Wonder Woman 3.24: The Phantom of the Roller Coaster, Part 2

Airdate: 9/5/79

No, she didn’t die in that car crash (I guess it was a pretty quick transformation), but now Diana’s madder than bees, and ready to kick butt. It turns out the park owner knows that his bro’s down under, but he wants the recluse to turn over his hostage, or risk exposure. No, says the phantom – he can’t risk being the laughing stock – but al that changes when Diana accidentally finds his hiding spot and tries to make him feel better about his grotesque visage. Well, that will have to wait; Fynch has just planted a special detonator that disintegrates metal: the coaster’s toast unless WW ca step in, and she does. Fynch gets traced to his explosive, the boy is returned to the outside world, and the two brothers reuinite, to continue creating rollercoaster revelry for years to come.

Last disc of the set includes a mini-documentary: “Wonder Woman: the Ultimate Feminist Icon.” This is probably the lamest of all the extras thus far, as it simply includes a bunch of windbags of dubious credentials going on about how WW was the first feminist icon and how she changed culture, etc, etc. It’s stuff we’ve already heard, and would be better suited to a college term paper. Only Carter herself adds anything of value here.

Well, it's been great, folks - another series under our belts... gold belts, that is!

The last shot of the series - a freeze frame of Diana, of course!

Wonder Woman 3.23: The Phantom of the Roller Coaster, Part 1

Airdate: 9/4/79

Diana’s would-be sting of a dangerous wiretapper leads to a more lucrative prize: a man named Harrison Fynch, an evil tycoon bent on owning an amusement park, by any means necessary. Those means involve bugging, and the mysterious disappearance of a teenager on a field trip. But as it turns out, the boy has been abducted by someone else – would you believe a mysterious, disfigured man, the brother of the park owner? The “phantom” was wounded in Vietnam, and assumed to be dead. He feels he’s a liability to business in his current condition (outside of being a freak show attraction), so he has resigned himself to wandering corridors of the Super Loop alone. He seems innocuous enough; well, except for the kidnapping… and a bomb he’s taken from the bad guys. Part 1 ends as one of Fynch’s henchmen plows into the driver’s side of Diana’s car, presumably killing her, but I wouldn’t be so sure now.

First part of the two-part series conclusion starts incomprehensibly, and doesn’t get much better. Frequent WW scribe Anne Collins once again overwrites the plot, and so we alternate between confusing and laughably ridiculous, particularly once we get into the stuff about the “phantom.” They must have asked her to concoct a byzantine, spy-novel of a storyline – but throw in a roller coaster for the kids! Probably why I was more of a Hulk fan; more human-based stories, fewer megalomaniacs and their not-so-simple plans to take over.

Wonder Woman 3.22: The Man Who Could Not Die

Airdate: 8/28/79

A newly relocated-to-L.A. Diana Prince now has a new IADC boss, Dale Hawthorn, a new apartment and a new set of troubles. It all starts when a chimpanzee gets hit by car, thrown 50 feet after impact, and not only lives but shows nary a scratch or bruise. And after a mysterious lab explosion she discovers a man with exactly the same powers – Bret Cassiday is invincible, impervious to pain, immortal, and needs no food or water… and hates every minute of it. He had taken part in an experiment by a man bent on creating an army of superhumans, with a formula stolen from an esteemed scientist, and now he’s between a rock and a hard place as he can’t reverse the effects without going along with the madman’s dastardly plan. Diana/WW helps him out a bit, and the two automatons chase down the baddies, but in the aftermath, all the scientist’s notes were burned, and now that he’s a fugitive, Dale can’t return to normal without finding. As a consolation, Diana hires him to work for the IADC.

So I’ll have to check with the IMDB/Wikipedia after this, but for whateverreason, they totally revamped the format of the show. For one thing, Lyle Waggoner’s gone – he’s missing from the opening credits – and now Diana’s an L.A. girl with a crusty assignment manager who reminds me of a portly Joe Atkinson, who left after the beginning of last season. No IRAC, no Rover, all gone. Instead, we have a wiseacre black boy as a gouging salesman who hangs around the office: a blatant ripoff of Gary Coleman from the then-hot Diff’rent Strokes. And the apparent installation of a superhero working alongside Diana seems a bit derivative of The Six Million Dollar Man, especially now that WW of of late is acting a heck of a lot like The Bionic Woman.

