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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 59115" data-attributes="member: 23">WONDER WOMAN MEETS BARONESS VON GUNTHER / FAUSTA: THE NAZI WONDER WOMAN / BEAUTY ON PARADE / THE FEMINUM MYSTIQUE / WONDER WOMAN VS. GARGANTUAHeading towards the halfway point, Season One is proving quite enjoyable this time round.Already the tone has changed a couple of times. The lower budget of the series versus the pilot movie was immediately evident. And I mean immediately. The very first scene of the Von Gunther episode showed Diana working in an office space that felt nothing short of claustrophobic after the impressively spacious sets of the pilot. That said, the look of the series proper is still quite attractive, with lots of location work. Whereas the pilot created its own unique little world with the huge outdoor sets, it's occurred to me this time round that the look of the regular episodes feels more in line with the modern day CBS series with those familiar California locations that can be seen in any number of shows of the Seventies, with with a Forties flavour.With a couple of exceptions, the knowingly camp performances of the big names in the pilot have mostly been replaced with something far straighter. Now there's a more standard formula where the earnestness of the majority is juxtaposed by the light relief, which in this show is mostly provided by the gurning, eating and swooning of Etta Candy. It's all fine, I suppose, but there's no escaping that this is a kids show, whereas the pilot felt as though it was pitched at adults with its appeal to a young audience being entirely coincidental.I usually group the first two "standalone" episodes from the 75-76 TV season (which actually ran in The Bionic Woman slot when Lindsay Wagner couldn't work for a couple of weeks) separately from the rest of the season which aired in the 76-77 TV year for a number of reasons. There are the shorter end titles, which work better in my opinion. The reprise of the animated opening that begins with the first regular episode, Beauty On Parade, feels like filler.The standalones also continue the more complex (and expensive) way of showing Diana's change into costume with a dissolve rather than the blast of light that began with Beauty. In this case, I think the thunderclap is head and shoulders over the dissolve in terms of effectiveness. The dissolve looks a bit messy to me, not least because it ends with Wonder Woman holding her Diana Prince clothes and looking for a place to dump them. I'm keeping an eye on the evolution of the Wonder Spin. Even with the red, white then blue blast in place, there's still too much going on at this point. We've got the trademark half turn to the left with arms out and then a spin to the right, but Carter then gilds the lily by raising her hands into the air as the spin ends. By season's end she will have perfected it by going for simplicity (her arms remaining out at her sides for the whole cycle).Another thing that separates the standalones from the rest of the season is that they used villains from the comics. Fausta Grables and Paula von Gunther were both lifted from early WW comics (with some tweaking). After that we've gone onto more standard seventies fare of beauty contests and fighting a wild animal played by a man in a gorilla costume. But each manages to put a unique Wonder Woman stamp on the story, I suppose. And it would have got a little old to see WW chastise her female villains for not matching her ideal of womanhood week in week out.It took some suspension of disbelief to swallow Diana entering a beauty contest sans glasses and wearing a swimsuit in full view of Steve. It felt more like a vanity project or the producers (understandably) not wanting to miss the opportunity to tap into Carter's beauty pageant past. I know that Lynda would fight for Diana to become more glamorous once the series flashed forward to the Seventies, and by the third season the glasses were history and she was even wearing her hair down, but it's interesting it happened so early in the show's run.The Feminum Mystique two-parter is both daft and hugely enjoyable. Debra Winger is quite charming as Wonder Woman's little sister Drusilla, and it's a nice touch to introduce the Wonder Girl* mythos to the TV audience:<img src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/56/90/fc/5690fc1260f39e46a2839c5464edd454.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />But the episode is even more fun to watch because of how uncomfortable Winger became with having done this role very soon afterwards and the way she has framed her experiences of working with Lynda Carter. Winger later claimed Carter was a complete diva, fighting to ensure nobody wore the same shade of eyeshadow she did**. Carter has said it's untrue***.To be fair to Winger here, there is an uncomfortable exploitative side to the role. Her Paradise Island garb and her Wonder Girl costume are certainly all about the boobs and butt.[MEDIA=youtube]2RPe3UjK2rs[/MEDIA]It seems even more wrong when you consider Drusilla is meant to be fifteen here (Winger was in her early twenties).This is a bit of an issue with the entire episode. The Amazons in this episode feel less like the strong women we saw in the pilot. They're too giggly, vacuous and - well, a bit porn star looking. Seriously - it feels like they're about to start soaping each other up or something. It's a bit like going to a wedding and seeing those over tanned women in skimpy, cleavage-enhancing bridesmaids outfits. You know that given the occasion they're supposed to look wholesome and virtuous, but they don't. It doesn't help that one of the whorey looking amazons went on to be the slutty nurse in Halloween II.There's a bit of retconning going on here. Not only is this the first we know about Drusilla, the clip above shows her present when Diana first changed into her WW costume (which is possible, I suppose, given the way the scene was shot).Anyway, I can forgive the episode its imperfections. There's too much good stuff going on.Carolyn Jones is quite a different Hippolyta to Cloris Leachman. There's more of a sense of fun here. She's regal enough, and also looks very weary. It's clear Jones isn't taking it seriously at all and the episode is all the better for it. Had she appeared in the pilot it may have been too much, who knows. There was enough hamming going on there. Here she gets to stand out.* Though it would have been even more enjoyable had she been named as the Donna Troy Wonder Girl of the comics at that time.** Here, among other places:[MEDIA=youtube]Uu89K7nI8KY[/MEDIA]*** Like so:[MEDIA=youtube]y7l4jdOvhMw[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?