Wonder Woman (television series)

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.

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.

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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".

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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.

Related Topics:
Arizona - Lyle Waggoner - The Carol Burnett Show

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Ross set the pilot in World War II, the era in which the original comic book began.

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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.

Related Topics:
Comic book - Obese - Nazi

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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.

Related Topics:
Bermuda Triangle - Paradise Island - Washington, D.C. - Walter Reed Hospital

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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.

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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.

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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.

Related Topics:
November 7 - 1975 - Bionic Woman - Lindsay Wagner - Debra Winger - Wonder Girl

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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.

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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.

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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).

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Wonder Woman herself was occasionally defeated by the Nazis, but she always came back in the second half of the show to save the day. Among the things the Nazis used on her were chloroform and poison gas.

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EPISODE SUMMARIES FOR SEASON ONE

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Wonder Woman Meets Baroness Von Gunther - Steve is being framed for a series of sabotage incidents by a Nazi spy ring, whose leader, Baroness Von Gunther, is being held in a maximum-security prison. The Baroness insists she's not in charge of the ring and is reforming herself, but it's all a lie. Wonder Woman is determined to expose the Baroness's plot. Helping her out is Tommy, the prison warden's son.

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How Is Wonder Woman Defeated: Sleep gas

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Fausta The Nazi Wonder Woman - Fausta Grables, a German olympic champion turned Nazi agent, plots to capture Wonder Woman and study her. Wonder Woman does get captured, but she manages to escape Germany. Unfortunately, Steve has come to rescue her and gets captured himself. Wonder Woman must then go back to Germany, rescue Steve and convince Fausta to turn away from the Nazi's path.

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How Is Wonder Woman Defeated: Chloroform

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Beauty On Parade - Diana enters a beauty contest to expose a saboteur ring, which is led by the pageant's musical director.

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How Is Wonder Woman Defeated: She isn't

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The Feminum Mystique (2-Parter) - The American army is about to unveil their first jet fighter, and the Nazis are determined to steal the plane and study it to build a jet fighter of their own. Meanwhile, Diana's little sister Drusilla arrives from Paradise Island for a visit and gets caught up in the Nazis' plot. Captain Radl, the lead Nazi, also wants to find out the source of feminum, the metal used to make Wonder Woman's bracelets. He kidnaps General Blankenship, who is taking Drusilla for a drive in Washington. Drusilla discovers that she can spin like her sister and turns into Wonder Girl, with a costume similar to her sister's. She tries to rescue the General, but is chloroformed and taken prisoner. Peter Knight, an engineer secretly working for the Nazis, gains Drusilla's trust and tricks her into revealing the location of Paradise Island, where the feminum is located. The Nazis stage an invasion of the island, and Diana must abandon the search for her sister to save her fellow Amazons. Drusilla manages to escape her captors and heads for Paradise Island. She and her sister manage to save the island and the Nazis are turned over to the custody of the American army. Then WW and WG must head back to America to prevent a Nazi spy from stealing the jet fighter.

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How Is Wonder Woman Defeated: Sleep gas

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Wonder Woman Vs. Gargantua - Erica Belgard, an animal behaviour specialist and Nazi agent, kidnaps a super-strong gorilla named Gargantua from his jungle home in order to recapture a defecting Nazi agent who is in American custody. Erica soon decides to use the gorilla's strength to defeat and capture Wonder Woman.

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How Is Wonder Woman Defeated: Almost gets crushed to death in the gorilla's grip

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The Pluto File - An Irish terrorist named The Falcon steals a formula designed to produce man-made earthquakes in order to level Washington, DC. Wonder Woman and the formula's inventor must work together to stop him. The Falcon is also carrying the bubonic plague and must be quarantined.

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How Is Wonder Woman Defeated: She isn't

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The Last of The Two Dollar Bills - Wonder Woman and Steve investigate a Nazi plot to flood the American stock market with fraudulent $2 bills in order to destabilize the American war effort.

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How Is Wonder Woman Defeated: Locked in a jail cell

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Judgement From Outer Space (2-Parter) - An alien named Andros arrives on Earth to study it and to convince the intergalactic council that the planet should not be destroyed because of World War II. The American government first suspects Andros of being a Nazi spy, and the Nazis want to use Andros's powers for world domination. Wonder Woman and Andros must work together to prove America's intentions are peaceful.

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How Is Wonder Woman Defeated: Poison gas

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Formula 407 - Diana and Steve head to Argentina to pick up a formula from a scientist. The formula can make rubber tires as strong as steel. The Nazis want to steal the formula to use it on their truck tires. A Nazi agent who is secretly involved with the scientist's assistant kidnaps the scientist's daughter in order to get the formula. Wonder Woman must find the girl and rescue Steve before the agent takes the formula back to Germany.