Theories: this may be after learning they were cancelled, so it could all be a last ditch effort to create ratings fireworks in hope of renewal. Or this could be the fourth season, and they were canceled after three episodes. Or perhaps they just figured they blow the remainder of the budget on an extravaganza of stuntwork, explosions and special effects (although the chimp getting thrown in the air couldn’t look any more fake – it literally looks like a plush animal). Or maybe a combination of all or some of the above. In any case, this is the last single episode of the series. I’ll check back with more info.

Exposition of new setting is an endless series of panoramic shots of L.A. They could’ve cashed a check from the Chamber of Commerce.

Update: According to Wikipedia (with no citation listed, so we’ll just have to trust them), this episode was the last to be produced, anticipating a fourth season. When that didn’t happen, it was aired penultimately, with the “Roller Coaster” two-parter airing last. All of this was broadcast in late-Aug, early Sept., so it must have been a real tease for fans expecting a fourth season!

Wonder Woman 3.21: The Boy Who Knew Her Secret, Part 2

Airdate: 5/29/79

WW goes after one of the alien-abductees, and discovers the situation: they’re inhabiting human bodies in order to defeat a more sinister alien force – a foe who can morph into any living creature, mostly choosing the form of Jaffe’s assistant, Cameron. The pyramids, when all 99 are assembled, will form the prison that can hold this enemy, but Skip has the last one, and he’s keeping it, still thinking the mind-snatchers the real bad guys.

Now things get a little twisty. The bad alien, as Cameron, drugs Diana introforgetting about her assignment and the fact that she’s Wonder Woman (the latter being necessary so the alien can become the superhero). Skip, still thinking Diana and her alter-ego are one and the same, is now totally confused when he sees the alien as WW next to a memory-less Diana. His only recourse, he believes, is to let the aliens inhabit him and get it overwith, but Jaffe steps in to do it instead. With the 99 puzzle piece in place, and Diana jogging her memory back to normalcy, all that’s left is to send the extraterrestrial to jail, and that calls for WW to fight him, as he takes the form of a maniacal caveman. After the fisticuffs are over and everyone’s mind is their own, WW uses her lasso to make Skip forget knowledge of her secret… but she forgot that the aspiring writer tape records everything, and still has a record of this piece of info.

Whew! Involving conclusion does resolve everything but might be a bit overwritten for its own good. Quite frankly, the “knowing her secret” plot thread might even be unnecessary: there’s so much else going on. Wild WW vs. “beast man” slugfest at the end is perfectly crazy – doubtful anyone could have seen that one coming! Nice twist ending caps off a swell time with the satin-tight clad dynamo.

This aired one day after Part 1, which aired after a two month break, as CBS had to “dump” the series.

Wonder Woman 3.20: The Boy Who Knew Her Secret, Part 1

Airdate: 5/28/79

Weird pyramids from outer space are popping up in the small hamlet of Crystal Lake (ALAWAYS stay away from a town with that name); innocent looking enough at first, they have the habit of turning whomever picks them up into brain-drained zombies. That might have something to do with why Dr. Jaffe, an odd scientist who knows more than he tells, has sent Diana there to study them – her only help is a teenage boy named Skip who has noticed those aroud him not quite acting like themselves. When Diane holds one of the pyramids she discovers its identity-switching power (luckily Skip stops her before it completes), but now they must contend with an entire town of – presumably – aliens, but during the melee Skip witnesses Diana change into Wonder Woman. A small price to pay for saving the world, no?

Interesting variant of S2’s “Mind Stealers from Outer Space” (WW always seems to work best with interstellar themes) plays the same cards, only this time we have the added bonus of another character knowing Diana’s secret (even though it’s a “secret” that anybody with reasonably clear vision and average IQ should be able to figure out immediately). This doesn’t occur until the end of the show; in the meantime we get a lot of zapped-brains, expectedly cheesy props and special effects, and a rather sweet would-be romance between the title character and a shy horse-lover named Melanie.

