The New, Original Wonder Woman (Pilot)
Writer: Stanley Ralph Ross
Director: Leonard Horn
Airdate: November 7, 1975
Set in: Summer, 1942

Synopsis: The pilot opens in a top-secret Nazi base in Germany where Colonel Von Blasko is informing German flying ace Captain Drangel of his mission: to bomb the Brooklyn Navy Yard to halt production of the Norden Bomb Sight, while the plans to the highly-secret gun sight will be stolen by another agent. A meek servant, Nicholas, looks on and then sends a message via carrier pigeon to inform the Allies of Von Blasko's plot. General Blankenship informs Major Steve Trevor and his secretary of five years, Marcia, that Nazi flying ace Drangel had refuelled in Argentina and was planning to hit the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Steve volunteers to stop Drangel, saying he will destroy his plane over the Devil's Triangle—that way, the Germans will never know if he was shot down, or taken by the elements.

Meanwhile, Marcia uses a hidden radio in her apartment to contact Germany—she is a German spy, and reveals Steve's mission to Von Blasko. Over the Triangle, Trevor and Drangel have a dogfight which results in both their planes being destroyed. They eject and parachute to the waters below. However, Drangel gets off a shot which wounds Trevor before the German pilot lands in shark-infested waters.

An unconscious Steve is found on the beach of Paradise Island, hidden in the uncharted waters of the Devil's Triangle. The Queen is assured by the Amazon doctor that the man, Major Steven Leonard Trevor of the Army Air Corps, is unconscious, his eyes bandaged, and therefore no threat to the Island. Even if he regains consciousness, he will not know where he is. The Queen is concerned that their refuge of thousands of years is in danger of discovery. She remembers all too well men, and their ways. But her naive young daughter has grown up on the Island, and knows nothing of men or the world outside of Paradise Island. Diana begs her mother for permission to act as the pilot's nurse, and the Queen reluctantly agrees.

In Washington, a distraught General Blankenship and duplicitous Marcia mourn Major Trevor, who has been presumed dead, the wreckage of his plane lost in the Triangle.

Steve regains consciousness and groggily tells the Amazon doctor, Diana, and the other Amazons attending him about the war against the Nazis, and how the Nazis will enslave the world if they are not defeated. This news greatly perturbs the Queen, who decides that when the man is strong enough, he will be escorted back to his country and returned to his own people by the strongest, fastest, most skilled Amazon warrior on the Island. To choose the warrior, there will be a tournament, and Diana tells her mother she looks forward to competing, only to have the Queen grow furious and command that Diana is not to compete against her sisters.

An angry Diana tells her mother she will be at the Summer Palace, and the Queen is relieved that her only begotten child will be out of harm's way. At the tournament, masked Amazons compete in footraces, javelin throwing, stone throwing, and other ancient sports. Two Amazons are in the lead, and to break the tie, the Queen produces a pistol and the Amazons compete in "Bullets and Bracelets"—deflecting shots fired at close range with her Feminum bracelets. According to the Queen, only an Amazon has the speed and skill to keep from being injured or killed. One Amazon emerges triumphant, and the Queen awards her with a golden girdle that will allow her to retain her strength and immortality away from the Island, and a golden lasso which compels all within it to tell only the truth.

The Queen is horrified when the Amazon removes her mask, and a blonde wig, revealing herself to be Diana. She entered the tournament against her mother's wishes, and the Queen realises that she must allow her daughter to fulfil her destiny. She gives Diana a costume of her own design, and despite her fears, wishes her daughter farewell. While flying in her invisible plane, Steve regains consciousness and seeing the beautiful woman at the controls, asks he he's dead and in heaven. She smiles at him, and tells him that he is dreaming, and to rest. Landing in Washington D.C., Diana carries the unconscious and injured Major Trevor into the Armed Services Hospital and places her charge into their care as shocked staff look on.

An overjoyed General Blankenship tells Marcia that Steve is alive, and that a strange girl in a star-spangled bathing suit left him at the Hospital. Marcia acts pleased, but when the General leaves, quickly places a collect call to a man named Karl in New York, telling him that she needs his assistance.

Meanwhile, Diana's first day in America introduces her to the concept of money, as she is greeted warmly by a shopkeeper, and then is confused when the woman "gives" her a dress only to become furious when Diana cannot pay for it. The lesson continues as she exits the shop just as two men are robbing a nearby bank. Foiling the robbery, she is greeted by two cops who insist that she come to the station to file a report. A bemused "Wonder Woman" walks away, and is greeted by one of the amazed bystanders—a theatrical agent named Ashley Norman. He gives her his card, insisting that he can make her rich with her "bullets and bracelets" trick, but Diana insists she is not in America to become a performer. However, she keeps his card.

In Berlin, Von Blasko prepares to complete the late Drangel's mission—and destroy the Brooklyn Navy Yard building where the top-secret Norden Bomb Sight is being manufactured. He tells his plan to his friend Nicholas, who sends another pigeon before he is discovered and captured. General Blankenship and Marcia visit Steve in the hospital, the latter crying crocodile tears. While a Navy nurse tends to the fallen war hero, the General admits to Marcia that he's worried that the Germans will succeed in their plot to bomb the Navy Yard. After they leave, the nurse removes her face mask, revealing Diana in disguise (sans glasses). Steve regains consciousness briefly, smiling when he recognises his "angel". She tells him he needs to rest—and then admits that in this new world, she will need money if she is to stay at Steve's side.

