Wonder Woman is a popular television series which starred Lynda Carter as the comic book superhero Wonder Woman. It aired on two American networks between 1975 and 1979. It is also the title of a TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby , loosely based upon the character, that aired in 1974.
B.C. (Before Carter)
The Lynda Carter series was actually the third attempt at mounting a live-action series based upon the superhero.
Whatever Happened to Diana Prince?
The first attempt to translate Wonder Woman to the small screen occurred in 1967, when the success of the Batman television show led to a flurry of copycat series. Greenway Productions , the company behind the Batman show, produced a four-and-a-half-minute Wonder Woman test film subtitled Whatever Happened to Diana Prince? starring Ellie Wood Walker as Diana Prince, Linda Harrison as Diana's Wonder Woman alter ego, and Hope Summers as Diana's mother.
As with Batman, the reel took a comic slant on the character, although while the Batman character himself was played straight, in the proposed series Diana Prince (not Wonder Woman) would have been the focus of the comedy. Diana, an awkward and rather plain young woman, lives with her mother close to a US Air Force base. She is madly in love with pilot Steve Trevor, and believes Steve is also madly in love with her Wonder Woman alter ego (a fact consistent with the early comic books). Much of the film consists of her mother berating Diana about not having a boyfriend. When her mother leaves the room, she changes into her Wonder Woman costume and admires her reflection in a mirror. What she sees is not Diana Prince, but rather a sexy super-heroic figure (played by Linda Harrison) who proceeds to preen and pose, in the process becoming somewhat grotesque and exaggerated, ultimately becoming little more attractive than her Diana alter-ego.
This, presumably, was to be the basic gimmick of the show. Diana believes that as Wonder Woman she is irresistible to men, but the reality is far different. Steve Trevor is never seen in the pilot, but the assumption is that, had the show gone into production, he would have spent much of his time avoiding the romantic advances of the title character. The pilot ends with Diana climbing out a window, giving a goofy giggle, and flying away.
Writer Stanley Ralph Ross said, years later, that he felt the people at the head of the production lacked the enthusiasm for a female-centric show to make the pilot a success. This pilot episode was never broadcast, and the project was taken no further. The pilot has been circulated on the Internet and is of interest to Planet of the Apes fans for the early appearance of Linda Harrison who would later go on to play Nova in the first two films of that series.
Animation
Wonder Woman's first actual broadcast appearance was as a guest in a Brady Kids cartoon in 1972, entitled "Beware of Gifts Bearing Greeks". (Her sister, Wonder Girl, had already appeared on television in a series of Teen Titans cartoon shorts, part of the Batman/Superman Hour cartoon show.) The Brady kids meet up with Diana Prince, and together they find themselves transported back in time to the Trojan War, where Wonder Woman must come to their rescue.
This was quickly followed by the heroine's inclusion in the long running Superfriends cartoon series.
False start: the Cathy Lee Crosby film
Wonder Woman's first appearance on TV screens in live-action form was via a television movie made in 1974 for the ABC Network, starring athlete-turned-actress Cathy Lee Crosby as a blonde non-superpowered Amazon, pitted against a debonair villain played by Ricardo Montalban. This version owed little to the classic Wonder Woman comic book character, and leaned more towards the "I Ching period" abandoned by the comic book some years before in which Diana abandoned her superhero life and became a secret agent a la Emma Peel. In the closing action sequences, Wonder Woman wears a patriotic track suit, but this is far from a superhero costume. The pilot instead sets the character up as more of a Bionic Woman style secret agent. Even the name 'Wonder Woman' is barely mentioned, and it is never established for certain that this is supposed to be the lead character's name.
This pilot was screened, but reportedly generated little interest from the public. It has been sold around the world as a stand-alone TV movie, and occassionally crops up in TV schedules.
Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman
The New Original Wonder Woman
Though not successful at the first attempt, ABC still felt a Wonder Woman series had potential, and within a year another pilot was in production. Keen to make a distinction from the last pilot, the pilot was given the rather paradoxical title The New Original Wonder Woman.
Scripting duties were given to Stanley Ralph Ross , who had worked on Greenway's unbroadcast Wonder Woman pilot reel, but this time he was instructed to be more faithful to the comic book and to create a subtle "high comedy".
After an intensive talent search, a former beauty pageant winner from Arizona named Lynda Carter was chosen to play the lead role. For the key role of Steve Trevor, the producers chose Lyle Waggoner , who at the time was better known as a comedic actor after several years co-starring in The Carol Burnett Show.
Ross set the pilot in World War II, the era in which the original comic book began.
