Wonder Woman

The Wonder Woman pilot that is floating around on the internet is an unfinished work designed to function as a display for potential companies to sign it and assign to their network. Some of the digital effects are not finished and this apparently makes some people say that the show is low quality. Therefore if you are going to watch this you should be aware that it is in an UNfinished form and will likely not be finished anytime soon. Expect to see ropes occasionally, the jet is not always properly layered against the sky, and occasionally colors are not digitally balanced accurately.

I really enjoyed this pilot. From what I had been hearing I was expecting dreadful, but by comparison to what is on TV today on most channels I'm really disappointed that it won't be on in the fall.

The dialogue runs dry in a couple moments, and some of WW's facial expressions seem to be a bit forced, but these are common in pilots. It's almost like a dress rehearsal where you put it all together and attempt to get comfortable with it as you figure out what needs to be improved.

I think the main fault found in this show was that WW's "story" had been changed a bit from the comics. Who she is and how she lives her public life and private life are altered, but not out of character for who Wonder Woman is. She is still an active and aware female doing good in a mans world. She is fierce and well natured all in one. Granted, the actress needed time to grow in to the role, but I felt that she was a good choice and could have smoothed out her portrayal had they been given a season to air.

The main problem that any comic-based superhero TV show or movie faces is that the comic readers develop a sense of ownership over the characters that they feel they deserve due to years of faithfully throwing away money on their books, so when a show or movie is made they view it through a lens of religious zealotry and assemble in screaming protest at any slight variation from their favorite stories.

Thus was the case with Wonder Woman. It was not a bad pilot, but of course had it's rough spots and could use some tuning. The cries of die-hard comic nerds, ranting in unison on the internet and scaring producers is getting to be something like squatters-rights on creativity. With Wonder Woman, and others, it would be nice if we could say "Oh, this studio is going to do something based on this comic-book, lets see how it goes". Had Wonder Woman been given a full season I think we could have had something fun.

Keep in mind that pilots are usually a lot rougher. Seinfeld was almost painfully dry. The Dukes of Hazzard was an almost completely different show (A couple of my favorites) and by comparison I think that Wonder Woman should have gotten a shot.

Wonder Woman must stop the head of a pharmaceutical company's illegal experiments for financial gain.

Opening with the horror-stricken images of a boy with bleeding eyes, Wonder Woman quickly moves to a foot chase though the streets. There's no origin story which some have highly criticised. Personally I'm a exasperated with origin stories, these superhero characters have become a part of pop culture and can seem some what unnecessary.

The pilot establishes Wonder Woman as a known face in the real world, a vigilant of sorts, with a reputation for knocking down doors, invading privacy, assaulting people and the videos uploaded to YouTube.

Adrianne Palicki is surprising good as Diana Prince / Wonder Woman, and oddly the promotional pictures for the show didn't do her justice. She's tough, rough, sexy and sulky. The plot features a standard Cary Elwes performance as her marketing CEO and Elizabeth Hurley plays the antagonist head of a pharmaceutical company.

It's quite amusing that (in the world of the pilot) she has become marketable merchandise property and makes a remark that the comic version of her is incorrect with Diana stating that the Wonder Woman doll is insulting and she want's it redesigned. "These breast are ridiculous." "Wonder Woman isn't vulgar." "Wonder Woman is perfect, perfect t*ts, perfect ass, perfect teeth." It is apparent that Diana's/Wonder's crime fighting technology is funded by Wonder Woman's merchandising success which is an interesting titbit (no pun intended).

There's establishing flashback for Diana's love interest and some good camera work and effects from director Jeffrey Reiner, the contemporary music is dramatic and adds to the tension in the dialogue scenes. David E. Kelley's story explores briefly the problem of superheroes heavy handiness being unlawful and forever under legal scrutiny.

Wonder Woman is reminiscent of 'The New Adventures of Superman' (1993- 1997) although it does have a darker tone and sleeker look. It moves away from Superman's studio feel and while not particularly true to the comic, Wonder Woman's shot on location look and Kelley relevant poignant dialogue adds to its allure as much as Palicki's costume.