I think I love this formula – small town goes berserk due to sinister, mysteriousforces that it takes a few lone, sane minds to eradicate – because it’s the stuff from which much American horror is wrought, from The Twilight Zone to Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Gremlins. This is the third or fourth time WW has tried it on for size – and it fits perfectly. All in all a terrific show, but it’s too bad more of these weren’t produced earlier in the season – it could’ve helped the ratings.

Wonder Woman 3.19: The Girl With a Gift for Disaster

Airdate: 3/17/79

An electronics thief and his cohorts plan to use the special powers of his girlfriend to steal a microwave jammer so they can send D.C. into a power and transmission blackout. The girl’s power? She’s a “jinx”; anywhere she goes, catastrophe follows, particularly to anyone planning to stop her boyfriend’s nefarious plot. But she wises up, thanks to the IADC and Diana, and helps to foil the grand plan to steal priceless American documents for the benefit of a crazed collector.

 A jinx? More like a Carrie rip-off, but salvaged, in part at least, by the beguilingperformance of Jane Actman in the title role. This is her second WW appearance, after playing the downtrodden girlfriend of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (is this a trend?), and she delivers a poignant evolution from vulnerability to mustered strength, in essence taking a subplot and propelling it far ahead of the trite main action. Sports fans take note of Dick Butkus as one of the villainous sidemen.

Wonder Woman 3.18: A Date With Doomsday

Airdate: 3/10/79

A deadly virus is stolen from a lab by a man who looks like an employee there – but turns out to be an imposter, “simulated” to look like the real deal. The scientist who developed the virus has now completed an antidote, but that gets stolen by the little old lady who comes to visit him often – or does it? The common thread linking these identity-stolen individuals is a computer dating service, which turns out to be run by a sinister man and woman team bent on starting a D.C.-wide pandemic as payback for the government’s deadly Doomsday experiments. The final leg of their experiment involves the creation of a helicopter tour guide doppelganger, which will then be used to spread the virus over the White House. Thank God WW manages to safely catch the small glass vial when they toss it out a moving helicopter at 10,000 feet!

Pretty good, suspenseful entry gets mileage from an all-too-credible scenario,even scarier these days when germ warfare and biological terror attacks seem more likely. Also prescient: the computer dating service, ubiquitous now, but still just a novelty then, and used as a last resort when all other approaches failed. Of course, the concept of scanning handprints to create a perfect latex facemask is a bit unrealistic – how is that better than the simpler, and more obvious, method of creating a plaster mold? Well, it definitely looks better. And speaking of, that’s braless Taaffe O'Connell (veteran of so many B-movies in the 70s and 80s) as the dating service receptionist.

Wonder Woman 3.17: The Richest Man in the World

Airdate: 2/19/79

Marshall Henshaw, an ultra-wealthy tycoon, plans to sell a special device that can jam entire missile systems to a small European country. Somewhere along the transfer, a third party stymies the sale and ditches Henshaw out the middle of nowhere. Since he’s a bit of a recluse, no one recognizes him, and so he, and a poor boy living out in a shack, try to get back to civilization and try to stop those who now have a device that could potentially threaten world peace. The evil-doers turn out to be working on the inside, one of them being Henshaw’s own paramour; Steve and Diana – and Wonder Woman – all work together to get things back to normal.

Decent enough show with the highlight being the plot arm dealing with the now-poor Henshaw and the bottle-collecting vagrant he enlists the help of – sort of a modern twist on The Prince and the Pauper. Some nice commentary on class, and good chemistry between the two. WW’s action sequences continue to look more and more gimmicky – fast motion, slow motion, sloppy editing. The show perish the thought, is starting to get a little slack here and there. And keep your eyes peeled for the scene where the evildoers steal the missile device  - the worst security in the show’s history!

The heir-apparent: "The Incredible Hulk,"
now the Friday night superhero.

And that brings me to some information about the show at this point. When the ratings of a series start to slip (as was the case with WW in the fall), network execs will often try to reschedule it, sometimes to try an help it in a better time slot, but mostly to see if it can prove itself somewhere else in the week. CBS did the latter with WW: Friday, January 12^th, 1978 was the last time it had the WW/Incredible Hulk/Flying High lineup (actually on that night they rebroadcast the Hulk 2-hour season premiere “Married). The following Friday they showed the godawful Captain America 2-hour pilot (which crashed and burned), and then the next Friday was Hulk-less – they moved the great green one to Wednesdays, with the Friday lineup being WW/The Dukes of Hazzard/Dallas. It stayed this way for about a month, but the Hulk was suffering, in part because many affiliates were committed to airing a historical drama instead, so CBS put it back on Fridays starting on 2/23/79, but they liked the 8:00 timeslot it had on Wednesdays, so they kept it at 8 (this, of course, would remain the CBS Friday night lineup for the next 2 ½ seasons). Guess what got bumped?

