don't seem to know that her belt is the source of her power as they conveniently leave it on her. Weird, the corrupt cops in season 1 seemed to know it. Note that the missile is called Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom but also of warfare (as any Xena fan knows). Not the goddess of the Amazon's though, that's Artemis. The idea of a thought control weapon system was popularized by the book Firefox which was popular at the time.
7/10, let down by the poor missile but love the motorbike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pryz6vKtoXE&feature=related

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

My teenage idol is missing
Reputedly the 3rd series is where the big changes take place. Less and less Steve with one ep having none of him at all, a more serious WW who leaves behind many of the features we've come to associate with her (no Amazons, no invisible plane etc), the series confident enough to now continue on it's own mythology. Also less and less of Diana in glasses and her hair looks slightly different.
Must say I'd never heard of Leif Garrett before watching this, unfortunately according to Wiki he seems to have sunk into heroin addiciton since. Lynda's commentary is great, she seems to be full of warmth for him. She seems wistful for the way she used to look back then (don't worry Lynda, you're still a fox) and points out that we see WW in her cape once more, conveniently covering up the WW stuntwoman's harness as she climbs up the side of the building in true Batman style. Motorbiking WW again and Lynda admits that whilst she rode the bike onscreen she left the jumps to her stuntwoman, the studio obviously having learnt their lesson from Anschluss 77. Beyond that we have young girls obsessed with pop stars again as we saw in The Pied Piper. Interestingly Lynda thinks that WW's life is incomplete because she doesn't have children?
7/10 but better with Lynda's commentary, wish we had more

Hot Wheels
A very very slight tale but good to see that even the new, serious, season has Diana still being tied up. Lance LeGAULT is one of those faces you see everywhere in the late 70s and early 80s especially in Magnum, Airwolf, TJ Hooker but above all he's Military Police Colonel Decker who pursues the A-team over the course of 2 seasons (and Elvis' body double in his movies!). Steve still has a role to play but now he seems to be largely restricted to the office.
3/10 little enough to recommend it

The Deadly Sting
You'd think had you developed a device that allows you to control peoples actions you'd find a better way to use it than some dumb sports betting cheating. Also you'd think if Wonder Woman was after you you'd use this on her as it seems unlikely that she'd be able to deflect it. Another unremarkable episode and you rather cringe at the way the waitresses on the bus are leered over by the football players.
3/10

 

[lorenzovanmatte]

The Fine Art of Crime
MUCH, MUCH better in every possible way! The return of Roddy McDowell as a very different character to who we've seen before and he's excellent. The return of Harold Farnum is less welcome although it does show that even if this is the season that reinvents itself there's still a link with 2 and still lots of fun to be had. Quite a clever concept and one that whips the conquered-superheroines/ASFR fetishists into a real frenzy with WW surrendering, obeying her new masters commands by assuming the classic superheroine pose and giving a big, big smile as she's transformed into a living statue. Even when she shows McDowell's character her own bracelets she looks as though she's gleefully raising her arms in surrender. Again the footage isn't half as interesing as the comments people leave underneath it, suggesting that she should have remained frozen and that's how they should have ended the season/series! Myself and a million other little girls would have cried ourselves to sleep in our WW outfits if that were the case!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuY2D3kSNGw
Of course our girl comes good but then we always knew she would.
That said I don't think Lynda has ever looked more beautiful and that's really saying something. Frankly I think female beauty peaked with either Lynda Carter in 1978 or Marge Simpson crossed with Pamela Anderson in her prime. If you ever watch Saturday Night Fever even John Travolta's character has a picture of Wonder Woman in this pose stuck to his bedroom mirror as he's getting ready to go out, one of the iconic posters of the 70s, up there with Farah Fawcett in her red swimsuit or the tennis player (ahem) scratching her hip. The villains are a lot cleverer and a great deal more dominant/charming than the normal moronic thugs and (seemingly) defeat her with brain instead of brawn, these guys actually have some character and pose a serious threat. But her plan is pretty brilliant, knowing that she'll only get to meet the real mastermind if her comes to the museum opening and he's only going to do that if he thinks that he's defeated her. Also a funny little moment when she knocks McDowell flying and as he comes to he's horrified to find a disembodied wax hand in his face.
9/10 very good, let's have more like this!

Disco Devil
Speaking of John Travolta, time to DISCO! Such an overwhelming phenomenon in the 70s that you really couldn't have a series without it. Mind-robbing once more, a great many episodes seem to deal with the great and good having their brains drained (again, something also featured on The New Avengers). The idea of a man with paranormal powers which actually wreck his life rather than being a boon is reminiscent of the film Scanners. The whole concept of psychic powers was very popular in the late 70s, especially Uri Gellar and his spoonbending etc Again hardly an award-winning concept but an ok ep with Steve being given a more active role than what we've seen him in lately. Sadly we don't get to see either Wonder Woman or Diana and Steve strut their funky stuff on the dance floor which I would have paid good money to watch
5/10