Wonder Woman

1 9 7 6 - 1 9 7 9 (USA)
1 x 120 minute episode
1 x 80 minute episode 
13 x 60 minute episodes 
45 x 45 minute episodes

She's five-foot-nine and worth the climb! The most gorgeous woman on the face of the Earth - and she even has her own uniform. If I had one wish as a dying man it would be . . . but I digress. While intercepting a Nazi saboteur, US Air Corps Major Steve Trevor is shot down and washes up on Paradise Island, home of the immortal Amazons. The queen of the Amazons arranges a tournament to decide who will escort him back to America, but forbids her daughter Diana to enter. In disguise, Diana competes anyway and emerges victorious.

As Wonder Woman she travels to "man's world" with Steve Trevor to fight continued Nazi threats.  After discovering that she needs money in order to survive, Wonder Woman allows herself to be exploited by talent agent Ashley Norman. Meanwhile, Steve's secretary Marcia has secretly been spying for the Nazis (along with Ashley Norman) as they plot to destroy the top secret Norden bomb sight - one of the most closely guarded secrets of of the US military during World War II.

Wonder Woman is able to unravel their plot and intercept the Nazi bomber before rescuing the kidnapped Major Trevor. To hide her true identity and stay close to Steve she becomes Diana Prince, Yeoman US Navy, a bespectacled and straight-laced secretary.

Wonder Woman was brought to life by an educational consultant who believed the comic world was dominated by male heroes. So the woman known for her magic lasso, enchanted bullet-proof bracelets and invisible jet was born.  With real Amazonian training, Wonder Woman's mission was not to stop criminals but to actually reform them.

Lynda Carter, a former beauty queen and Miss USA 1973, made the best of her not inconsiderable talents to play the Amazon princess with a neat line in patriotic garb and a bundle of super-powers.

Our heroine was regularly called upon to adopt the mantle of her alter-ego to defend the country from mad scientists & foreign agents. Wonder Woman was a total woman - albeit one who had gold bracelets to fend off bullets, a magic lasso and an invisible plane! A couple of quick twirls transformed dowdy Diana into the wonder babe, ready to save the world in her highly practical uniform of star-spangled knickers and kinky boots!

The initial season of Wonder Woman was produced by ABC (USA) and was set in WWII. In 1977 the show moved to the CBS network and the action moved to the present day although continuity had been maintained (Wonder Woman aged at a much slower rate than mere mortals) and she was working with Steve Trevor's son Steve Trevor Jnr. The duo worked for the Inter Agency Defense Command (IADC for short). The agency also had a super computer called IRA.

TRIVIA NOTE
An ABC 1974 TV movie of Wonder Woman starred Cathy Lee Crosby (That's Incredible) in the title role. Crosby played a contemporary Wonder Woman but didn't fit the part because, she was "an ethereal blonde who looked more suited modelling chemises at Bergdorf Goodman than hurling 200-pound men through the air like Frisbees".

Wonder Woman's image also fit best in the era in which she was created - the early 1940s - so the network decided to just do a live version of the original comic and find a dark-haired girl who looked like the girl in the strip. 

The network said at the time that this girl should be  "built like a javelin-thrower, but with the sweet face of a Mary Tyler Moore". Enter the 6-foot Carter who fit the bill perfectly.  Some New Original Wonder Woman specials established that the audience had an appetite for this incarnation and the series launched in December 1976. 

Thanks to Paul Dwyer for info on the Norden bomb sight.