Became a Bionic Woman clone
By Season 3 Wonder Woman became a clone of The Bionic Woman with the same special effects and sound effects. The stories also became interchangeable.
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MovieChat Forums > Wonder Woman (1975) Discussion > Became a Bionic Woman clone
Agreed. Diana working as a spy for the IADC was very similar to Jaime and the OSI . And when Steve was promoted, he became her Oscar Goldman.
shareNotice how when the show began it was about Wonder Woman, where she spent more time as WW then she did as Diana Prince...as it progressed...(definitely by the move to present day and even moreso in the 3rd season) everything that made Wonder Woman special, her mystical heritage, the references to Paradise Island...everything was phased out.
Paradise Island isn't mentioned once in Season 3 and possibly due to the increasing popularity of shows like Bionic Woman and Charlies Angels, the creative team tried to mirror that and what we ended up with basically was "The Diance Prince Show".
I guess once they have established her Paradise Island ties, it was an understood fact that they didn't need to show over and over again. Like most TV shows, when you establish a character's home life in one episode (like parents or relatives), you don't need to show them all the time to know that they are there. They are kept on a back burner and only brought out when necessary.
shareThe show was rebooting itself (sans actors) long before "reboot" was ever coined for TV show regurgitation!
Kudos to the cast for trying to make it work, but season 3 is such a mess.
Season 1 was the best, but season 2 where they had a brief chance to reference the war and its repercussions were the best. Once they did the christmas tree aliens from outer space, Frank Gorshin's robot collection (great actor, wasted talent), the greedy computer collector named "Mr. Haveitall", season 2 went downhill pretty far. Yet the suits thought that putting in more of what made season 2 stink for season 3, and replace all the original and good music with elevator muzak would somehow improve it?! :(
The computer thief episode was actually above average for season 2 (along with the WW2-themed episodes and a couple others), but - really - the name "Havitol" was cringe inducing as an in-joke.
On a deeper level, the transforming of this show into something more like Bionic Woman also meant the show basically ended up right where it started with the premise of the Cathy Lee Crosby version from 1974. If you think about it, the Crosby template gave us a WW with limited superpowers, working for a contemporary spy agency headed by Steve Trevor.
shareHer superpowers were NOT limited. Not in any way at all!!
Don't say anything bad about Jojo
If she's a disciplinarian, I'm the Queen Of England!- Stella
Her superpowers were NOT limited. Not in any way at all!!
In the Crosby movie they were. share
Crosby's WW didn't have any superpowers, because at the point when they started filming, WW in the comics didn't have any, either. She went through an unpowered stretch from the late 60s to the early 70s, where she relied on martial arts and a mentor named I Ching.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Season 2 went downhill the minute Steve Trevor stepped aside for it to be all about Wonder Woman.
The first season at least allowed Diana and Steve to work well together and the chemistry worked.
But then Diana became a full-fledged IADC Agent all by herself and checking in to Steve every once in a while.
I'm sorry, but if you're an agent, you probably don't want a desk job.
Even the scene when Steve mentioned his promotion he looked pissed.
It would have been great if the two met up and did crossover episodes.
I'm Oddly Even, who the hell are you?
It's weird that Wonder Woman became irrelevant in a show called "Wonder Woman". If they wanted to make it into 'Diana Prince: Secret Agent', they should have done the storyline that was done in the comics in the sixties, from issues 179-204, when Diana gave up her powers and became a Martial Arts expert, under the tutelage of Master I-Ching. She worked by day as a clothing boutique owner and in her spare time, she and I-Ching solved crimes and caught spies.
This phase of her DC series was clearly influenced by the British spy show "The Avengers", and specifically by Diana Rigg's portrayal of Emma Peel. Diana even started to dress like Emma Peel in the comic.
The name of the comic series was changed to "Diana Prince: Wonder Woman", until she got her powers back in issue # 204.
Doing it this way could have differentiated it from "The Bionic Woman" and still focused on Dian instead of Wonder Woman. It would also eliminate the need of Steve Trevor (who had been killed off in the comics at that point.)
It was the seventies. Even the Hardy Boys were hired by the government.
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