Search - Wonder Woman: The Complete Collection on DVD

Fighting For Our Rights In The Ol' Red, White & Blue!

D. Reed | Elkton, MD USA | 06/04/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One of the best superhero shows. Unlike Batman and Superman, who've had multiple movies, TV shows (live action & animated) and actors, this is Wonder Woman's sole venture into television starring in her own show. Say what you want about the animated Justice League/Justice League Unlimited shows (great shows by the way), but this captures Wonder Woman and her message of peace perfectly. Coupled with the fact that Lynda Carter is the only person (I pray that she keep the title) to have ever played her in live-action furthers my belief. I know this was done in the mid to late '70s when violence was being heavily scrutinized but I think that helps the character. She promotes peace and wants man to achieve more than petty violence and war, and pilot movie and a few moments in season 3 aside, pushing or throwing her opponents gets her message across to Nazis and other evildoers (at least she does more than her Super Friends counterpart). Now, onto the series itself.

Lynda Carter plays her perfectly. You can tell there's a certain naiveté to her during the first season, as she's a complete stranger in man's world. Sure Superman came to Earth from Krypton, but he was raised as a human with American ideals and beliefs. I think my best example of this is during the first part of The Feminum Mystique, when she explains to her sister certain aspects of living in the US. This naiveté is also present in season 2 but not as much. All she really does is update to 1970s living and then she develops for the rest of the series' run. Lyle Waggoner is good as Steve Trevor, but I've never read the actual Wonder Woman comics, so the only thing of Trevor's character I know of is from the series. He's a bit of a chauvinist in the first two seasons (obvious reason in the '40s and the women's libs were starting around the same time in '70s). He's a patriotic man, willing to fight for his country (evident in season one) but once they move the series into the '70s, its almost like the writers didn't know what to do with him since most of the love interest stuff they downplayed and by season 3 the character hardly featured at all. I won't really mention the other characters as they only lasted one season (Blankenship and Etta Candy), only featured for eight episodes (Joe Atkinson) or they were featured characters but dropped by mid-season two (everyone on Paradise Island). They did introduce the computer with an attitude, IRA (who was able to figure out everything before the main cast and only seemed to serve someone for Trevor to talk to when they were limiting his appearances) in season 2 and later, the annoying comic relief that is the Road Runner imitating Rover but fortunately their appearances in episodes are brief.

Production-wise, the series makes use of the special effects of the day. Wonder Woman's powers are present, including; super strength, speed (not as fast as Superman and Flash), bullet-proof bracelets, the Lasso of Truth, and her tiara boomerang (like I said, I've never really read the comics so I don't know if she has more or not). Other powers are present, like being able to mimic someone's voice, super-hearing or the occasional one-off power (for some odd reason she was able to send underwater pulses in one season 3 episode) but they weren't really used as much and eventually not at all. The special effects for the bracelets were always cool but I noticed she didn't use them as much later when the series switched to CBS. And of course, the ONE thing I do know that they incorporated into the comics was the spin she did to turn into Wonder Woman. A hallmark of the show that was always looked forward to. She has the invisible plane/jet, of which I'm glad she's not able to fly like in her more recent incarnations, but the effects used for the plane sequences could've been done better, even by '70s standards. She has multiple outfits (again, don't know if they're in the comics) which started in season 2 for some reason; she has a diving suit, a motorcycle suit (basiclly the diving suit with a helmet) and a skate-board suit (this one was only used once). By season 3, they were starting to film her in slow-motion when she runs (akin to Lindsay Wagner) but I think they were only capitalizing on The Bionic Woman's popularity. Villain wise, other than the Nazis and a few of their agents, none of her actual comic book villains appeared in the show like Cheetah, Giganta (both were featured in Challenge of the Super Friends) or Dr. Poison. Instead she battled corrupt business men/politicians (when aren't they evil or corrupt), scientists, aliens, Frank Gorshin or artists and women who have the ability... to control...ants? Hm, not sure where that one came from.

The writing is good, but at times can be downright horrible. Whenever they have Carter be evil or pretend to be a criminal, the way she does it isn't convincing and comes off (to me anyway) as stilted and wooden. The occasional big name star would show up like Red Buttons, Stella Stevens, Cloris Leachman, Debra Winger, Robert Reed, Carolyn Jones, Eric Braeden, Roddy McDowall, Leif Garrett, etc. To me, out of the three seasons, the first is the best and I'll get to that in a minute. Season 3 was the weakest, mainly in writing and the fact that Wonder Woman was teaming up with random kids whom you would think Wonder Woman would want to keep out of danger. The second was able to mix the good storytelling of the first season, while dealing with the modern topics that would be present in the third. In season 1, it felt like Wonder Woman had a purpose and was fighting for a cause, the characters were more developed and they were sticking to her comic book roots. Seasons 2 and 3, she battles people who're minor inconveniences, like Martin Mull and his ability to hypnotize people with his magic...flute? Again not sure who came up with that. Her alter-ego Diana Prince featured more as well, which is both a good and bad thing. The good thing is you can develop the character of Diana as her own and its great to see her do stuff outside the Wonder Woman costume. But in a way that's also a bad thing. They started to, in my opinion anyway, decrease the actual Wonder Woman character's apperances and the only time Diana would spin into her was if it was a situation that Diana herself could not get out of. Which makes me think "Why didn't you just go in as Wonder Woman in the first place?" But for all the series' good episodes (my favorites being the pilot, Last of the Two Dollar Bills & Judgement From Outer Space from season 1, The Return of Wonder Woman, Anschluss '77, Light Fingered Lady & Screaming Javelin from season 2 and Stolen Faces, Going, Going, Gone, & The Starships Are Coming from season 3) and bad episodes (Formicida, Gault's Brain, My Teenage Idol is Missing and The Murderous Missile), it was an excellent show with great actors and writers, much better than the garbage they show today."