Review: Wonder Woman 2011 TV Pilot

Our story begins with a family celebrating the oldest son’s acceptance to college. It ends, with said son, Willis, bleeding from his eyes and ears with the mom’s screams to call the hospital.

The next scene leads into a chase, with a man of superhuman speed, Wonder Woman, and the police. The chase ends when Wonder Woman throws her lasso of truth.Wonder Woman takes a syringe of the man’s blood and leaves him to the police.

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Here’s the costume Wonder Woman is currently wearing, switching blue starred shorts for long blue pants. I am not a fan of switching the costume so drastically, even though most of it sticks to the traditional aspect, but Wonder Woman is supposed to be in a red top, blue shorts, silver bracelets, gold crown, and red boots. Pants are drastic switches to me.

We’re lead next into a news broadcast arguing if what Wonder Woman is doing is legal, and CEO Henry Detmer, and assistant Etta Candy. Diana Themyscira (Wonder Woman), drops down from her ~~invisible~~ jet, and walks to her residence with Detmer and Candy.

We lead into Dr. Phil diagnosing Diana as “nuts” as Diana changes into what we figure out is her Diana Prince attire versus her Diana Themyscira attire. Detmer insists she stays at Themyscira industries, voicing his concerns that her having an alter-ego is her self-inducing schizophrenia (which would make Dr. Phil right, am I right?). Diana wants to be normal and go home to be with her cat, Sylvester, to get away from being the boss all the time. (It never works Diana I’m sorry)

Diana watches a soap opera, and remembers Steve Trevor, telling him she’s moving and wants to break up. She goes to work the next morning, gets informed of meetings and a press conference. Diana grumbles about the conference, but Detmer reminds her press conferences happen when you beat someone up on YouTube. They are interrupted by Willis’ mom, coming to speak to Diana.

Diana and the mom speak, and we find out the man Diana was chasing was potentially dealing drugs, and the mom voices her want for the man to die, and she wants to kill him. Diana calms her down, reminds the mom of her other children at home, and to let her (Diana) do the killing. It is curious to me how the mom is able to go talk to Diana so freely. It makes me wonder if Diana knew the family on a personal level, or if she just has an open door policy for anyone affected by a crime in the city.

We find Cale-Anderson Pharmaceuticals is behind said drugs, building muscles at warp speed but causing various issues, including hearts to explode. Sixteen athletes suffered heart failure. Oh wait, Diana says she can’t prove Cale-Anderson is behind the drugs. (Then how do you know they’re behind the drugs Diana?!?)

We get more knowledge that the drugs are steroidal compounds mixed with Human-Growth Hormone, and degrade in the system, making them undetectable. The man, John O’Quinn, Diana was chasing was also a test subject, and the syringe of blood she took was to check for the drug. Diana then assures Veronica Cale that if the law does not get her, Wonder Woman will.

Cale is then interviewed by paparazzi, and she accuses Diana of being an action figure, and needing some help to sell some dolls. Candy confirms this, and tried to tell her she’s barking up the wrong tree, finishing with the test results from O’Quinn. They’re negative! Looks like Diana could be wrong.

We then head to the doll meeting, where Diana loses it over the fact that every corporate adviser has designed the doll to be perfect, and is giving girls an unrealistic body image. I feel as if this is a nice reminder to fans that a character to young females needs to be given a realistic body image to look to, versus some of the comics and cartoons Wonder Woman has been portrayed in. She reminds everyone at the meeting that she is only human, and can make mistakes.

Diana runs off to her office, and Detmer follows her. He reminds her the company is only there to help her fund her crime fighting endeavors. The Detmer tells Diana she’s lonely, and needs to go seek out Steve Trevor.

Que flashback!

Diana is explaining to Steve she wants to split because she doesn’t want him in danger. He tells her she is more in danger because she doesn’t want friends or loved ones around her. It is more curious to me why she needed to move from New York, to Los Angeles in order to fight crime. But to each their own I suppose.

Veronica Cale has entered the building. She and Diana are going to have a chat. Cale wants to be friends, and insists shes taking said drugs. Cale accuses Diana of being envious, and says she can pull Congress in to investigate Diana in a heartbeat. Cale asks if Diana is worried that she is developing athletes to rival her own strength, and Diana asks if she really came to threaten her. Diana says she has Cale as her enemy, and Cale tells her she doesn’t. This reminded me of a classic villain hero meeting pre-fight, it was really cool to me.

Diana flies to the hospital, where Willis and O’Quinn are at. She visits Willis first, telling him he has to get better. She heads to O’Quinn’s room, where she’s barred from entering. Detective Ed comes to see her, and tells her she’s not getting in, but Diana squeezes five minutes from him.

After a couple questions and maybe an arm break, Diana has the location of the laboratory, and the fact that Cale has an infirmary under the laboratory where all of the failed subjects have gone. Detective Ed tells her to cool her ~~tits~~ jet, while her tries to get the location legally so he can obtain a search warrant to go knock the place down. This part really irked me. Wonder Woman is not a torturer, and the fact that she tortured the man into giving her information really made me mad and made me dislike the show.

Meanwhile at Themyscira Industries, the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee wants to have dinner with Diana to talk about what she does. Oh, and he’s a friend of Cale, so he’s probably hear to do some squeezing like Cale said.

At the dinner, the Senator and Diana talk about what she does, he thanks her for what she does, and then he accuses her of not being human(which according to tradition, she isn’t), violating torture laws, and wondering why she hasn’t been investigated for her criminal conduct. Diana tells him a country in two wars, a horrible recession, and facing double digit unemployment has better things to do than investigate her work habits. He reminds her it would be a big mistake to mess with him, obscurely tells her to remember she isn’t invincible, and finishes off telling her to expect someone from the justice department.

Back at Themyscira Industries, Diana asks about the warrant Ed was trying to get and Candy tells her it was denied, but Ed is still working on it. Then Candy gets a phone call, and they are informed Willis died. Diana flies off in her (still not invisible) jet. Ed calls Diana and he tells her as soon as it becomes a crime scene they can enter legally but they will be there to help.

Cale tells a goon to prevent Diana from getting to the infirmary at all costs, or they’re going to jail. Said goon, goes and gets 19 more goons to fight in case Wonder Woman makes it past security. As he finishes, Diana makes it through security. Here we see Diana’s new costume, nixing the pants for the famous shorts.

Diana beats up all twenty goons, (with some serious style I might add) and makes it to the infirmary. She faces Veronica Cale, and Cale tells Diana she will go to court over this violation of her territory. Diana silences her with the lasso of truth and heads into quarantine where she meets Detective Ed.

Diana reenters Themyscira Industries to thundering applause, after everyone was watching a newscast with news of Cale’s arrest, and Detmer voices how proud he is to be associated with Diana. Then he tells Diana the lawyer from the justice department is here. Diana changes, and Detmer brings the lawyer in, and LOW AND BEHOLD. It is Steve Trevor!

Steve and Diana chat, and not about the justice department issues. He tells her he transferred to LA, and he got married!!!!! (How long has it been?)

Diana Prince returns home, where she proceeds to set up her Facebook account. She listens to the newscast about Cale-Anderson Pharmaceuticals, and the show fades to black.

Overall, the show had some high points, but really I can see why it didn’t make it to television. It shows well, and the concept is interesting. But to me, the show lacks the heart of what makes Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman. The naivety, the hope, the charm, none of those elements really came through to me. And the torturing of that man really perturbed me. Maybe the next TV show will happen, but I’m glad this one didn’t.