Wonder Woman: Season 01 (1976) Reviews

The premise of the ABC fantasy adventure series Wonder Woman is firmly established in the two-hour opener (telecast in 1975, just before the debut of the series proper), which is largely set on Paradise Island, home of a tribe of super-powered (and very attractive) Amazons. Played by 5'10" former "Miss World U.S.A." Lynda Carter, Wonder Woman is the island's princess, her great power emanating largely from her golden bracelets and belt, which have been fashioned from a magical substance called Feminum. Although WWII is raging elsewhere, Paradise Island is hidden from mortal view -- until American war hero Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner) crash-lands on the island. Remaining with Amazons to fight off invading Nazis, Steve makes quite an impression on Wonder Woman, and after he returns stateside she shows up in the guise of Diana Prince, a USAF yeoman assigned as Steve's assistant. The rest of Wonder Woman's inaugural season consists of irregularly scheduled "specials," each seen in a two-part format on consecutive weeks. In the early adventures, Wonder Woman meets her match in the form of Fausta (Lynda Day George), a "superwoman" created by the Nazis; W.W.'s sister Drusilla (played by a very young Debra Winger) makes her first appearance in "The Feminum Mystique"; a Nazi-generated gorilla places the free world in jeopardy; a friendly space alien (played by Tim O'Connor) tries to warn W.W. of the imminent destruction of Earth; and on a trip to Hollywood, our heroine finds that there are even fifth columnists in Tinseltown. While the limited-run first season of Wonder Woman was popular with viewers, ABC decided to forego fashioning an "official" weekly series of the property. Fortunately, Wonder Woman was "rescued" by rival network CBS -- but not without several radical change in the format! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi