philippos42

I tried reading the moaning on s_d, actually went on my rant why Wonder Woman is not as commercial as people stupidly expect here, went back, and after much reading of whinging about how Hollywood hates women, I gave up.

I feel sorry for Adrianne Palicki, that's as far as it goes.

This was not the only chance at a new superheroine series. This might have been like the Cathy Lee Crosby Wonder Woman, which came out, fell kind of flat, but inspired a more conventional retool.

But mostly it's just a failed project like many others, that failed because of its execution, not its source material. It's the trademark power of Wonder Woman that got this as much visibility as it got. It was still a horrible horrible script, and much of Hollywood can see that.

There are lots of pilots that you don't even notice. The studio loses money, actors and techs get paid, life goes on. You just noticed this one early.

Wondy will be back I bet.

And the idea of doing a kick-butt superheroine will be as well.

The audience testing from this pilot will tell the studios some things: Probably, given the podcast I heard from someone who was in a test audience, that Steve Trevor is kind of an ass, that super-powered heroes should be smart & a little restrained about violence, and that a better-handled female character can work.

So that's good.

Meantime, watch In Plain Sight, read Nightschool, & remember that Wondy has to have a pretty good day to be as cool as either of those.

:p

So they have an actress for the new Wonder Woman tv project, which I hope to change the franchise in a big way, & void any long-term influence of the JMS NuWondy. Possibly also scramble everything else we knew of Wondy (Myndi Mayer under 40? Really?), but evs.

Adrianne Palicki.

I like that she has moderately dark grey eyes, instead of those freakish pale blue eyes Lynda Carter had. And I'm amused that our Venusian perfection has a definite asymmetrical freckle on the bridge of her nose.

But mostly, I'm glad they didn't go for someone who looks like Lynda Carter. For that matter, she doesn't look like most artists' renditions of Di--a neat trick considering what a wide range of likenesses Di has had. Well & good; she's an actress playing a role, not a flawless embodiment.

Kind of busty for that one bit in the pilot script, though.

So here's some obnoxious demands from whiny fanboys that you do Wonder Woman their way. Blah blah.

Now, Mr David E. Kelley, here is what you need to do. Base your Wondy on this forgotten classic. Just age up that version of Diana a little bit, & there you go!

It'll be glorious!

As I said on the CBR boards.

Is "corporate woman who's a vigilante called Wonder Woman" something a new viewer is going to switch over from How I Met Your Mother for? Anymore than "Amazon warrior emissary," which might grab the Xena fans & could be more distinct from the other stuff out there?

Don't get me wrong, it's an OK pitch. But it's not Diana Prince, it's Jesse Chambers or Karen Starr. So the real problem is that "Power Girl" & "Jesse Quick" are worse names for this concept than "Wonder Woman." DC has done a lousy job of naming its heroines.

The real problem isn't that they're adapting Wonder Woman badly. They're not adapting Wonder Woman. The real problem is that "Power Girl" is a bad name for this concept. But "Wonder Woman" is a great name for this project. And Amazon warrior chick, well, she'll just have to share her name. Both of her names, sounds like.

Granted, David E. Kelley could have called it "Superwoman" or something.

I for one am glad that the David E. Kelley Wonder Woman series appears to have been picked up. The movie rights have been held for over a dozen years by producers who never did anything with it apparently for fear of doing it imperfectly.

At some point you have to do something, even if it's wrong, & get it out of your system. Then, two years later you can try again. If we had the nerve to treat Wondy as an endlessly reinventable & exploitable trademark--in other words, just like we do Batman--we could have had five ridiculous failures in the time we've had nothing, & maybe one of them would have had a spark of cool.

Let's suppose (optimistically?) that the new series is 85% Ms. Marvel, 7% She-Hulk, the rest a mélange of Ally McBeal & Better Off Ted--and all it gets from Wonder Woman is the name and the costume. It could still be good, just irritatingly misnamed. And at least it would be different from the usual attempts at "genre" series, such as the Bionic Woman revamp.

Now let's say, because it's NBC, that it's canceled after one airing. Gee, would that mean that producers might be leery of taking a shot on the concept for a few years? Possibly. And that's different from what we already had, how?

On the other hand, someone at another network might think it could work, and do their own version with the serial numbers filed off. And that's what we want, if we're concerned about getting this kind of thing (female superheroes, or what have you) out there. If NBC & David E. Kelley are doing a Wondy series, that increases the likelihood that CBS will rush into production its own "answer" to that. And one of them might work, or at least inspire future creators before being cancelled 6 weeks in.

That's what I want, that inspiration. And "Wondy McBeal" is a fine sacrifice to make that happen. If it crashes and burns, let it burn up & make a pleasing offering to Heaven.

Really, a more irritating outcome might be if it succeeds, like Smallville, & ends up reshaping the fandom, like the Timmverse with its Bats/Wondy ship, & even ends up influencing the comic, like the 1970's Wondy tv series.