Although following the original comic book very closely, in particular the aspect of Wonder Woman joining the military under the assumed name, Diana Prince, a number of elements were dropped, presumably for practical reasons. The character of Etta Candy was no longer an obese member of Holliday College (the Holliday Girls never featured in the show), but a mature work colleague of Diana Prince. The ancient myths and legends which informed many of the early Wonder Woman comic book stories were lost too, in favour of more conventional stories involving Nazis. And, on a minor note, Steve Trevor was no longer blonde, but dark haired.
Pilot plot summary
During World War II, a pilot, Major Steve Trevor, ejects during an air battle over the Bermuda Triangle, home of Paradise Island. The island houses Amazons, beautiful, ageless women with great strength, agility, and intelligence. Amazon princess Diana rescues Trevor, and wins a contest to return him to America, where she will remain to help the Allied forces. Her costume is designed to feature American emblems in the hope that she will be accepted in her new home, and her golden belt will be her source of strength and power. She retains her bracelets, which deflect bullets, and also receives a golden lasso, which is indestructible, and forces people to obey and tell the truth when bound. Diana is now known as "Wonder Woman," and flies to Washington, D.C. in an invisible plane. After dropping Trevor off at Walter Reed Hospital, the heroine stumbles upon a bank robbery, which she stops. A promoter who sees her in action invites her to take her Bullets and Bracelets act on the road as a theatrical attraction. Diana is hesitant, but she needs money in this society, so she agrees.
Meanwhile, Trevor's civilian secretary, Marsha (guest star Stella Stevens), is revealed as a double agent for the Nazis. She seeks to aid top spies in killing Trevor and opposing the new threat, Wonder Woman, although her first attempt -- arranging for an audience member to fire a machine gun at Wonder Woman during her stage show act -- backfires when the Amazon easily deflects the multiple bullets. Later, at the hospital, Diana disguises herself as a nurse in order to keep an eye on Steve. As spy activities increase, Trevor leaves the hospital and is captured, prompting his "nurse" to do an amazing slow spin in the hall where she slowly peels off uniform parts and replaces them with her Wonder Woman costume, before heading off to rescue him.
Wonder Woman defeats the villainess and the spies, breaking up the spy ring. A memorable cat fight sequence features hand-to-hand combat, slapping, kicking, and even a little slapstick, between Carter and Stevens. The fight was considered a milestone in TV action, and would later be used as a reference when planning similar fights on the soap opera Dynasty years later.
The series begins
The pilot film, aired on November 7, 1975, was a ratings success, and ABC quickly authorized the production of two one-hour specials which aired the following April. Technically speaking, these three productions were the show's first season. These episodes scored strong enough ratings that ABC commissioned a further 11 episodes for the 1976-77 season, several of which were used to fill in for the Bionic Woman television show, after production had to be suspended while its star, Lindsay Wagner, recovered from a car accident. Notably, two stories (one of them a two parter) introduced Debra Winger as Wonder Girl, in possibly her first on-screen role.
Few changes were made between the pilot episode and specials and the series itself. The most memorable change, indeed what became the 'signature moment' of the show, was the introduction of a twirling transformation, to change Diana Prince into her super-heroic counterpart. When trouble raised its ugly head, dowdy Diana Prince would slip away to a quiet spot, look around nervously as she removed her glasses and hat, then spin with arms outstretched, to be engulfed in a ball of light and transformed into Wonder Woman. This magical sequence, which appeared at least once in most episodes, clearly left an impression on its audience, as it has been referenced and parodied repeatedly ever since. In the original pilot and specials, however, this sequence was performed in slow-motion, with time-lapse photography used to show Wonder Woman's costume gradually appearing; the "thunderclap" version was added later in order to make the sequence move faster.
Another change involved the relationship between Steve Trevor and Wonder Woman. Although Carter and Waggoner had, initially, good chemistry, it was decided to play down the romantic aspects and, ultimately, the characters remained simply good friends.
The series also began at a time when violence on television was under intense scrutiny. As a result, Wonder Woman was no longer shown punching or kicking people the way she did in the early episodes (see, for example, the catfight described above). The character would usually be shown pushing and throwing enemies, or using creativity to get them to somehow knock themselves out. Despite the wartime circumstances, the character rarely killed anyone (she sinks a submarine in the pilot film, but that was the only exception).
The New Adventures of Wonder Woman
Despite strong ratings, ABC cancelled the series after one season. Production company Warner Bros. offered Wonder Woman to CBS, who took the series on the condition that the setting be switched to the modern day. Changing the title to The New Adventures of Wonder Woman, the series was nudged away from sophisticated humour, towards a more conventional action/adventure take. In this version Diana Prince, ageless due to her Amazon nature, returns from Paradise Island after a 35-year exile to became an agent with the Inter-Agency Defense Command (IADC), a CIA-like organization for which she fought criminals and the occasional alien invasion. Occasional references to her World War II experiences were made in early episodes, Wonder Woman's costume was updated and made sexier, and her invisible robot plane became a jet aircraft.
