An Uncharted Solar System in the Vast Regions of Outer Space
You know it’s outer space because there’s a synthesizer soundtrack and a council of judgmental-looking space people wearing polyester.

The Council of Planets convene to address the Earth problem.

“They always call themselves human, but they are not.” Small step from nuclear power to space travel. Primitive war monkeys. Etc.

This episode is a nice little artifact of the paranoia about the United Nations that began to manifest itself in popular culture in the late 1970s.

The Council of Planets sends Andros to judge the Earthlings and decide their fate.

Andros is played by Tim O’Connor, who will go on to play Dr. Elias Huer on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, so that’s a little disconcerting.

For the record: the 1st Atomic weapons test, Trinity, was on July 16, 1945. The first nuclear power plant became operational in June 1954. We still haven’t colonized space. The judgey space council people are jumping the gun a little bit here.

Washington D.C. September 1942
A space craft lands in Northern Virginia.

HOW IS IT STILL SEPTEMBER 1942?

War Department – 0730 HRS The Following Morning
Yeoman Diana Prince (Lynda Carter) handles phone calls about the Unidentified Flying Object landing in Northern Virginia.

Sweet Cheezits. The term Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) was coined by the US Air Force in 1953. Just a tiny bit of historical accuracy – is that too much to ask for?

Apparently.

Diana tells Major Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner) that it’s officially classified as a “meteor.”

A Wooded Area in the Hills of Virginia
The Army searches for the UFO while Diana and Steve hang out.

Andros emerges from the woods. He says he’s a visitor from outer space who observes Earth on behalf of the Council of Planets. Earth has been his beat since the Neolithic. He doesn’t actually call anyone a war monkey, I made that up.

Husband believes that they’re intimidated by his Run DMC-level of accessorizing.

Diana saunters into the woods and spins into Wonder Woman. It’s a national security situation yet no one seems to notice that Diana disappears and Wonder Woman appears. She just happens to be in the neighborhood. Again.

Andros freezes the soldiers with his mind. When he unfreezes them, a soldier throws a grenade, but Andros contains the blast in his hands.

It’s not as dramatic as when Sebastian Shaw absorbs the grenade blast in X-Men: First Class, so if you prefer that kind of thing here’s that clip instead. The grenade starts at 1:04. I’ll wait.

Andros wants to meet with world leaders. Everyone is skeptical of this weird alien scientist guy. Then weird alien scientist guy neutralizes a grenade right in front of them. Their reaction?

Sold! You can definitely hang out with us at the War Department, Mr. Potentially Dangerous Space Scientist Alien Guy!

Fort Russell Army Base
A soldier tells Paul Bjornson, Swedish Newspaperman (Scott Hylands) about the alien scientist.

Paul Bjornson, Swedish Newspaperman, immediately calls…Nazi Headquarters in Germany. Because he’s actually: Paul Bjornson, Swedish Newspaperman/Nazi Spy

That sure escalated fast.

The Nazis want a Potentially Dangerous Alien Space Scientist of their own. I mean, who doesn’t?

Washington, D.C. The Following day
General Blankenship (Richard Eastham) and Steve explain to Andros that he needs to demonstrate his powers before he’ll be allowed to meet the President.

The thing with the grenade wasn’t good enough?

Andros quotes his old pal Socrates in classical Greek. Diana also speaks Greek.

Andros is going to stay in a secret safe house, because that’s worked out so well for everyone else who’s stayed there. (Watch out for giant gorillas, Andros!)

Outside the guesthouse, Steve and Andros are ambushed…by Nazis.

Diana ducks away, spins into Wonder Woman, and saves Steve’s sorry hide with her bullet-deflecting bracelets. She claims she “heard sounds” and investigated. Good thing, since Diana seems to have wandered off again. Now where could Diana be?

Paul Bjornson, Swedish Newspaperman/Nazi Spy is also there, although I spaced out for a minute and don’t know why.

Andros is a major-league name dropper. Abe Lincoln. Socrates. Diana digs it, but honestly, it’s a bit much, pal.

Andros uses his mind-control clock-radio-necklace to freeze Steve Trevor, Alleged War Hero, and Paul Bjornson, Swedish Newspaperman/Nazi Spy. Andros ditches them; Diana nods her approval.

Andros knows Diana is Wonder Woman, because he’s not an idiot.

At the War Department : Paul Bjornson, Swedish Newspaperman/Nazi Spy knows flattery gets you everywhere with General Blankenship, so they go spend a little quality time in the General’s office.

