Blu-ray Review: Wonder Woman The Complete Series

By Kevin Gaussoin, Editor-in-Chief

Wonder Woman debuted on Friday, November 7th, 1975 on ABC. Well, let’s back up. Wonder Woman debuted Tuesday October 21, 1941 in All Star Comics #8. Written by William Moulton Marston and drawn by HG Peter, this introductory story features the same basic introduction as we more recently got in 2017’s Wonder Woman starring Gal Gadot: Steve Trevor crashes his plane on the previously undiscovered island populated the the Amazons, the Amazons clash with Trevor’s German enemies, and then Princess Diana takes on the mantle of Wonder Woman and leaves her paradise island to join Steve Trevor and the Americans to fight for justice.

Soon after, Wonder Woman began her initial run in the anthology Sensation Comics, which ran 109 issues until 1952. She also joined the Justice Society in the pages of All Star Comics, but as she had her own book, she was only allowed to perform secretarial duties. As much as William Moulton Marston was a devoted feminist, clearly the patriarchy wasn’t yet fully ready for Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman debuted on Friday, November 7th, 1975 on ABC. It starred Lynda Carter and Lyle Waggoner (The Carol Burnett Show) as YN1 Diana Prince and Army Major Steve Trevor. The pilot is called “The New Original Wonder Woman” to distinguish it from the failed pilot with Cathie Lee Crosby, which wasn’t Incredible enough to get picked up as a series. Much like the original comic story, this version of Wonder Woman begins amidst WWII, with Diana proving her superiority amongst all Amazons to win the right to return Army pilot Major Trevor to “man’s world” and join in the fight against the evil of the Nazis.

Season One remains in the WWII era, and the tone seems to straddle the no man’s land between Batman (’66) and Hogan’s Heroes, yet it’s somehow (usually) not as campy as either. “Cheesy” would be a better term, not only for the ridiculous scenarios, but also for the signature gorgeous grins we get all series long from both Carter and Waggoner.

One of the best parts of Season One was Debra Winger (An Officer and a Gentleman) as Drusilla, who takes on the mantle of Wonder Girl and aids her older sister Diana in fighting Nazis from Brooklyn Navy Yard to Hollywood. She wasn’t a series regular, but beyond her youthful ebullience she helped ground Wonder Woman to her mythos and Paradise Island family beyond the events of the pilot episode.

Seasons Two and Three saw a change in channel to CBS, who demanded Warner Brothers bring Wonder Woman to the present (1977-79) and while they sadly never bring back Drusilla, they do bring back Lyle Waggoner as none other than LTC Steve Trevor Junior, Agent of IADC and titan of toothy grins.

Wonder Woman is packed full of guest stars, including Ed Begley Jr. (Battlestar Galactica, Spinal Tap, Star Trek Voyager), Frank Gorshin (Batman), Gary Burghoff (MASH), Red Buttons (Pete’s Dragon), Anne Francis (Forbidden Planet), John Hillerman (Magnum PI), Russell Johnson (Gilligan’s Island), Roddy McDowall (Planet of the Apes, Batman The Animated Series), Gavin McLeod (The Love Boat), Robert Loggia (Independence Day), Martin Mull (Clue, Sabrina the Teenage Witch), Eve Plumb and Robert Reed (The Brady Bunch), Roy Rogers (The Roy Rogers Show), Hayden Rorke (I Dream of Jeannie), John Saxon (Enter the Dragon, From Dusk till Dawn), Philip Michael Thomas (Miami Vice), Barry Van Dyke (Galactica 1980), Dick Van Patten (Eight is Enough, Spaceballs), and Joan Van Ark (Knots Landing). One thing I need to know: is this the origin of Jessica Walter’s propensity for playing cocktail sipping boss bitches (Arrested Development, Archer)?

Some actors got two bites at the apple, with another Knots Landing star Ted Shackelford as well as Rick Springfield (♬Jesse’s Girl♪) getting different roles in different episodes. The other teen idol guest star Leif Garrett also played two roles, but they were twins in the same episode.

On the other hand, sometimes characters returned with new faces. Remember Andros, that space guy trying to save Earth from the super judgy council of civilization judges from space? He was first played in 1942 by Tim O’Connor (Buck Rogers, Star Trek TNG) but then returns next season (thirty-five years later) thirteen years younger as Dack Rambo (Sword of Justice). Perhaps he was from Ork?

