Wonder Woman-
Volume 2
(Warner Region 2 PAL DVD)
review by Suspiriorium

As a superhero, Wonder Woman is perhaps one of the weaker to have graced either the screen or the pages of a comic book. A goddess who comes down from the mountain island of Paradise in order to protect us mortals, her powers are somewhat vague. She can jump very high (accompanied in the series by a really stupid & comical sound effect); she’s quite strong & can probably run quite fast. And she can deflect bullets. And, well, a few other things that the writers tend to invent as they go along when they’re needed. Which is frankly a bit of a cheat, although you can make a similar argument about the more interesting Superman. In fact, the big draw of Wonder Woman seems to be getting Linda Carter into extremely small & tight-fitting red, white & blue (God Bless America!) costumes whilst performing her good deeds. This TV series version was extremely popular at the time, partly due to those costumes, partly due to its brainless fun style, & partly due to Charles Fox’s insanely catchy theme song. Make no mistakes, on pretty much all serious critical levels, Wonder Woman is a big failure. However, it’s precisely this supremely cheesy naffness that makes it such hugely amusing viewing, & in watching this new DVD I was rarely less than entertained. The comic book style (clearly owing much to the Adam West Batman series) is supremely camp, with amusingly poor dialogue, ridiculous plots, daft panto acting, & even little captions in boxes detailing the names of whatever location it dares to visit. This is very much a love it or hate it series, but anyone with a fondness for naff old camp TV shows will doubtless enjoy it as much as I did – although it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re laughing at it rather than with it. So let’s take a look at the three episodes on this second volume released in the UK.

The first episode is the most entertaining; “The Bermuda Triangle Crisis” has Wonder Woman investigating the disappearance of an intelligence plane in the Bermuda Triangle near to Paradise Island. An amusing plot featuring a nasty villain trying to take over the world is the order of the day, & with it’s stupidly underdone “action” scenes, the retro amusement value is very high. The second is the weakest; “Knockout” has Wonder Woman taking on a terrorist group lead by a female ex-police officer. The pace isn’t quite so hot this time around, & the plot is a bit dull. The portrayal of underground terrorist groups is naff even by this shows standards, although there are some amusing moments. The third episode is “The Queen & the Thief”, & is thankfully more entertaining, with Wonder Woman inevitably foiling a plot to steal the crown jewels of a small country called Malakar. Again, it’s amusingly embarrassing stuff, but thankfully it’s quick & incident-packed enough to be easy enough on the brain.

The disc is in R2/PAL format, & has a decent full-frame transfer, which by no means perfect is infinitely better than that which afflicted the poor “Freddy’s Nightmares Vol 1”. Sound is an adequate mono track, but extras are text only. There’s a brief “History of Wonder Woman” which is quite handy for newbie’s, some pictures of assorted merchandise, & a photo gallery. Not great by any means, but better than nothing.