Diana suggests that Steve alert the Civil Defense since he’s so upset Andros gave them the slip. It’s still 1942 and I’m fairly certain the term in common use was “civilian defense” until after 1943. I don’t know why I care – it’s a show about an Amazon in satin undies protecting a space ambassador and fighting Nazis while working for an idiot who is allegedly a war hero. And yet. I only ask for scraps.

Steve empowers Diana to do whatever she wants so she goes to the Lincoln Memorial (as Wonder Woman) to find Andros. It’s a special occasion, so she wears her cape.

Andros can control the weather, which he demonstrates for Wonder Woman. He causes a solar eclipse, which is weird because an eclipse is not weather and also it’s nighttime so that doesn’t make any sense at all, but Wonder Woman eats it up.

At the War Department: Paul Bjornson, Swedish Newspaperman/Nazi Spy tries to bribe the General’s secretary Etta Candy (Beatrice Colen), but she has morals. She does give him her phone number, though, because she also has needs.

At the Aberdeen Proving Grounds: Andros blows up a shed…with lightning. Steve, the General, and Wonder Woman are duly impressed.

Andros says the Council of Planets is concerned earthlings will swarm into space and wreck the place like they’ve wrecked earth.

That’s fair. I’m gonna to give him that one.

In Washington Andros Meets the President as Wonder Woman and Many Others Wait. The Planet of Councils spy on Wonder Woman as she hangs out in the Rose Garden in her sparkly cape and optional skirt.

At the War Department: Steve and the General fret. The President orders the General to assemble a Strike Force.

Outside, Wonder Woman and Andros stroll and chat.

She tells him that the Amazons live outside of time, close to the ancient natural order of things on Paradise Island, which has perfect harmony. She pleads with Andros to give humans a chance.

Andros allows Wonder Woman to use her golden lasso on him. To make sure he’s telling the truth. This time. (Spoiler alert: things seem to go a bit farther in the next episode).

Oh, and he also tells her he has to check in to his spaceship every 3 days or he’ll get in big trouble and the Council will reduce the earth to a smoking cinder, so maybe don’t let anyone lock him up anywhere or kill him because he’s the only one who can open the space ship door, with his special whistle, which he demonstrates for her.

At the War Department: Diana tells Steve off when she finds out he and the General are making plans to assassinate Andros.

Steve sends Diana to the Library of Congress to keep an eye on Andros. Husband DJed at the Library of Congress recently (really!) – this shooting location isn’t it.

Bjornson and the Nazis attack!

Diana spins into Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman leaps over the bookcases instead of walking 5 feet down the center aisle. Those sound effects aren’t going to use themselves, people!

Wonder Woman knocks down the stacks like dominos, crushing books and then walking on them. Librarians around the world cry out and then go silent. The Nazis are undeterred.

The Nazis gas Wonder Woman!

In Outer Space, the space council is getting fussy. They want to rid the earth of the human disease. For a bunch of aliens who claim to want to keep the peace, the Council sure is filled with trigger-happy assholes. The council deactivates the power-thing Andros wears around his neck, which seems like a questionable move.

At the Library of Congress: Paul Bjornson, Swedish Newspaperman/Nazi Spy grabs Andros and runs.

At the War Department: Steve learns that Paul Bjornson is a Nazi.

Wonder Woman cures herself from the effects of the poison gas. Weakened but determined, Wonder Woman goes to the spacecraft in Northern Virginia.

The Army has been looking for this spacecraft for the entire episode. It’s the big silver pulsating space disc sitting in the same Northern Virginia park Andros landed in 2 days ago. Where they first met him. At the landing site. In the park. In Northern Virginia. 2 days ago. Right there. Where he left it. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it was sometime in September of 1942.

Even if Andros erased their memories, they actually have the location marked on a map on Steve’s office wall:

Instead of using voice mimicry, Wonder Woman uses whistle mimicry to open the spaceship door.

I still think this is a weird ability.

It lets her in, but..

Has Wonder Woman activated the satellite destruction device? Is Wonder Woman going to cheat on Gargantua with Andros? What the fuck is the story with the voice mimicry? Why is it still September 1942? Stay tuned for the answers to a couple of these questions in part 2 of “Judgement from Outer Space.”

This episode contains:

Accessories, Alien
Accessories, Amazonian
Bullets and Bracelet
Eclipse (Not Technically Weather)
Flirting
Golden Lasso
Knockout Gas
Library
Nazi Spies
UFOs
Voice mimicry
Weather
Whistling
White House

In a refreshing change of pace, Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor bust up a counterfeiting ring in in this episode.

A counterfeiting ring…of Nazis.

“The Last of the Two Dollar Bills” originally aired January 8, 1977 and was directed by Stuart Margolin, who is still a busy character actor and director in Hollywood.

