"Wonder Woman" was a pioneering live-action television series based on the DC Comics superhero. The series starred Lynda Carter (a former beauty pageant winner) as the title heroine. 60 episodes were produced overall.
About a year earlier, Warner Bros. Had commissioned a pilot television movie based on Wonder Woman. That feature had starred Cathy Lee Crosby as a newly blonde Wonder Woman (a stark change from the traditionally brunet character in the comics). Apparently, the pilot feature didn't get a green-light to produce as an ongoing series. But the Lynda Carter pilot did get such a green-light.
Carter, a statuesque, buxom woman became the living epitome of Princess Diana, the Wonder Woman.
The first season of the series takes place during the original comics backdrop of World War II. There, Princess Diana of Paradise Island (since dubbed Themyscira in the comics) was sent to "man's world" by her mother, Queen Hippolyta, to be a beacon of guidance for humankind and its tendency toward war and cruelty. Diana becomes "Diana Prince", a yeoman in the U. S. Navy, and a clerk in the command of Colonel Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner, "the Carol Burnett Show").
The wartime adventures of Wonder Woman typically involved stateside affairs such as spies and saboteurs. Shy and mousy Diana served as a cover for the brainy and brawny Wonder Woman whenever trouble was afoot from Nazis and their sympathizers. Trevor just barely hid his crush for Wonder Woman, while Diana never let on that his crush (which was requited) was really the woman working in his office.
Fast forward to season two (and a network switch from ABC to CBS) and the World War 2 backdrop was jettisoned. Instead, the setting was contemporized. Now, Diana Prince-- still the original Wonder Woman, not aging a day-- is an agent of the Inter-Agency Defense Council-- IADC for short, and a pastiche of the FBI and CIA. Waggoner still plays Steve Trevor-- only this time, it's Steve Trevor JUNIOR. (The show's timeline never bothers to explain how the WW II Trevor's son gets to be perfectly 40-ish just barely 32 years after the purportedly single Trevor's escapades back then. But hey. It's make believe). On a side note, the relationship between this Diana and Steve was strictly platonic. In-story, maybe Diana simply thought it weird to date the son of Steve.
For this new format, villains were largely contemporized as well. Nazis were not the standard (though they didn't totally disappear), but an assortment of Cold War-era foes were now part of the mix. Mainly the show stayed away from "fantastic" (e.g., comics-based) criminals and threats. There was no Giganta, Cheetah, Dr. Poison, Dr. Psycho, or any of the comic strips' threats that had come to be known by the comics' literati.
The updated format to the show lasted two seasons, making the show last three overall.
This was literally the only live action interpretation of Wonder Woman to make it to screen for decades until the Gal Gadot era began in "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice". (sidebar: a more recent Wonder Woman TV pilot was attempted in the 00s starring Adriane Palicki. The pilot was never aired.)
The show's popularity and, yes, cult status is part of the enduring legacy of Ms. Carter as the pioneering superhero. It is without question her best known role but she seems to not have suffered a regretful relationship to Hollywood for it.
About a year earlier, Warner Bros. Had commissioned a pilot television movie based on Wonder Woman. That feature had starred Cathy Lee Crosby as a newly blonde Wonder Woman (a stark change from the traditionally brunet character in the comics). Apparently, the pilot feature didn't get a green-light to produce as an ongoing series. But the Lynda Carter pilot did get such a green-light.
Carter, a statuesque, buxom woman became the living epitome of Princess Diana, the Wonder Woman.
The first season of the series takes place during the original comics backdrop of World War II. There, Princess Diana of Paradise Island (since dubbed Themyscira in the comics) was sent to "man's world" by her mother, Queen Hippolyta, to be a beacon of guidance for humankind and its tendency toward war and cruelty. Diana becomes "Diana Prince", a yeoman in the U. S. Navy, and a clerk in the command of Colonel Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner, "the Carol Burnett Show").
The wartime adventures of Wonder Woman typically involved stateside affairs such as spies and saboteurs. Shy and mousy Diana served as a cover for the brainy and brawny Wonder Woman whenever trouble was afoot from Nazis and their sympathizers. Trevor just barely hid his crush for Wonder Woman, while Diana never let on that his crush (which was requited) was really the woman working in his office.
Fast forward to season two (and a network switch from ABC to CBS) and the World War 2 backdrop was jettisoned. Instead, the setting was contemporized. Now, Diana Prince-- still the original Wonder Woman, not aging a day-- is an agent of the Inter-Agency Defense Council-- IADC for short, and a pastiche of the FBI and CIA. Waggoner still plays Steve Trevor-- only this time, it's Steve Trevor JUNIOR. (The show's timeline never bothers to explain how the WW II Trevor's son gets to be perfectly 40-ish just barely 32 years after the purportedly single Trevor's escapades back then. But hey. It's make believe). On a side note, the relationship between this Diana and Steve was strictly platonic. In-story, maybe Diana simply thought it weird to date the son of Steve.
For this new format, villains were largely contemporized as well. Nazis were not the standard (though they didn't totally disappear), but an assortment of Cold War-era foes were now part of the mix. Mainly the show stayed away from "fantastic" (e.g., comics-based) criminals and threats. There was no Giganta, Cheetah, Dr. Poison, Dr. Psycho, or any of the comic strips' threats that had come to be known by the comics' literati.
The updated format to the show lasted two seasons, making the show last three overall.
This was literally the only live action interpretation of Wonder Woman to make it to screen for decades until the Gal Gadot era began in "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice". (sidebar: a more recent Wonder Woman TV pilot was attempted in the 00s starring Adriane Palicki. The pilot was never aired.)
The show's popularity and, yes, cult status is part of the enduring legacy of Ms. Carter as the pioneering superhero. It is without question her best known role but she seems to not have suffered a regretful relationship to Hollywood for it.