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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 61266" data-attributes="member: 23">THE PIED PIPERWe're into a pretty dismal run for Lyle Waggoner fans, and indeed poor Lyle himself.The Forties era has gone. The Amazons have gone. The invisible plane could be history (Diana was actually seen at an airport, presumably having just arrived on a passenger plane). With Knockout and The Pied Piper, another significant link to the ABC episodes is put onto the back burner. Albeit hidden behind a thin veil of storytelling.In the previous episode Diana left town to investigate alone, happily leaving Steve behind to pair up with Gary Ewing. The Pied Piper sees Joe Atkinson's daughter in potential danger, lured into the world of a sleazy, cultish singer with promises of fame and fortune. Steve and Diana both notice something is wrong with Joe during the now obligatory briefing scene, but it's Diana who handles it. When Joe comes to her, she sits him down to talk, holds his hand sympathetically and invites him to take Steve's place in their investigation (which she has been off delving into by herself anyway). She even has a line about it being an opportunity for Steve to get stuck into the paperwork he is so fond of which, while delivered with humour, comes off a little more cutting than one might expect.Joe, too, is quickly relegated to the sidelines, leaving Diana to do her thing alone and unencumbered. One can only wonder if these devices are a case of art imitating life.Now, on the one hand this is how it should be. Diana is more than capable of dealing with whatever gets thrown her way. Then there's the Amazonian philosophy that women are stronger than men who need their protection. And she should be shown to be able to deal with others independently through communication or brute strength as the occasion calls for. The show, after all, is called The New Adventures Of Wonder Woman.But there's a sense, too, that the series is becoming a very different animal and the fabric of the show and the supporting cast are starting to be seen as a hindrance to a different vision. It's great to see a little more of Joe this episode, but it's not as much as you may expect. And then there's Steve.Poor Lyle Waggoner is wheeled on for the briefing scene at the beginning and again for the denouement. Each time he has a just a couple of lines to deliver which - to his credit - he smiles his way through and gives as much of a sense of his character as it's possible to do with such minimal material. And this is the second consecutive such episode. Under the mid-season retooling of the show Steve would be relegated to a desk job, dooming the character for the rest of the run, but that formula is being explored already. I hadn't realised just how early it had begun.Watching Steve get captured and rescued each episode may have got boring over three seasons, but there's plenty more they could have done. The chemistry between the characters is good. Even though they'd wisely chosen not to pursue the romantic angle (more than a little icky considering her feelings for his father), their scenes together are still solid and entertaining.I'm not sure from where the decision to decrease Steve's role in the show to this extent came, but I can't help thinking of some quotes from <a href="http://www.wonderland-site.com/html/mags/mags00130.htm" target="_blank">this 1977 TV Guide article.</a>Talking about Lyle expecting to have equal billing, an anonymous "former associate" was quoted as saying:Lyle's publicist threw the following into the mix:While Lyle himself was even more succinct:All need to be taken with a pinch of salt, of course. But it's difficult to find another logical explanation for what I'm currently watching onscreen. Regardless of whose authority was behind Steve's sidelining and Lynda holding the show almost singlehandedly. I think as the series evolved a definite hierarchy came along with it, which was to the detriment of the show.I can live with Diana Prince becoming increasingly more well-dressed with each passing episode (as I recall, by the end of the series the glasses were hardly ever worn and the hair even flowed freely. She was basically Wonder Woman in designer rags. Or even Lynda Carter). But the show needs a strong supporting cast to give it some substance and believability, otherwise it's just an enjoyable-but-unsatisfying fashion parade.This episode is a case in point. The story isn't awful, but the execution is something else. Diana Prince flying solo doesn't make for great dialogue (on the plus side it means we get some nice waka-waka soundtrack as we follow her). Good writing doesn't date and that's something in short supply here. Instead we get an episode that's probably as close to Adam West's Batman series as it gets.The villain of the piece is a singer who entrances young women every time he gets his flute out (insert chortle here). He's not particularly good looking. Nor can he sing. He wears an ensemble that would make Elvis say "too much". And he's about as menacing as the previous few sentences suggest.Diana Prince ends up in a series of predicaments and has to get out of them. But they all feel interchangeable and generic. Like those books where you choose what happens next via a choice of page numbers. All the boxes are ticked one by one: bondage; tiara throwing; jumping; lasso whirling. My personal favourite scenario this episode sees Diana strapped into a dentist chair which spins madly while she is tortured with cheap music. One can almost hear William Dozier's voice summing up the horrible cliffhanger and urging us to tune in tomorrow - same Wonder Time; Same Wonder Channel for the resolution. It has a certain chintzy camp value, but as a sober adult it's not particularly enjoyable to watch even on that level.As you've probably guessed, the chair spinning brought on a Wonder Spin which empowered her to free herself from her chair. But wait...! The chair is spinning to the left. Doesn't she go to great lengths to spin to the right? Every time?! The only left spins we saw were when she started to change back to Diana Prince in The Feminum Mystique. And possibly when she changed out of her aqua suit in The Bermuda Triangle Crisis. Oh - and at least one of Drusilla's changes to Wonder Girl. So by rights, she should either have turned into a dowdier version of Diana Prince or into Debra Winger. But perhaps the less said about that the better.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?