Wonder Woman - TV Movie/Episodes 1-3 Reviews

I've been thinking about rewatching this classic series for a while now and just like my spent on Batman 66, this will be formatted as mini reviews for several blogs.

TV Movie: The New Original Wonder Woman

Opening with a two part movie pilot of sorts, this was ABC attempting to move away from their previous attempt of a pilot by recasting Wonder Woman aka Diana Prince with Lynda Carter. It also meant having a depiction of the character and her world more faithful to the source material. Set during the backdrop of World War II (1942 specifically), you had charismatic Mayor Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner) crash land on Paradise Island and after winning a contest against her mother's (Cloris Leachman) wishes, Diana brought Steve back to Washington D.C., briefly entertained the idea of being an entertainer but found herself drawn to Steve Trevor's world. Speaking of Steve, he might the typical action man of the piece but the guy's propensity of getting himself into danger certainly ended up with him being captured by his secretary Marcia (Stella Stevens), who was revealed to be a Nazi agent. He'd get rescued by Wonder Woman, be infatuated with her, round up Marcia's henchmen before being introduced to his new secretary, Diana. Now did he make the connection between the two new women in his life? Nope, lol. As a pilot episode, it's lengthy but it set up everything needed, including the campy title sequence. We even get to see the Invisible Jet and Diana's transformation into Wonder Woman. 8/10

Episode 1: Wonder Woman Meets Baroness von Gunther

In a way, this almost felt like another pilot but it's not really. Saying that, two regulars are introduced with General Philip Blankenship (Richard Eastham) and Etta Candy (Beatrice Colen) and both are there to interact with Diana and Steve and make their world a little more expansive. A minus about this series would be the fact that most of Diana's Rogue's gallery are not used but at least a few of them do manage to make it into the show. The first one being Baroness Paula von Gunther (Christine Belford), who during this episode was locked in a prison and was seemingly attempting to atone for her Nazi affiliations. Of course, she's not genuine and it didn't take long for either Diana or Steve to suspect her of plotting something. It also didn't take long for Paula to get a hold of Wonder Woman's lasso of truth and for Steve to end up bound and gagged by Gunther's henchmen. While it's a good idea to have any Rogue Gallery, I'm not sure having two villainous Nazi women in two episodes in a row was a bright idea. Saying that, I do think Paula was a more restrained baddie compared to Marcia and the Sherlock obsessed Tommy was a decent child guest character. 7/10

Episode 2: Fausta, The Nazi Wonder Woman 

Having two episodes in a row focusing on Nazi women was an odd choice for the series but three certainly did seem like they were pushing it a tad. This time we started off in Germany with Fausta Grables (Lynda George Day) keen to prove herself to her superiors by apprehending Wonder Woman. This meant going to Washington D.C. and having Steve Trevor used as bait to assess how much of a threat Wonder Woman truly posed and how her physiology could be used for the Nazi cause. Wonder Woman ended up being captured and brought to Germany with Steve Trevor going en route to the UK to Germany in order to rescue her. Of course Wonder Woman saved herself, Steve ended up being captured and she had to save him again. Where the episode took a more interesting twist was in the fact that Fausta ended up turning on her superiors and abandoning the Nazi cause. It's a bit of rushed turnaround but after Marcia and Paula being dedicated to that regime, this did provide a nice contrast to previous events. 7/10

Episode 3: Beauty On Parade 

Ah, it's the beauty pageant episode. The one where Diana went undercover at said pageant, posing as Diana Paradise, occasionally taking calls from her "uncle" and also incurring the ire of fellow contestant Rita (Christa Helm). It was also an episode where the main mission was expose a sabotage ring of radar scanning equipment, led by the pageant's musical director (Bobby Van). The musical director who also had the name of Monty Burns and was also plotting to kill Einsenhower. While he didn't succeed on that front, at least his name will live on in a different character, Monty was an entertaining enough guest villain. The episode also had Steve pay more attention to Diana, specifically when she was undercover at the pageant and after three episodes,  we even got a different method of transformation. Overall, an entertaining episode if not a favourite of mine. 6/10

Next blog will cover The Feminum Mystique Parts 1 and 2, Wonder Woman vs. Gargantua!, The Pluto File and Last Of The $2 Bills.