The North Atlantic September 1942 – 0800 Hours
A U.S. Battleship detects a submarine. Stock footage ensues.

Confusingly, this is supposed to be the Chesapeake Bay, which is not remotely in the North Atlantic. In fact, it’s in a region that’s called the “Mid-Atlantic” to differentiate it from other parts of the Atlantic.

Moving on.

At the War Department – 0805 Hours
General Blankenship (Richard Eastham) tells Major Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner) and Yeoman Diana Prince (Lynda Carter) about last night’s intel. It seems that the Nazi super-agent known as Wotan is planning to visit D.C.

Diana remarks that “Wotan” is the name of the Germanic God of War. Diana is correct.

No one knows what Wotan looks like! Or how he will travel to D.C.!

Oh, and also, Steve reads an emergency cable that says some nonsense to the effect of: “We just sank a submarine in the shallow waters of the Chesapeake Bay and there were no survivors.” As we’ve already covered in previous posts, this whole submarines in the Bay thing is very silly.

Do Steve and Diana think the Uboat is related to Wotan’s arrival? Nah. Do Steve and Diana go check it out anyway because they are the War Department? Yes. Will they find Nazis? Duh. Is the Bay still too shallow for Uboat incursions? Definitely!

Off the Coast of Virginia – One Hour Later
Diana and Steve skulk around Smith Point, watching for the 3 men who were spotted escaping from the submarine in a rubber raft.

Wait. The intel said there were no survivors – but it also said there were 3 men in a raft? Were there survivors or weren’t there?
And if there were, why did it take them an hour to row ashore? And why did it take an hour to figure out that the submariners faked the explosion as a cover to deposit 3 men in a rubber raft off the coast? Let’s review: there are 3 guys in a raft where there weren’t any before and there’s no wrecked submarine. Even Steve seems to be able to put the pieces together on that one.

More importantly, how did Steve and Diana get to Smith Point in an hour in that jeep? Ok, yes, maybe they took a helicopter and then borrowed the jeep. Smith Point is in Virginia Beach, which is 4 hours away on a good day via I-95 (which wasn’t built until 1957). In 1942 it looks like they would have taken U.S. Route 1 and I can’t imagine they could get there in 4 hours, even with a military escort.

Husband suggests that maybe they’re supposed to be at Smith Point, the popular Georgetown destination once ranked number 3 on a Douchiest Bars in D.C. list, which is a travesty because it should have been number one.

As the men land on the beach, Diana trots back to the jeep, reports in to the General, then spins into Wonder Woman. Good thing, since Steve gets ambushed.

A Nazi waiting on the shore yells a warning to Wotan (James Olson), whose identity is protected by a truly stupid-looking mask.

In the scuffle, Wotan gets away – but not before he and Wonder Woman lock eyes for a long time. Thanks to Wonder Woman’s bullet-deflecting bracelets, she and Steve capture the other three Nazis. Also, Wonder Woman jumps over a fence, which makes sense from an efficiency standpoint but doesn’t entirely make sense in light of the fact that the fence didn’t seem to be there a few minutes ago when Diana ran up from the beach to use the jeep-phone.

Washington, D.C. – Several Hours Later
Etta Candy (Beatrice Colen) and Diana go to “a joint” because Etta is starving. A joint? Slang confuses Diana, who is so wide-eyed and innocent. In case you forgot: Etta is the jolly plump one who eats a lot, while Diana is the thin one who doesn’t ever seem to eat.

Wait. Hang on. The actor who played Wotan is named Jimmy Olson? I admit I find that much funnier than it probably objectively is, because I took such terrible notes on this episode I had to rewatch it a few times. To be fair, it was entertaining every time, but still, it takes a toll on a person.

On their way to the Capitol Cafe, a street photographer takes Diana and Etta’s photo. Etta gives the photographer money for 3 prints. She gives him her addresses because it’s 1942 and he has to develop the pictures and mail them. Diana looks into the photographer’s eyes for a long time. Do you think it’s because he’s a Nazi spy? I do. I bet it’s Wotan.

One Week Later at the Secret Headquarters in Nazi Germany Wotan is having a gallery opening of his street photography. No, not really, but that might make for a better storyline. Instead, he select one man and one woman from among the top students at Nazi Hogwarts. He informs them they will have plastic surgery which transforms them into a couple he photographed in D.C. last week.

So Wotan was only here for a week? Faking a submarine explosion was a ridiculously high-profile, complicated plan to get 3 covert agents into Washington, D.C. for such a short amount of time.