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How Is Wonder Woman Defeated: Chloroform

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The Bushwhackers - Wonder Woman journeys to Texas where Nazi agents are stealing cattle being raised for the American government. The cattle ranch's owner and his several adopted orphan kids try to assist Wonder Woman in her efforts to stop the Nazis. Roy Rogers, who guest-starred on this episode, insisted that lead star Lynda Carter wear a light sweater and pants for the episode, saying he didn't feel comfortable with the idea of a grown woman wearing nothing but a bathing suit the whole time.

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How Is Wonder Woman Defeated: Locked in a jail cell

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Wonder Woman In Hollywood - Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl work together to stop a Nazi agent turned film producer from taking Steve and several other soldiers back to Germany to put them in a propaganda film that will destroy America's image as a peace-loving country.

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How Is Wonder Woman Defeated: Hit in the arm with a bullet, but she's faking it

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The New Adventures of Wonder Woman

Despite strong ratings, ABC stalled on commissioning a second season, causing the show's frustrated production company, Warner Bros., to offer Wonder Woman to CBS. While ABC dithered, CBS took the series on 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.

Related Topics:
Warner Bros. - CBS

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Diana Prince, ageless due to her Amazon nature, returns from Paradise Island after a 35-year exile to become an agent with the Inter-Agency Defense Command (IADC), a CIA-like organization fighting criminals and the occasional alien invasion. Infrequent references to her World War II experiences were made in early episodes. Changes included Wonder Woman's costume being updated and made sexier, while her invisible plane became a jet aircraft (although it only appeared a couple of times).

Related Topics:
CIA - Alien invasion

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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 Snr. 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.

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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. Another change was to allow Diana Prince to operate away from Steve Trevor, and give her a slightly less stuffy look. (This may have been to further exploit Carter's looks, as Diana typically got twice as much screen time as her super heroic alter ego.)

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As the season progressed, Diana Prince continued to lose 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. The series also stopped making reference to Paradise Island, and the fact that Diana is hundreds of years old.

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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 presumed to 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.

Related Topics:
Charlie - Saundra Sharp - Road Runner

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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 final episode broadcast, the two-part "Phantom of the Roller-Coaster" takes place four years after Diana joined the I.A.D.C., suggesting that the two seasons actually reflect four years worth of activities, which could support the two-year-gap theory.

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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.

Related Topics:
Clone - Adolf Hitler

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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 (towards the end of the pilot episode however Diana drops a strong hint that she has first-hand experience of ancient Rome and Greece). 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. A third-season episode also revealed that Wonder Woman will still be active in the mid-22nd century; this same episode ("Time Bomb") made the grim revelation that, in the Wonder Woman universe, Earth withstands a nuclear war sometime prior to the year 2007.

Related Topics:
Retcon - 22nd century - Nuclear war - 2007

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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, the use of gimmicky little robot 'Rover' was increased for comic effect, and episodes began to revolve around topical subjects like skateboarding, rollercoasters, and the environment. Eve also disappeared from the cast, although she is mentioned once or twice.

Related Topics:
Disco - Skateboard - Rollercoaster

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Wonder Woman was also allowed to become a bit more physical in the third season, and could now be seen throwing the occasional punch or kicking. The writers also came up with several unusual ways for Diana to execute her spinning transformation, one of the most notable occurring in the episode "Stolen Faces" in which Diana makes the change while falling off a tall building.

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Diana's powers were also increased, particularly in the third season episode "Deadly Dolphin" in which she is shown communicating telepathically with animals, firing "psychic bursts" of some sort to scare away a killer shark, and taking control of minds without the use of her lasso. A later episode had Diana communicating with a bird in order to find out the whereabouts of a villain.

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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, was finally written out of the series. One account published in TV Guide puts this down to off-camera friction between Waggoner and Carter - although this seemingly originates from a single and rather dubious behind-the-scenes source. The stars themselves have never publically suggested their working relationship was anything but healthy, although Waggoner did not participate in the recent DVD release of the series. It should be noted that during the filming of the third season, Waggoner was serving as mayor of Encino, California and was naturally required to devote time to his civic duties, suggesting another reason for his decreased presence and eventual departure from the series.

Related Topics:
Los Angeles - TV Guide - Encino, California

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This new take on the format lasted for merely a single episode ("The Man Who Could Not Die"), which set up an assortment of new supporting characters, including Bryce Candall, an indestructible man (the titular character of the episode) who might have become a love interest for Diana, as well as a streetwise teenager named T. Burton Phipps III who for some unexplained reason is allowed to hang out at the I.A.D.C. Also added to the cast was a chimpanzee who, like Bryce, is also indestructible.

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Despite the relaunch, "Man Who Could Not Die" was not actually the final episode broadcast when it 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 and once again featured Waggoner. CBS ultimately decided to strengthen its sitcom offerings, and Wonder Woman was suspended from the network schedule, though it was never formally canceled.

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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.

Related Topics:
1990s - Christopher Reeve - Superman - Catherine Zeta Jones - Charisma Carpenter - Joss Whedon - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

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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 followed on June 7 2005.

Related Topics:
DVD - 2004 - March 1 - 2005 - June 7

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