In this updated version, Waggoner still appeared as Wonder Woman's friend Steve Trevor, however he was now Steve Trevor Jr., the lookalike son of the heroine's World War II ally. The episode "Bermuda Triangle Crisis" revealed that Trevor Sr. had died some years earlier when his plane crashed in the Bermuda Triangle, suggesting he might have been searching for Paradise Island. As with the first season, the producers chose to downplay and later drop any suggestion that Steve and Wonder Woman were anything more than friends.
Further changes were introduced after only the first few episodes of this new run. Beginning with the episode "The Man Who Made Volcanoes", the opening title sequence, with its memorable "Wonder Woman... Wonder Woman..." lyrics and comic book graphics, was changed to an instrumental and more traditional "action scenes" opening.
As the season progressed, Diana Prince lost much of her plain-Jane-ness, as she swapped the hair bun for a pony tail, got a hip new wardrobe, and only infrequently wore her glasses (her secret identity as Wonder Woman somehow remained intact even though she often took her glasses off in the presence of Steve Trevor and others). Trevor was promoted to a desk job midway through the season, leaving Diana to go out on missions alone in most episodes. By this time, Diana was no longer simply Trevor's assistant, but was now a notable solo agent with a growing list of enemies. She also became more self-sufficient outside of her costume, not always turning into Wonder Woman when things got tough; in many ways, the second and third seasons bore more similarities to the late 1960s version of the comic book than did the 1974 Cathy Lee Crosby telefilm.
Several other changes occurred as the second season progressed. Joe Atkinson, a weathered IADC agent, was dropped after the ninth episode of the season, as was a regular segment showing Diana, Steve, and Joe receiving orders from a Charlie-like character who is heard but never seen, and who may be the President of the United States. Midway through the season, this was replaced with regular briefings by IRAC, IADC's super-intelligent computer, who manages to deduce Diana's secret identity. In order to give Steve Trevor (and Lyle Waggoner) more to do, Saundra Sharp joined the cast as Eve, Steve's assistant (the job held by Diana at the start of the season). Near the end of the season, a tiny robot called Rover was added for comic relief; an offshoot of IRAC who performs duties such as delivering coffee and sorting mail, Rover speaks with a high-pitched voice, occasionally makes "Beep Beep" sounds (borrowed from the Road Runner cartoon series), and, like IRAC, is aware that Diana Prince is really Wonder Woman.
Many of these changes appear to coincide with an apparent two-year gap between the episodes "I Do, I Do" and "The Man Who Made Volcanoes", the latter of which clearly states that Diana had been an IADC agent for at least two years at that point (although later episodes would contradict the dating of "Volcanoes" suggesting the episodes occur out of chronological sequence).
The character of Wonder Woman also became less innocent and more serious in the second season, although her fights still consisted mostly of jumping and pushing people. The character still maintained her no-kill policy, although there were exceptions such as in the episode "Anschluss '77" in which she destroys a clone of Adolf Hitler, and another episode made reference to a villain who was believed drowned following a previous, unseen encounter with Diana/Wonder Woman. Some retconning of Wonder Woman's backstory also occurred. In the first season, it was established that Diana had never left Paradise Island nor encountered a man before the events that took her to America during World War II; during the second season several references were made to men the Amazon encountered centuries earlier, and one episode "Diana's Disappearing Act" strongly implied that she might have actually been active as Wonder Woman (or some similar heroic guise) as early as the 19th century when she encounters the descendent of a villain she apparently knew a century earlier.
With the beginning of the third season, further changes were made to target the show at a teenage audience. The title theme was reworked again to give it a disco beat, a gimmicky little robot was added for comic effect, and episodes began to revolve around topical subjects like skateboarding and rollercoasters.
At CBS, the show continued to gather a strong audience. In the final episode produced, the writers attempted a "relaunch" of sorts by having Diana reassigned to the Los Angeles bureau of IADC with a new supporting cast, and Steve Trevor (whose presence had decreased throughout the season, reportedly due to off-camera friction between Waggoner and Carter) was written out of the series. This new take on the series lasted for merely a single episode ("The Man Who Could Not Die"), which actually aired at the beginning of the 1979-80 TV season. It was followed by a final two-part episode ("Phantom of the Roller Coaster") that was actually produced earlier in the season. CBS ultimately decided to strengthen its sitcom offerings, and Wonder Woman was suspended from the network schedule, though it was never formally canceled.