So Wonder Woman was kicked to Mondays, starting 2/16/79 (when the above episode aired), against Little House on the Prairie, which pretty much owned the timeslot. Needless to say, all the world was not waiting for her on Mondays, where she got trounced in the ratings (this was before Mon became the “Must See TV” night for CBS). Scrambling, the network dumped her on Saturdays beginning 3/10/79, where she was destroyed by Ponch and Jon of CHiPs. After a couple of weeks, they pulled it – airing zero reruns, and dumping the five remaining contractually-obligated-to-air episodes on two successive nights in May, and on three successive Tuesdays in late Aug/early Sept. What an end for the woman who singlehandedly won WWII for America!

But as I alluded in my above review, the show had been faltering in quality too. The formula for each episode was getting a little tedious, and the attempt to attract a younger audience with episodes about skateboarding, rock concerts and rollercoasters was all too apparent. Perhaps it was all for the best, but it’s too bad the series couldn’t have ended with a conclusive finale, and in a more dignified fashion.

Wonder Woman 3.16: Amazon Hot Wax

Airdate: 2/16/79

Diana goes undercover as an aspiring singer to a recording studio being extorted for a huge sun of money, in exchange for master tapes of an artist recently disappeared – valuable now because of their projected sales as a tribute album. Wonder Woman, along with three other, somewhat looney, singers from the studio, thwart the money transfer, and when the formerly missing singer turns up alive, the tapes are now ostensibly worthless. Now, kidnapping the reappeared star is an option, but such plans are foiled also, and the extorters are nabbed and arrested, with plenty more music emanating from the halls of Phoenix Records.

WW’s intro is delayed a full twenty minutes here – the reasons is that the star of this episode is Ms. Carter’s singing voice, which is actually pretty good, as well as the two songs they give her to do (they come from her own, simultaneously released debut, “Portrait”). The rest of the show is pretty hit or miss – the action scenes are clunkily staged and slo-moed a lot, and the acting by the rather large cast is a bit haphazard, and potentially tongue in check (subtle music references, perhaps?). Sarah Purcell and Judge Reinhold, way before they became popular, stand out as recording “twins” who turn out to be accomplices to the bad guys, and Curtis Credel is engaging as Eric, the studio head, who takes Diana’s departure and revelation that she’s really a fed quite hard.

Rick Springfield (in the middle) only a couple years before "Jessie's Girl."

Wonder Woman 3.15: The Starships Are Coming

Airdate: 2/2/79

Aliens have abducted a teenage boy from his small Pennsylvania town – or at least that’s what it seems. Upon closer investigation, Diana discovers a veil of secrecy surrounding the hamlet, and raises an eyebrow when a small TV studio is discovered to have ordered some fancy equipment. The involvement of a right-wing fanatic named Mason Steele seems to be behind the “aliens” goading of a high-ranking general into nuking China, making him believe that a even more pernicious extra-terrestrial invasion could imperil the entire planet. After the discovery, WW uses Steele’s airwaves to announce to the world the hoax, stopping the general before he can launch the missiles.

Not bad premise, well-paced and crafted – sort of a cross between OrsonWelles’s fake Martian invasion radio broadcast and Close Encounters. Second sci-fi story in a row is giving WW just the lift it needs amidst a slew of Starsky and Hutch derivations. Only problem: the general sure is an idiot for believing the aliens’ ruse; it’s a bit farfetched for us to swallow, let alone a man who’s got his finger on the red button. Final fight scene with WW and Steele’s thugs is well-choreographed. And speaking of Steele – his right-wing rationalization of his inane plan and artful demonization of his detractors is creepily effective, and al-too resonant today.

