My impetus for doing that "Big Picture" episode about Wonder Woman was the then-recent "WTF?" news about wacky-lawyer afficionado David E. Kelley pitching a TV show "reimagining" of her; and I wound up having the benefit (in terms of newsworthiness) of the piece actually airing right in the midst of said pitch apparently being turned down by... well, everyone. Myself, I took that as a lucky break - partly for the bit of extra attention (re: google results) it probably garnered my show but MOSTLY because it sounded like we'd dodged the bullet of what smelled like a pretty bad idea.
Well, not so fast.
Sez Deadline, NBC is picking up the project - seemingly based on the positive reception of Kelley's new Kathy Bates vehicle, "Harry's Law." This will come as great news for fans who've been wondering where their fix of awful television tangentially based on DC Comics properties was going to come from once "Smallville" ends.
Y'know... these days, reporting on the development of "geek properties" into movies produces no feeling so strongly as temporal-whiplash: One moment it's like your living in some kind of movie-nerd wish-dream utopia where Rot Lop Fan is turning up in a "Green Lantern" movie or there's a five-film inter-continuity buildup for a live-action "Avengers" epic... and then the next moment your zapped into some kind of living-parody of the worst excesses of "Catwoman"-level bastardizations where you hear stuff like this:
"The project is described as a reinvention of the iconic D.C. comic in which Wonder Woman -- aka Diana Prince -- is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life."
So... Kelley wanted to do a version of his well-worn basic schtick but with a currently-trendy superhero twist ("Ally McBatman," essentially) and seized on the most "everybody knows" female hero for a name, is the impression I'm getting from this. That, or he's doing the best meta-parody of adaptations that rip everything remotely unique or interesting out of their source-material. Delightful.
Likely trajectory: Makes it to the air, widely-panned, brief period of grasping-at-straws by fandom at minor slices of DC-fanservice shoved into later episodes, canceled after one season if that (like "Smallville" would've been were it airing on a real network,) DVD boxset for the discount bin, eternal life as a punchline for fans and comic-writers, go-to "better than" barometer for whoever finally bites the bullet and makes a proper movie out of the character.
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