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Wonder Woman:
The Complete First Season
Click
Picture to order this DVD
As Always, a review of
both The Show, and The DVD (extras)!
The Show:
Every year brings a new rumor about who will be the next Wonder Woman. From Sandra
Bullock to leggy model Julie Strain; if you're brunette and look
good in a one piece bathing suit,
you've had at least one tabloid claiming you're being considered as "Wonder Woman"
...even if no project since the 1970's has ever been filmed. Why the long
wait to fill those bright red, knee-high boots? Well, maybe there's a
second pair of boots that are even harder to fill: namely, the ones worn
by Lynda Carter,
who is still the definitive Wonder Woman.
Which brings us to
another classic TV series on DVD: Wonder
Woman: The Complete First Season. Even though this first season was
quite frankly not their best (think: the first season of Star Trek The
Next Generation, which needed to smoothen some rough edges a little),
there was no doubt that a TV star was born. Lynda Carter made every
episode shine. Consider how hard it was to play this role; a super
heroine, wearing a colorful, comic-book inspired costume. She was beautiful, yet
could appear strong when needed. She wore a one-piece bathing suit costume
in over half of each episode, yet could still deflect
bullets with her magic bracelets, without the series' audience sighing in
disbelief. She was also totally hot (!), yet wasn't so
sexy that the single digit age group was snubbed from seeing this series
by parents.
She was all that is, in the end, everything Wonder
Woman is in the comic books: the total feminine ambiguity.
It helped season one that
the casting agents apparently worked overtime to get the big TV names for
each episode. Enjoy guest appearances
by Cloris Leachman, Fannie Flagg, Red Buttons, Dick Van Patten, Robert
Loggia, and even a special guest appearance by Roy Rogers. There's even
some roles played by classic character actors of other well-known 1970's series, like Robert Reed (The Brady Bunch) and Tim O'Conner (Buck
Rogers). The guest list actually goes on and on.
Then there's that one casting coup that makes the
whole season a classic. Three episodes required someone to play
Diana's little sister, aka "Wonder Girl." So who do they find
for the role, but a very young Debra Winger, in her first major role!
Though she was hardly a "girl" per se, having just turned 21,
it's really amusing to see an actress best known for An
Officer and a Gentleman, over 5 years before her breakthrough film first hit
theaters. The two-part story she first stars in, as well as her
much-demanded return appearance in the season finale, are almost worth the
DVD set for these three episodes alone.
Winger's appearance is a
fortunate one, because of the "first season was not its best"
factor. Why? For starters, this season had Wonder Woman fighting crime as
she did in her very first comics...in World War II.
While this did wonders for Indiana Jones, it seemed a bit
"off" here. Maybe it's the way the series was modeled like
the 1960's Batman TV series (series producer Stanley Ralph Ross wrote
32 scripts for Batman, back in the day). This comedic format didn't fit
in a World War 2 setting. Add to this flaw a 1970's
"peace and love" message, which I'm not standing on a soap box
against, but come on: this was a season set during World War 2. In one episode, an alien
from space claims that the U.S., during WW2, was no better than
the Nazis. Yes, you guessed it: while the action scenes were fun,
and Lynda Carter is great, the majority of season one scripts were,
well...total brain farts. You can't have it all.
Does this make the season
best to avoid? Not exactly. I will not
make the same mistakes this series' first season did, and try to
force-feed a 30-years-later perspective on an older one. Yes, this 1970's
series knew little to nothing about the 1940's, making the majority of
scenes look too "contemporary." However; such mistakes were typical of
TV in the 1970's, and this critic in 2004 cannot complain without sounding
hypocritical. Sure, it's easy for a 2004 TV critic to look at superior
modern TV fare and pass judgments as poorly as those
pompous alien blowhard in the episode "Judgment from Outer
Space." This DVD is still, flaws included, classic 1970's TV. It's as
good as 1970's action series ever got at its best, and at its worst, is still better
than any Wonder Woman concept conceived in modern times; concepts which,
by comparison, have yet to even pass the drawing board phase.
So, yeah; 1970's TV scripts notwithstanding, there's a lot to love about this season. It's
also amusing to see how the series "evolved" with its trademark
visual icons, seen here for the first time. Here's some trivia: the
original idea was to have Diana Prince (the secret identity of our
heroine) quickly change clothes into Wonder Woman each episode (think of
the way Clark Kent changes into Superman
in the first two Superman movies). The
camera tricks required were too expensive, however, so they settled on a separate method: a
starburst of light, which would blast whenever Diana wanted to magically
become Wonder Woman. The rest is 1970's TV history. See for yourself how
the original slow-changing concept looked in the series pilot (and second
episode), then see her first-ever starburst into Wonder Woman, in episode 3, "Beauty on
Parade." For fans, milestones like these are worth the whole season,
just for these moments alone.
Did the series need
additional improvement? You bet. Let's just say seasons two and three
looked totally different, and far better. Yet there's no denying that season one had its
moments. Even when I wince at the politically myopic comments from
"space aliens," I cannot help but love the series everywhere else. This is another
treat offered on DVD, finally.
---Techtite
The
DVD: The best part of this
DVD set is how much Lynda Carter herself contributed to it being this way.
The series premiere movie has a complete audio commentary by Lynda Carter
and Executive Producer Douglas S. Cramer. Then there's a featurette by
them both, where we get to see Lynda as she looks now (and, quite frankly,
she's still looking pretty good, 30 years later or not), along with
classic behind the scenes photos and clips to go with the anecdotes.
Overall, this is a finely made DVD season set.
Some minor grumbles. One;
the set is on three discs, double-sided. Now, sometimes I like two-sided
discs, sometimes I don't. One time I do is when those first-generation
DVDs used to have the full screen version of a film on side B, with the
as-it-appeared-in-theaters (not that "cropped" crap) widescreen
version on side A. This seems less like that, and more like someone wanted
to save a penny on discs, leading two three double-sided discs instead of
just five. Yes, "five"; disc three is a tease, with nothing on
side 2 at all. No biggie...but it is a grumbling worth mentioning in this
review. Oh well; at least it's finally out.
Click Picture to order this
DVD
| All text, Title
graphics, and pix not of reviewed products, are created by Techtite,
copyright 1999-2002; all rights reserved. Title picture of Birds
of Prey promotional poster taken from the official web site.
Both this photo, and screen captures of the program itself, are used only for the purpose of
review, and by no means represent any affiliation with Techtite
and the distributors of this entertainment product. For further "legalese"
& disclaimers, click here... |
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