The most prominent actor change was of course Princess Diana’s mother, Queen Hippolyta. From Cloris Leachman (American Gods, The Croods, The Mary Tyler Moore Show) to Carolyn Jones (The War of the Worlds, House of Wax, The Addams Family) to Beatrice Straight (Poltergeist), The queen of the Amazons was played by some powerful women. I have to say that I really loved Leachman best.

The final pair of episodes for the series featured not only Gul Dukat (Star Trek DS9’s Marc Alaimo) but also one of the kid stars of one of my favorite series: Ike Eisenmann (Escape to Witch Mountain, Return from Witch Mountain, Race to Witch Mountain). Gul Dukat is all “Meh, I’m gonna plant bugs in coffee cups and sabotage Six Flags Magic Mountain rides, because that way I can ruin the fun of Bajorans and Southern Californians of all ages who are pretending to actually be in the Washington DC area for no good reason, meh!” But then he’s foiled by some technician from Westworld and a space kid who never even uses his telekinesis (oh, and Wonder Woman I guess).

Wonder Woman clearly could have gone on for another ten seasons, but for the business decisions made by CBS. I loved The Incredible Hulk and The Dukes of Hazzard as much as the next guy of my generation, but I really don’t think moving Hulk to Fridays to open up for the Duke boys was worth losing Wonder Woman altogether. Sure, it was in 60th place, but any network today would give anything to get the 12.3 million households that at the same seemed meager.

This new Wonder Woman Blu-ray release has some pros and cons. The most striking of which is the remastered video. Shows in the 1970s were often shot on film like this was, but originally they were broadcast out at NTSC (640×480) resolution. Sure, we loved watching Wonder Woman on our little 19” (if we were lucky) CRT TV screens back then, but because it was shot on film rather than video tape, now we can watch it at 1920×1080 on huge screens. This is both pro and con. On one hand, we can see Lynda and Lyle’s stunning smiles six feet across. On the other hand, at 1080p it’s super clear when it’s not Lynda, but Jeannie Epper doing stunts. It’s super clear when doors or boulders are styrofoam. It’s super clear when the Washington DC area is really being shot in the Los Angeles area.

The final Wonder Woman episode shot attempted to finally fix this problem problem by moving Agent Diana Prince to the Los Angeles field office of the IADC. As someone who has lived in both regions, I found every shoehorned mention of a DC location just ridiculous. They rarely even used much stock DC exterior footage, so it really seemed pointless to insist that that week’s episode was once again in the national capitol region.

Back to the Blu-ray release, Wonder Woman The Complete Series, as much as I loved the show itself, has some problems:

If you’re going to remaster a show from the original film today, why wouldn’t you release it on 4K HD rather than 1080p? 

The Blu-ray box is nice and compact, but by the time I got to the last of the 10 discs, the plastic hinging everything together was broken. Why not instead honor this classic with a steelbook release or some other version more suitable for both honored display and many years of use?

This is a big one: No new special features. Based on Lynda’s description of how long it’s been as well as her always saying “DVD” and never “Blu-ray”, the special features on this release were clearly for a previous DVD release. We got two commentaries and three featurettes that were clearly shot and edited for inclusion with three separate season sets. It was great seeing comic creators like Karen Berger (Vertigo and her new group with Dark Horse) and Alex Ross (Kingdom Come) but either these were shot a while back or they just look like it.

Also: couldn’t they have hired Lynda Carter or some other Wonder Woman cast, creators, or experts to do a new featurette? Maybe do another commentary or a few convention appearances?

Why does Lynda boast of inventing the spin-transformation at least 3 times, and talk about the stunts she did, but never laud her stuntwoman?

Wonder Woman as a series is a must-own. Lynda Carter and her Wonder Woman version are both icons of feminism and LGBTQ+ culture. But is this release for everyone? If you haven’t seen the show in decades, or Lynda, Lyle, or their guest stars speak to you, then absolutely. If you demand bleeding edge screen resolution or a nice big load of extras and you have seen Wonder Woman in recent years, then maybe wait until the next release. If we’ve learned anything from media releases in the past 20 years (it’s ComicsOnline’s 20 year anniversary, so this is our current metric) it’s that there will be another version coming up at the next best resolution sooner than we think.

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Wonder Woman The Complete Series 3 out of 5 golden lassos.

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