The TV movie-of-the-week The New Original Wonder Woman airs on ABC, starring Lynda Carter and Lyle Waggoner. Red Buttons, Chloris Leachman and Eric Braeden guest star. This is ABC’s second attempt to bring the comic book heroine to the small screen (following a 1974 pilot movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby). Ratings and reviews are impressive enough to merit two more one-hour specials, followed by a series pickup.
Hear about it on the Sci-Fi 5 podcast
Army Air Forces flying ace Major Steve Trevor sets off to intercept an experimental German plane at the height of World War II in 1942. The Allies have received intelligence that the Nazis have built a trans-Atlantic bomber capable of attacking American soil, and Major Trevor must either confirm and engage, or disprove and return to base. The rumors are true, but Trevor takes out the enemy by colliding with it. As the two pilots bail out via parachute, the Nazi pilot shoots Trevor…and then himself plummets into shark-infested water. Trevor’s parachute drifts over land, bringing him down safely to an uncharted island in the Bermuda Triangle.
The island is inhabited by an isolated tribe of Amazon women who have chosen to remain apart from the rest of humanity, and certainly apart from the war consuming the rest of the world. Diana, the daughter of Queen Hippolyta, is fascinated by the man in her tribe’s midst, but her mother forbids her to interfere in his destiny. Any Amazon who takes Major Trevor back to America can never return, and may surrender the near-immortality enjoyed by the Amazons remaining on Paradise Island; Hippolyta decides that tests of athleticism and endurance will determine who is best suited for this one-way mission. Diana assumes a disguise and wins the competition, only revealing her identity to her mother at the end. In her invisible plane, and with a new outfit made of a material impervious to primitive weaponry, Diana sets out to return Major Trevor to Washington. But once she begins her new life, her incredible abilities draw attention from all kinds of people…including a cadre of Nazi sympathizers operating within American borders. Worse yet, the experimental Nazi plane wasn’t the only one of its kind…
written by Stanley Ralph Ross
directed by Leonard Horn
music by Charles Fox
Cast: Lynda Carter (Diana Prince / Wonder Woman), Lyle Waggoner (Major Steve Trevor), John Randolph (General Blankenship), Red Buttons (Ashley Norman), Stella Stevens (Marcia), Eric Braeden (Captain Drangel), Severn Darden (Bad Guy), Fannie Flagg (Amazon Doctor), Henry Gibson (Nikolas), Kenneth Mars (Colonel Von Blasko), Cloris Leachman (Queen Hippolyta), Helen Verbit (Nurse), Tom Rosqui (Cop #2), Fritzi Burr (Saleslady), Ian Wolfe (Bank Manager), Inga Neilson (Rena), Maida Severn (Teutonic Woman), Jean Karlson (2nd Amazon), Anne Ramsey (Taxi Cab Driver)
LogBook entry by Earl Green