Wonder Woman 3.4: The Fine Art of Crime

Airdate: 10/13/78

Artist Henry Roberts (Roddy McDowell), has a new exhibit: extremely lifelike statues of human beings in all variety of occupation/vocation. Harold Farnum (Ed Begley) returns as the over-eager, over-earnest college student writing a paper bout these statues and what makes them tick (or not, in this case). Concurrently, a wave of art theft is hitting he area hard, and Diana tracks it down to one of Roberts’ galleries, making a connection between him, his not-so-fake-after-all statues, and a mastermind thief by the name of Moreaux. It looks like the jig is up when Wonder Woman herself is “frozen” (like Farnum had been), but she outsmarts the fiendish freezers and hauls them all in for their misdeeds, and poor use of technology.

Star-studded show (also including Gavin MacLeod, albeit a bit wasted in a verysmall role) has a clever conceit, reminiscent of the classic chiller House of Wax. Unfortunately, the villainous plot could easily be figured out as soon as Diana sees one of Roberts’ creations at the first scene of the crime – coincidence? I think not! But McDowell has a good time chewing the scenery and Begley is a likeable enough cohort for Diana. Interesting note: no Diana/WW transformation scenes. Are they getting lazy and/or cheap like they did with the Hulk’s final season?