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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 60024" data-attributes="member: 23">JUDGEMENT FROM OUTER SPACE (PT. I & II) / FORMULA 407 / THE BUSHWACKERS / WONDER WOMAN IN HOLLYWOODWonder Woman mythos aside, a general rule of thumb for me is that the more sci-fi heavy the episode the less watchable it becomes. For that reason I've never particularly enjoyed Judgement. And so was the case this time round. Even with the threat of earth being annihilated. This time round it occurred to me that the omniscient and advanced aliens observing Andros felt very Kryptonian in manner, outlook and power. I started to wonder if they were inspired by the upcoming Superman film which would have been in development at this point. Or perhaps just Superman in general.Reservations and cheesy space stuff aside, it wasn't all bad news. Carter's earnestness helped, as did Tim O'Connor's gravitas - not easy when wearing the traditional silvery white surgeon's suit of all 1970s futuristic aliens. Truthfully, it could probably have been condensed into one 50 minute episode and not lost a great deal.I could barely remember Formula 407 so it was enjoyable for the freshness alone. A day or two down the line and it's fading again, so I think it will remain an "under-the radar" episode for me. Which is a pretty good thing. It's odd that I find it so forgettable since it contains all the classic WW elements of the first three standalone episodes: evil Nazis after knowledge of a specific item that could win them the war; good people blackmailed to do their bidding; Steve kidnapped; WW in bondage, etc.I wasn't particularly looking forward to The Bushwackers, which has always felt like random episode to me. Perhaps the reason for this is that when I first properly watched the ABC episodes (quite possibly as late as the DVD releases in the Noughties*, but perhaps I caught them in the Nineties) I somehow missed WW In Hollywood and found Bushwackers an unimpressive finale to the 1940s-set episode. In many ways Bushwackers feels so much like what the contemporary version of the series would become (to its detriment, if memory serves): there were lots of kids that WW got to connect with and who served as a kind of mirror for the young audience. When she kindly asked them to do their chores and spoke to them about parental love or whatever, there's a message to the young audience. It's almost like the lessons that would be learnt at the end of He-Man episodes where kids would get the moral of the story laid out to them. It's more subtle in this WW episode. But not much. All the same, it's done quite well here and has the advantage of not being sandwiched in among a load of other episodes featuring kids getting involved in WW's adventures as an intended outlet for the audience (I'm expecting to struggle with Season Three again for that reason). The only other kid that's featured prominently in this season was the irritating Tommy in the Von Gunther episode.Now, I don't know if it was last night's huge full moon having an effect on my emotions, but I found The Bushwackers oddly moving. The kids were mostly endearing rather than a test of tolerance, though there were some godawful stereotypical attempts at accents in order to emphasise the United Colours angle - particularly the "British" kid. Roy Rogers was fine here and as odd as the setup was, his rapport with his screen son was great. It's interesting how the dynamic shifted from having an episode built round a guest-star, but it was all to the good. Even Rogers' discomfort with WW wearing her skimpy outfit to hang out with a single man and a group of kids gave us a modest little twist on her outfit, predating some of her daytime wear in the George Perez stint on her comic by a decade. I smiled to think that if this were Season Two or Three, she'd probably have spun into some star-spangled sackcloth in order to better cover herself. Here she had her sweater and pants provided by the housekeeper. War orphan angle aside, the timeless ranch setting makes this feel less period than the rest of the season. And not in a bad way. It could have taken place in any time and could almost slot comfortably into a later season. There are some Season One specific tropes here: most notably WW's girdle of strength getting removed. Lyle Waggoner got to look ruggedly heroic, calmly staring down the men who ambushed him as he wore a cowboy hat. Moments like this highlight what a shame it is that his role wasn't beefed up a little more. After all, he was very nearly Batman a decade earlier. But then WW needed a dude in distress. He also looked ruggedly handsome in his uniform in the Hollywood episode. Ah - the Hollywood episode. Didn't every series in the Seventies have at least one contrived episode where the characters visited a film set? Last year I watched a pretty dire Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys episode where they ran round the Universal lot for no particular reason, battling everything that studio had to offer (including the shark from Jaws). With that fairly fresh in my mind, this one worked out pretty well. It felt like the setting was there to serve the plot, rather than the other way round (there was an actual, honest to goodness plot). Debra Winger was back to swoon over Robert Hays. I want to scream when she spins into Wonder Girl anti-clockwise in this episode. Not only is it the opposite direction to Carter, it's the opposite way to Winger's previous appearance. Anyone tuning in especially to see Carolyn Jones (who had the huge "Special Guest Star" billing this episode) is going to be very disappointed. It was just a cameo really - a cough and spit in a brief scene with Winger a couple of minutes in and that was it. * Apart from regular screenings of the Pilot, I don't remember the ABC version of WW getting a look-in when it came to repeats on British TV. I remember some early Season Two episodes screening on weekday mornings during a mid-Eighties school holiday once, which was a thrill. As I recall, an early-Nineties screening on Sky aired The New, Original WW and then confusingly skipped to Season Two's Anschluss '77. </blockquote>

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