Wonder Woman

It's the modern world. Diana/Wonder Woman (Adrianne Palicki) fights crime in costume out in the open as the head of a large corporation with Henry Johns (Cary Elwes) and Etta Candy (Tracie Thoms) working for her. She discovers that Veronica Cale (Elizabeth Hurley) is experimenting her new drug which is killing people and causing horrible mutations. She tries to bring Cale to justice while skirting the law herself. She has also carved out a 'normal' secret life for herself with her cat while pining for Steve Trevor (Justin Bruening). At the end of the pilot, Diana finds that he's married.

I like Adrianne Palicki as an actress and she's a good possibility for Wonder Woman. She's definitely better as an actress than Gal Gadot. The problem is that the show is pulling in wildly disparate directions. In her secret life, she's a single gal alone with her cat. I'm not sure that's a good idea. The worst idea is to make her the head of her own corporation. I just don't get it. There's a scene where she berates her people for making a doll with big boobs. I actually don't know if I like it but it was weirdly compelling. The most interesting aspect of Wonder Woman is that they made her a violent vigilante sorta like Batman. The fight at the end is deadly fun. I find that part filled with possibilities. The other interesting aspect is the lack of an origins story. Other than Steve Trevor and the Greek decor, there is very little about her earlier life. I think that's a mistake. It needs the origin story even if it's only flashbacks. Lots of people talk about the costume. I don't particularly like it but it's not a deal breaker. They also changed it for the ending giving her the stars bikini bottom. The costume needs a little work but it's not ridiculously bad.

I have read many reviews citing poor acting, poor writing, shoddy camera work... As a made-for-television pilot, I found all of these to be acceptable. It isn't a feature film after all.

I also had no trouble seeing Adrianne Palicki in the role. She has the right proportions, figure, and face to closely match the classic DC comic heroine.

But where it all falls short - profanely so - is in the complete abandonment of her Story. They seem to have ditched her Greek Mythology origin and made into some kind of female version of Bruce Wayne/Batman. Even her bracers (forged by the god Haephestus for her mother, Hipolita) and lasso aren't divine artifacts, but technological gadgets paid for by marketing clothing lines and action figures.

The show would probably have been picked up if they had used a different outfit and name, but the outcry from the comics community was loud and clear - Don't break the story!

Okay, here's everything I have to say/write about the 2011 Wonder Woman pilot.

1. Adrianne Palicki is superb! I'm a fan. I've been a fan since I first saw her in Supernatural and South Beach. I liked her because she is uncommonly sexy and very beautiful. But when I saw her in Friday Night Lights, I quickly realised that she is a supremely talented actress. She brings something to the table that is rare: she makes you believe that there is a lot going on behind her eyes. The most obvious example of this quality is the late Peter Falk. You watch him as Columbo and you believe that he is thinking about... something/everything. Palicki does this in Friday Night Lights and she does it here. So... she's beautiful and sexy and she has - I suppose - gravitas. Or whatever. Here, in the WW pilot she totally nails it.

2. The writer (David E. Kelley) has a specific take on Wonder Woman and runs with it. His shows tend to be shows about the law, his shows tend to be about lawyers. So... he drops WW into a world of laws, corporations, big bucks, legalities/illegalities and - in this one hour of TV - explains why she exists in this world. And, to be honest, it works. It's not MY take on Wonder Woman, but - after seeing this - I would be willing to take a leap and watch HIS take on the character.

3. The action scenes are good.

4. This is not an origin story. This is a case-of-the-week story. This is exactly how I would start a WW series (should anyone care).

5. Some things DON'T work. Sometimes the dialogue makes you cringe. There are a couple of bad scenes, in my humble opinion. The hospital scene, the two scenes with Steve Trevor, the applause scene, etc. Scenes where you roll your eyes. But, because I liked lots of other things, I'm willing to let the bad stuff slide. And, to be honest, even when I was cringing at something, I could appreciate what David E. Kelley was trying to do. It's not perfect, but it has a clarity of vision sadly lacking in the Bionic Woman or Knight Rider reboots. I HATED those. They had no redeeming qualities. This, I didn't hate. It had redeeming qualities. I could see what it was trying to be. And, because it succeeded on a few points (especially the fantastic lead casting), I was willing to go the extra mile and accept the other (weaker) stuff.

6. I liked the main character, and wanted to root for her. The most obvious comparison here is Bionic Woman from 2007. That show was dark and edgy and stuff. And... I never found a reason to like the main character. In one episode she set fire to her kitchen. That baffled me. What was I supposed to do? Laugh at her? Pity her? What? Diana Prince, as written by David E. Kelley, is interesting and likable. She's dark and edgy, I suppose, but she's more than that. She's arrived in our world and established herself an interesting set-up. And she's decided to 'go it alone' for reasons that make sense to her. And kinda to the audience as well. She's self-sacrificing and brave and annoyed by injustice and other stuff that would make me root for her on a weekly basis. Kelley's script has scenes that could, in the hands of a lesser actress, come off as self-pitying and unattractive. Palicki rises above that. Rises about the (sometimes flawed) material and makes us care, even when the on-screen image is something as uninspired as Diana at home alone, with her cat (!!), watching Ryan Gosling's weep-fest The Notebook.

It's not perfect. But it aims high and it's not bad. Worse pilots have made it to TV and spawned series that ran for years! 8/10

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.

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.