Wonder Woman 3.14: Spaced Out

Airdate: 1/26/79

A mastermind thief named Kimball is enlisted by some high-end criminals to steal priceless crystals from a telescope; in the wrong hands these gems could be used as lasers for nuclear weapons. Under the gun, Kimball has the crystals delivered to a socially-awkward attendee at a sci-fi convention named Sylvester, who isn’t aware of their worth and uses them as part of a prop for a stage show. Diana has her hands full trying to catch Kimball, stay clear of the criminals who hired him, and navigate her way around the crazy world of fantasy fanatics – the same ones who worship her when she becomes Wonder Woman!

The show is back in its element here, as the post Star Wars world of sciencefiction (which helped WW get a second wind) is a natural fit for a superhero’s exploits. Interesting how in 1979 the same stereotypes of sci-fi conventioneers were as prevalent as they are now. As WW is a Warner’s show, we get Robby the Robot as a host and multiple references to Logan’s Run, both Warner properties. Rene Auberjonois is terrific here as a Catch-Me-If-You-Can-like master of trickery – in the end he sort of winds up being an accomplice for Wonder Woman, as he is dressed up as the Black Avenger, a disguise that almost works perfectly for him, were it not for the needling, uber-specific questions he gets by a doggedly determined fan.

Wonder Woman 3.13: Going, Going, Gone

Airdate: 1/12/79

A Soviet pilot, nervous that he’s about to crash into a UFO, ejects himself and his cargo, a nuclear-tipped missile, into the Pacific Ocean. The missile is retrieved by a couple of three-piece-suit-wearing international criminals, who plan to sell their black market booty to foreign interests in a high-stakes bidding war, all covertly hosted inside a submarine ff the coast of Long Branch, California. Diana goes undercover as one such interest, but her cover is blown and only WW, and the outside help of Steve, can help her escape the clutches of her nefarious captors.

"Very exciting!"

Oh boy, the writers are really getting a bit big for their britches. This teleplay feels like it was written by Tom Clancy – all the dialogue is secret agent doublespeak, and the plot is so dry and prosaic I can’t imagine, again, how fans of the original action-packed WW would’ve reacted to this cold war tedium. At this point, Diana is really the hero, with WW showing up whenever she gets in a scrape. Attention, WW scribes: step away from the spy novels.

Lots of recycling of stock and previous WW footage, like the WW as gymnast inside the warehouse shot and the underwater scenes of “Aqua-Woman.”

Wonder Woman 3.12: Gault’s Brain

Airdate: 12/29/78

A government-contracted defense missile company, whose founder, Gault, has just died, is experiencing mysterious acts of sabotage. When Diana investigates, she is rebuffed by the current CEO, Stryker, who stubbornly refuses to acknowledge any problem exists, and so she follows a trail of attempted murder, falsified college records and odd goings-on to Gault’s old estate, managed by a woman named Tara Landon, who had just “hired” a supremely physically fit man named Morton for a bodyguard position. Steve and Diana/WW pursue further investigation to reveal the sinister plot behind the curtain: Tara and a mad doctor plan to transplant Gault’s preserved brain into Moron’s body so he can take over his own company.

These plots are really starting to get silly now, but the odd part is they’re takenmore seriously. Gone are the campy villainous costumes and scenery chewing; now we have storylines so boringly byzantine any average ten-year would tune out within the first 10 minutes (like I did). This probably explains he ratings dip and CBS’s rescheduling of the show in February, resulting in its ultimate cancellation. But I mean, really, when your had bad guy is a latex brain with one tentacled eyeball, voiced by John Carradine and able to psychokinetically move stuff around the room, you’re in Ed Wood country now, and the tone ought to match accordingly! Peter Mark Richman as the mad doctor gives it the old college try, though; he’s almost reason enough to get through this.

Celebrity sighting: Beefy David Mason Daniels (as Morton) is a dead ringer for a young Tom Cruise.

Wonder Woman 3.11: Pot of Gold

Airdate: 12/22/78

A British financier named Thackeray plans to smuggle counterfeit plates into the U.S., to exchange for gold from a two-bit hood named Bonelli. The source of the gold? A eccentric, stubborn old man who bears more than a close resemblance, in appearance and behavior, to a leprechaun! When he is robbed of his glistening plot, he goes after (as leprechauns are wont to do), and with Wonder Woman’s help (of which he’s not entirely grateful) tracks down Bonelli. The exchange is all set to go down when Thackeray dishonors his end of the deal and attempts to fly back to Britain with the gold. WW stops him, of course.