The only big action scene is at the 30 minute mark and is the highlight of the pilot with Palicki's physical prowess and wire-work being most impressive.

Overall, Adrianne Palicki equals Lynda Carter's incarnation and while not spectacular or highly engrossing it's no lesser than other mediocre TV productions that have been given a chance and a longer run. It may have evolved and brought a live action Wonder Woman to another generation but I suppose we may never know, that is until some else has a stab at bringing DC's female flag character to life.

It's hard to believe we were close to having a Wonder Woman television series but it got struck down at the first hurdle.

With just a pilot made and the show not picked up by any network we'll never know if it would have lasted.

At a guess I'd say no, in fact I'd say hell no.

Adrianne Palicki does her best and is a decent enough actress but what she's working with it would have taken a miracle to be considered decent entertainment.

Shoddily written, highly paint by numbers and just all round bad. What makes it worse is it's a prime example of why Hollywood has updated characters costumes to make them more realistic. Here Wonder Woman looks ridiculous and I failed to take her seriously at all! Can you imagine if for example Jeremy Renner played Hawkeye in his original comic book attire? Exactly.

What makes it worse is that this doesn't feel like the pilot, this isn't an origin story and just drops you straight into the world of Diana Prince and what a crappy world it is.

I'm glad this failed as I could imagine it damaging the careers of everyone involved.

The Good:

Adrianne Palicki

The Bad:

The suit really is terrible in live action

Show logo is tacky

Poorly made

Things I Learnt From This Pilot:

Wonderwoman never said to merchandise her tits

Wonder Woman has no issue killing

Fair enough, as a bloke in his late thirties I admit it's probably impossible anyone would be able to totally fill Lynda Carter's red boots as Wonder Woman for me. However when I saw the pictures of Adrianne Palicki in the outfit I laughed.And several months later when I had finished laughing I decided to check out the pilot.

Turns out I had been a bit unfair on Ms. Palicki for, although no Lynda,for me she is the best thing about this pilot.Let me rephrase that - for me she is the only good thing about this pilot. Oh, O.K. the action isn't bad.

But the rest is just really really depressing. The dialogue is truly awful,the plot terrible, the supporting cast stinks. I'm not a major fan of David E Kelley so I expected to have to put up with people banging on about the law a lot (they do). What I wasn't prepared for was Wonder Woman's total disregard for the law. But the thing is this isn't the character of Wonder Woman that anyone - anyone - would recognise.

I had never seen Adrianne Palicki before but thought she had both presence and charisma.I suspect I shall see her again in the future. And with the success of the Avengers re-igniting talk of Wonder Woman on the Big Screen, maybe best for all concerned we just pretend this didn't happen...

Quite frankly when I heard that they cast Adrianne Palicki as Wonder Woman and that it wasn't written by Joss Whedon, I was disappointed because I was really excited to see Joss' vision of the iconic heroine. Then photos of Adrianne in costume were released and it made me cringe a little bit because it didn't look that great. I just couldn't see Adrianne as Wonder Woman and, after the disappointment that was Bionic Woman, the future had looked dismal for this reboot from the get-go.

When I saw the pilot, it totally blew me away. It was well-written. It had decent character development with a lot of action and humor. It didn't try to be dark or edgy, nor did it try to be some kind of serious origin story, it was simply Wonder Woman in 2011---a charming and successful, albeit short-tempered, beautiful woman that just so happened to be a superhero.

Adrianne Palicki was a real revelation for me. She made an incredibly believable Wonder Woman. I couldn't help but cheer for her because this Wonder Woman is awesome. She's beautiful, sexy, fierce, confident, self-assured, loving, noble, stubborn, impulsive, and, at the same time, a total bad ass.

The new Wonder Woman is wonderfully complicated while staying genuinely charming. I am sad that this wasn't picked up by a major network because I believe that the world would have loved this Wonder Woman. I think this is THE Wonder Woman for the new generation.