WONDERLAND • The Ultimate Wonder Woman Site

That said, I recently discovered that I had prudishly misjudged at least one example of fetishist gimmickry when I was chatting to one of my most feminist friends about Won-der Woman (I forget why). Unexpectedly her eyes lit up and she spent the next half an hour enthusing wildly about it and telling me Lynda Carter was her childhood hero, which left me somewhat speechless at the time. Still, when Sci-Fi started showing the series from the start this month, I set the video for the pilot episode thinking that I could have a brief look at it before I lent it to her. Though I vaguely remembered it from childhood, it was only the recurring images — the costume, the quick-spin change, the bullet-deflecting bracelets, and the incredibly high jumps — that really stuck in my mind. And, of course, one of the absolute best theme tunes of all time.

Of the many things about the pilot episode that surprised me, the most immediately obvious was that it was set in 1942 — unlike the later episodes, presumably the ones I saw as a child, which were set in the Seventies. The next surprise was that it was funny, ánd deliberately so — with almost the same arch blend of exaggerated clichés and deadpan delivery (particularly from Lyle Waggoner as square-jawed Major Steve Trevor) used five years later by Police Squad! I'd also forgot-ten Wonder Woman's invisible plane, her golden lasso that forced her captors to tell the truth, and the fact that Steve failed to recognize her with her hair up and her glasses on. (This could only imply that when he saw her in her Wonder Woman outfit, he wasn't looking at her face.)

In terms of its feminist credentials, while it's arguable whether our heroine's costume obscures the message, the philosophy running through the series — or at least the episodes shown in its first week on Sci-Fi — is that women are by far the superior sex. Wonder Woman's strength and eternal youth are a product of her upbringing on Paradise Island, a remote community established by her mother thousands of years ago, where women can realize their full potential unencumbered by the presence of men. The series is short on specifics as to how this came about and how the Queen en-forces it, although the conclusion I drew is that she's destroyed any ships that have come near the island, situated in the Bermuda Triangle.

Nor is the theme tune's insistence that Wonder Woman is 'demon-fighting for our rights, wearing satin tights' merely hot air. The single factor most influencing Wonder Woman's decision to go back to America with Major Steve Trevor (apart, possibly, from his dashing good looks) is that democratic America is the world's best hope against the threat of Nazi tyranny. Despite her mother's assertion that male-dominated society can never match a culture built on strong feminine values, Won-der Woman sees the common cause between the men of the United States and the Para-dise Island Way, which more or less amounts to truth, freedom, and all-round goodness.

The second hour-long episode — Fausta, the Nazi Wonder Woman — ends with Fausta realizing she's better than her (male) Nazi bosses, and joining in on America's side. Wonder Woman even praises her for realizing her `unwomanly mistake'.

I used to get terribly annoyed at feminist theories implying that men were the root of all evil and that women had all the answers. I can't help but feel that I would be a better-adjusted feminist if I'd paid more attention as a child to Wonder Woman, who brought her pure-hearted feminine principles into combination with the open-minded men of America in order to defeat the masculine evil of Nazism.

It's difficult at first glance to spot any modern equivalent of Wonder Woman among today's feisty fantasy females: most of the best female characters today are just very good characters without a particular feminist agenda, even in female-dominated series like Xena and Charmed. A moment's thought about the genre's most popular current series, however, reveals that Buffy is indeed the new Wonder Woman. The fact that Slayers are (apparently) always girls contains the hint that girls are superior, as does the fact that almost all of the main characters — now including Anya, Dawn and Glory — are girls, while characters like Xander and Riley provide a constant testimony to male inferiority. More importantly, both in the conventional sense of demon-fighting and the more subtle sense of staying well-balanced and human while doing it, Buffy's fighting for all our rights. Unlike Wonder Woman, of course, she doesn't have to wear satin tights to do it. Whether this represents progress is, perhaps, a matter of taste.

The Premise: World War 2 pilot Colonel Steve Trevor bails out of his plane in the Bermuda Triangle and is washed up on the beach of Paradise Island. Amazon Princess Diana wins the contest to accompany him back to America and, as Wonder Woman and Diana Prince, Trevor's secretary, she remains by his side to fight evil Nazi oppressors. Thirty-five years later, Wonder Woman returns to the States to assist Steve Trevor Jnr, son of the original, at the Inter Agency Defence Command (IADC), battling international villainy.

Background: Reportedly commissioned as a season filler for The Bionic Woman — out of production due to an injury sustained by Lindsay Wagner — Wonder Woman was a sufficient success to convince ABC to continue. CBS took the show on after one year and updated the setting to the Seventies.

First Run: The show premièred in the USA on 11th July 1975. The first season was never shown in the UK by the BBC (Sky 1 finally showed it in 1993), who instead started with Season Two, on 1st July 1978, showing the episodes out of order.

Number of Episodes : Sixty, including two feature-length pilots to introduce Seasons One and Two.

The Good Guys: Season One: Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter), princess from Paradise Island; Major Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner), pilot in the US Air Force; General Blankenship (Richard Eastham), Trevor's boss; Etta Candy (Beatrice Colen), Blankenship's secretary and Diana's close friend; Drusilla (Debra Winger), Wonder Girl and Diana's younger sister. In addition to those that returned, the next two seasons also included IRAC (voiced by Tom Kratochvil), IADC's supercomputer.

The Bad Guys: The Nazis in Season One. After that, anyone from mad toy inventors, ants and disembodied brains to mind stealers from Space, maniac disc jockeys or any number of heavies in roll-necks and flared trousers.

And isn't that... Mel Brooks' stalwart Cloris Leachman and Batman's Riddler Frank Gorshin. Other notable guest stars include: veteran Horror star John Carradine, Roddy MacDowell and Ted Shackelford. Most no-table is, of course, Debra Winger, who loathed the show so much she allegedly broke her contract and left...

Overdone clichés: Trevor failing to notice that his associate only has to remove her specs to be a dead ringer for the lady of his dreams?

Fashion statements; How long have you got? This is the Seventies.

WONDERFUL!

The Mind Stealers from Outer Space • Two-part sequel to a Season One story, this features some fabulously dreadful alien cos-tumes composed of sparkly jumpsuits and tinsel, and a big black monster call the Ssard who trashes Diana's apartment and tears her blouse.

Pot of Gold. Really warm and glowing Christmas story about an Irish leprechaun who has to avoid the big-collared heavies getting their hands on his valuable pot of gold.

The Boy Who Knew Her Secret. A boy sees Diana change into Wonder Woman and, while also foiling the plans of some more mind stealers from Outer Space, she has to find a way to erase his memory. But has she forgotten about something?

WONDER WHY...

Flight to Oblivion is a very dull story about a turncoat NATO officer sabotaging the US Air Force. Even the costumes don't sparkle...