Pretty dull outing with the standard sub-par WW cops and robbers byplay. Character actor Dick O’Neill is charmingly irascible in his role, although the airing of this episode would be better suited for St. Patrick’s Day.  But the best performance may very well be the bad guy’s dog, who’s holding the counterfeit plates in his vest and barks viciously in its defense!

Wonder Woman 3.10: Stolen Faces

Airdate: 12/15/78

Edgar Percy, a fashion maestro and prosthetic makeup wiz, is planning the heists to end all heists: a benefit saltute to the ‘20s, attended by Washington millionaires, in which the models rob the audience. So they don’t call the cops, Percy has also made a fake Steve Trevor and Wonder Woman part of the show, pretending to nab the thieves and take back all their stolen wares. During rehearsal for this extravaganza, Nancy, the girl playing WW, saves a child from a hit and run, and when she is knocked unconscious, her exploits make all the papers. While in the hospital, Diana, and a male admirer of Nancy’s, stop an attempt on her life, leading them down a trail of bread crumbs that help them stop the

pernicious production.

Another moderately interesting story, but the writers must be wracking theirbrains trying to come up with unique and colorful villainous plots, since those are the stars of he show (no real development among the heroes of this series). Once conceived, the formulas are simple – reveal only a little at a time (starting with the piquant but cryptic cold open), until it snowballs into the big climax, peppering it with WW appearances along the way. This is pretty much business as usual for the show at this point, although gaps in logic pop up here and there – e.g.: why does Percy need to be such as makeup expert too? Couldn’t just being an expert director of shows be enough. (No one really knows what Trevor looks like anyway, and since his voice doesn’t match what’s the point?) Oh, and by the way, whenever there’s a security guard appointed to guard someone on the show, they are always, 100% ineffective! (In this case, a sheriff is distracted by a phone call!!!)

Episode highlight: Diana transforms into WW, as she falls from a building!

Wonder Woman 3.9: The Deadly Dolphin

Airdate: 12/1/78

A devious land-grabber has some plans for primo coastal property, which he plans to devalue by causing an oil spill. How? He’s also behind the kidnapping of a dolphin named Bluebeard from a marine park, and plans on using the aquatic prodigy to attach a magnetized bomb to the hull of a huge tanker. Bluebeard’s trainers use another dolphin, Gladys, and the help of Diana/WW (a.ka. “Aqua Woman”) to save Bluebeard from its nefarious agenda.

So-so episode benefits from some lush, oceanic scenery, and a plot that isn’t too farfetched, although one could argue there must be easier ways to explode an oil tanker. Character actors abound her, particularly prolific soap opera star Nicolas Coaster as Silas the head baddie. Lots of stock footage, too, the most noticeable being shots of an undersea “Aqua Woman” from the other episode in which she appears. Lovely score is above-average. 

Wonder Woman 3.8: Skateboard Wiz

Airdate: 11/24/78

Diana takes a much-deserved vacation in Santa Corona, California, but, of course, her R&R turns into an assignment when she discovers a mysteriously set fire, and then is accosted by two men who attempt to drown her. Meanwhile a skateboarding teenage girl with a photographic memory is goaded into playing a few hands of blackjack my a man recently ejected from a secret casino – a casino owned by the same nefarious thug, Donalsen, trying to run down-on-their luck businesses out of town so he can extend his gambling empire. The girl, who knows a bit too much, is now a prime target, but with “Wonder Skateboarder” on the hunt, Donalsen and his boys don’t stand a chance.

Fun episode functions fitfully as a great timepiece episode, what with all the1979 video games and depiction of the nascent 80s skateboarding craze. Atlantic City had recently legalized gambling, opening the door up, for better or worse depending on whom you ask, for a billion dollar casino industry – so there’s definitely topicality here. Cynthia Eilbacher, who up until now was best known as bitchy Martha Rose on The Waltons, is absolutely beguiling here (even if she’s not doing her own skateboarding). And of course, WW gets to try on a new outfit, although I’m not sure of its necessity, given that she’s a fast enough runner to chase down cars anyway.