Wonder Woman pays a visit to Ashley Norman, who tells her the theatre he booked is completely sold out and the advertisement for that night's performance ran in the paper right next to the story of how she foiled the robbery. She is amazed at his tenacity—assuming she would say yes before she did. That night, she appears on stage, and Marcia is in the audience. When Norman calls for volunteers from the audience to come up and fire at "Wonder Woman", the old woman sitting next to Marcia approaches the stage, much to the audience's delight. Diana easily deflects bullets fired by a Marine from a rifle, to thunderous applause. However, when it is the woman's turn to fire, she asks if she can sue her own gun. A nervous Norman consults with Diana, who insists she is fine. When the old woman pulls a tommy-gun from her carpet bag, the audience is shocked. However, Diana deflects round after round, her arms moving faster than the eye can see. Wonder Woman is a smash hit, and a furious Marcia is frustrated.

Ashley Norman is thrilled with the evening's profits, and has booked Diana in theatres from coast to coast. However, she informs him that she cannot leave Washington. He tries to steal the money at gunpoint, but is easily subdued by Diana, who takes her share and leaves. However, Norman picks up the telephone and calls Marcia—he was one of her accomplices, and is another Nazi spy. Steve Trevor regains consciousness and tells General Blankenship that he thinks what the Germans are really after are the plans to the top-secret Norden Bomb Sight. Blankenship tells him the Von Blasko himself is piloting the XB-13 bomber, and Steve checks himself out of the hospital, determined to stop Von Blasko himself.

However, Steve is kidnapped by Karl, Norman, and other thugs and taken to Marcia's apartment. Using sodium pentathol (truth serum), Marcia gets the groggy Steve to give ther the combination to the office safe, so she can get the Norden Bomb Sight plans. The thugs are instructed to wait for her return with the plans—and then they will leave on a German U-boat at midnight. If she misses the deadline for the rendezvous, she instructs them that Trevor is to be killed.

When Diana, in her disguise as a Navy nurse, returns to the hospital to find Steve gone, she is told by the chief nurse that he checked himself out. Diana asks if she knows where he's gone, and the nurse replies that the Major is with Military Intelligence, and works in the War Department located over on D street. Diana changes into Wonder Woman, and goes to the offices. She finds Marcia stealing papers from the safe, and the two women duke it out. Diana easily subdues the Nazi spy, and uses her lasso to get Marcia to reveal her plan. Mimicking Marcia's voice over the telephone, she tells Karl and Norman to delay leaving by an hour—giving her just enough time to intercept Von Blasko's plane before he has a chance to bomb the Navy Yard. She crashes Von Blasko's plane into the waiting U-boat, and deposits the unconscious Nazi on the steps of the police station before she arrives at Marcia's apartment and frees Steve.

Diana tells an incredulous Steve that the Norden Bomb Sight and the Navy Yard are safe, and he is utterly amazed. She also tells him that his secretary Marcia was the ringleader, and a chagrined Steve realises that he was duped. When she turns to go, an obviously infatuated Steve tries to stop her, asking her when he'll see her again—and she tells him they'll be together soon.

When Steve returns to work at the War Department, it's with the vow to never again have a pretty girl for his secretary. The General tells him that he's safe on that count—of the 12 girls he interviewed, he hired the girl with the highest test scores, but says she is dull and uninteresting. The General introduces Steve to his new secretary—Yeoman First Class Diana Prince. Steve asks her to take a letter, and then tries to dictate a thank you letter to his mysterious "Wonder Woman", but finds himself at a loss for words. Diana tells him to speak plainly and honestly—and he is impressed with her views, telling her that he thinks they will get alone just fine.

Curiouser, and Curiouser...
Eric Braedin, who played Nazi flying ace Drangel, was born as Hans Gudegast in Germany in 1939. An original member of the cast of period drama Rat Patrol, he is best known to audiences as "Victor Newman" from the long-running Proctor & Gamble New York-based soap opera The Young & the Restless and was awarded the Federal Medal of Honor by the president of Germany for promoting a "positive, realistic image of Germans in America" for his role on the soap. Queen Hippolyte is never actually called Hippolyte in the pilot. However, fans know the Queen's name from the comics. John Randolph only appeared as General Blankenship in the pilot, and in the following 1 hr specials and series was replaced by Richard Eastham. Private Etta Candy did not appear in the pilot, and the script omits the portion of the golden age comic book origin story where Wonder Woman meets young navy nurse Diana Prince and assumes her identity so that the real Diana can join her fiancé in South America. Instead, no explanation is given for how a penniless Diana acquires a nurse's uniform and is suddenly tending to Steve Trevor in the Armed Forces Hospital prior to being hired by the War Department as his secretary. A television staple since the 1970s, character actor Henry Gibson would appear as the villainous and creepy Mariposa in the CBS episode "Screaming Javelins".

Applause-worthy: The level of period detail in the pilot gives it—and the 13 episodes that follow it over the course of the next two years—a timeless appeal that the 1977 CBS series lacks. Diana's first day in Washington is pure delight—particularly her run-ins with two amusing cops, and her introduction to the concept of money by a shopkeeper. And while all the other players performances are done with a slightly over-done sense of self-aware, tongue-in-cheek camp (which blessedly disappears after the pilot), Lynda Carter plays Diana completely straight and as a result comes across as completely sincere. Her unmasking after the Amazon tournament is genuinely moving, and her brief romantic scenes with Steve Trevor are some of the sweetest scenes in the entire series.

Cringe-worthy: Why, oh why, do the Amazons all wear lingerie? Like the 1940s comics, there is never any explanation for the presence of firearms or invisible jet planes on Paradise Island. General Blankenship's comment that Yeoman Prince is "duller than a fat lapdog after dinner" is needlessly cruel, and does not portray either the General, or Steve, in a particularly good light. Red Buttons as theatrical agent Ashley Norman is inspired, however the subsequent revelation of greedy Norman as Nazi spy is a needlessly elaborate plot twist that strains credibility.

Episode entry by Yeoman Prince