During the 1990s, there were many rumors of a possible Wonder Woman feature film, though nothing at the time came to fruition. There are many who feel Lynda Carter's portrayal has made it impossible for anyone suitable to be found to inherit the role (much as studios until recently had spent several years without success searching for a new actor to succeed Christopher Reeve as Superman). Among actresses mentioned in different media as being considered for the role at one time or another include Catherine Zeta Jones and Charisma Carpenter. Production of a Wonder Woman film written and directed by Joss Whedon (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) was announced in March 2005, but no actress has yet been linked to the role.
The first season of the TV series was released on DVD in North America during the summer of 2004, with release of the second season on March 1 2005; the third and final set is expected to follow in June 2005.
Episodes
Season 1 (1975-1976) - ABC
- The New Original Wonder Woman (November 7, 1975) - two-hour telefilm
- "Wonder Woman Meets Baroness Von Gunther" (April 21, 1976)
- "Fausta: The Nazi Wonder Woman" (April 28, 1976)
The first "season" consisted of three specials.
Season 2 (1976-1977) - ABC
- "Beauty on Parade" (October 13, 1976)
- "The Feminum Mystique, Part 1" (November 6, 1976)
- "The Feminum Mystique, Part 2" (November 8, 1976)
- "Wonder Woman vs. Gargantua!" (December 18, 1976)
- "The Pluto File" (December 25, 1976)
- "Last of the Two Dollar Bills" (January 8, 1977)
- "Judgement from Outer Space, Part 1" (January 15, 1977)
- "Judgement from Outer Space, Part 2" (January 17, 1977)
- "Formula 407" (January 22, 1977)
- "The Bushwackers" (January 29, 1977)
- "Wonder Woman in Hollywood" (February 16, 1977)
The first two seasons are generally considered to be a single set of episodes and this is reflected by the North American DVD release considering the episodes to be one season.
Season 3 (1977-1978) - CBS
- "The Return of Wonder Woman" (September 16, 1977) - 90-minute episode
- "Anschluss '77" (September 23, 1977)
- "The Man Who Could Move the World" (September 30, 1977)
- "The Bermuda Triangle Crisis" (October 7, 1977)
- "Knockout" (October 14, 1977)
- "The Pied Piper" (October 21, 1977)
- "The Queen and the Thief" (October 28, 1977)
- "I Do, I Do" (November 11, 1977)
- "The Man Who Made Volcanoes" (November 18, 1977)
- "Mind Stealers from Outer Space, Part 1" (December 2, 1977)
- "Mind Stealers from Outer Space, Part 2" (December 9, 1977)
- "The Deadly Toys" (December 30, 1977)
- "Light-Fingered Lady" (January 6, 1978)
- "Screaming Javelin" (January 20, 1978)
- "Diana's Disappearing Act" (February 3, 1978)
- "Death in Disguise" (February 10, 1978)
- "I.R.A.C. is Missing" (February 17, 1978)
- "Flight to Oblivion" (March 3, 1978)
- "Seance of Terror" (March 10, 1978)
- "The Man Who Wouldn't Tell" (March 31, 1978)
- "The Girl from Islandia" (April 7, 1978)
- "The Murderous Missile" (April 21, 1978)
Season 4 (1978-1979) - CBS
- "My Teenage Idol is Missing" (September 22, 1978)
- "Hot Wheels" (September 29, 1978)
- "The Deadly Sting" (October 6, 1978)
- "The Fine Art of Crime" (October 13, 1978)
- "Disco Devil" (October 20, 1978)
- "Formicida" (November 3, 1978)
- "Time Bomb" (November 10, 1978)
- "Skateboard Wiz" (November 24, 1978)
- "The Deadly Dolphin" (December 1, 1978)
- "Stolen Faces" (December 15, 1978)
- "Pot of Gold" (December 22, 1978)
- "Gault's Brain" (December 29, 1978)
- "Going, Going, Gone" (January 12, 1979)
- "Spaced Out" (January 26, 1979)
- "The Starships are Coming" (February 2, 1979)
- "Amazon Hot Wax" (February 16, 1979)
- "The Richest Man in the World" (February 19, 1979)
- "A Date with Doomsday" (March 10, 1979)
- "The Girl with a Gift for Disaster" (March 17, 1979)
- "The Boy Who Knew Her Secret, Part 1" (May 28, 1979)
- "The Boy Who Knew Her Secret, Part 2" (May 29, 1979)
- "The Man Who Could Not Die" (August 28, 1979)
- "Phantom of the Roller Coaster, Part 1" (September 4, 1979)
- "Phantom of the Roller Coaster, Part 2" (September 11, 1979)
The final three episodes technically aired at the very start of the 1979-1980 season but were produced at the close of the previous season, so they do not constitute an abbreviated fifth season.