Washington, D.C. A Few Weeks Later
Is it October yet? An awful lot of these episodes take place in September. Was there only one title card and no one wanted to update the typesetting?

At her desk at the War Department, Diana studies a book of “American Slang.”

Etta is upset because the photographer never mailed her their photos so she and Diana go to the photo shop. The shop owner doesn’t know what happened to the photographer. Diana is suspicious, because Diana has caught on that pretty much anyone in Washington, D.C. who isn’t Etta, Steve or the General is probably a Nazi spy. Etta goes back to the War Department.

Diana dawdles until Etta is gone, then she spins into Wonder Woman and breaks into the photo shop owner’s apartment upstairs by jumping up into the window. She finds a hidden Nazi radio. The shop owning Nazi catches her in the act, but she bends his gun and he flees. She jumps out the window, stops his truck, and then catches him with her lasso.

Etta and Steve meet Wonder Woman at the shop owner’s apartment. Wonder Woman tells them he’s a Nazi in league with Wotan.

Etta is suspicious! The photographer took their picture in front of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP), which is a place Diana/Wonder Woman has apparently never wondered about even though it’s a big building she walks by all the time. It’s a very big building. I walk by it all the time, too. It’s hard to miss. When I took a picture for this post I couldn’t even get the whole building in the frame without putting in more effort than I was capable because it was almost 100 degrees out and I was cranky and tired. Just trust me, it’s an enormous building.

Wonder Woman is amazed that there’s a place “where they just make money!” Well, I think she’s amazed; Husband suspects she’s not so much amazed as bitter, because she had to work as a carnie so she wouldn’t be homeless when she first arrived in America. (See Pilot episode for details)

Steve is going to the BEP to conduct a security review tomorrow anyway, so he invites Wonder Woman to join him. They actually say “Bureau of Engraving” a lot in this episode, but D.C. runs on acronyms and I don’t feel like typing that over and over, so from here on out: BEP.

Nazi Intelligence Headquarters Later That Night: Wotan approves of the results of the plastic surgery. Fake Maggie Robbins (Barbara Anderson) and Fake Hank Miller (David Cryer) reporting for duty!

Fake Hank has a toothache. Wotan tells him to get it taken care of. Do you think that’s going to be important later? I do.

Wotan’s nefarious plan: steal the engraving plates for the two dollar bill and flood the U.S. market with counterfeit currency. He instructs Fake Hank and Fake Maggie to parachute in to Canada and make their way to D.C., then they pretend to leave.

It’s a trick! Wotan returns in time to catch one of his henchmen transmitting a secret message to the Allies.

At the War Department the General gives Steve the incomplete message: “Wotan 2 dollar bill.”

What could it possibly mean?

Later that Night Somewhere Over the East Coast, U.S.A
The imposters parachute in. Wotan told them to parachute into Canada, but clearly the people who produce the title cards don’t get any script revisions, or they just don’t care. See also: why is it always September 1942 on the title cards?

Washington D.C. War Department – the Following Morning
Diana arrives to find Steve asleep at his desk. Actually asleep, I’m not making a joke about his competency. This time.

Diana creeps around his office, takes off her glasses, and watches him sleep. I like to believe her revere stems from the mystery of his status as a great war hero, but we’ll never know because he wakes with a start and dashes off to meet Wonder Woman.

Diana sits down at Steve’s desk, kisses the two dollar bill he left on his blotter, and then also dashes out.

Wonder Woman arrives at the BEP . In her cape! And her skirt! I thought she kicked that skirt to the curb back on Paradise Island, but it turns out she packed it after all! That’s nice.

At the Capitol Cafe, Real Maggie hires a new counterman. He might be a real counterman but he’s also a real Nazi, because we know it’s Wotan in another disguise!

Wotan is the Gene Parmesan of Nazi Germany.

Real Maggie gets a call from Real Hank, who invites her over to meet Wonder Woman.

At the BEP, Real Hank Miller gives Wonder Woman and Steve a tour.

Fort Knox. Valuable green paper. Gold.

That’s all I wrote down. In lieu of a better recap, here’s some fun information. The Bureau of Printing and Engraving’s URL is moneyfactory.gov, which I think is awesome. Hilariously, the home page right now features a story about $2 bills.

At the BEP, Real Hank walks Steve and Wonder Woman out at the end of the tour. On the steps, Real Hank’s Real Fiancee Real Maggie gets Wonder Woman’s autographs on one of her Capitol Cafe menus so she can send it to her G.I. brother overseas. Morale and all that.

Real Maggie returns to the cafe. Fake Maggie and Fake Hank are there waiting for her! Wotan locks Real Maggie and Real Hank in the basement.

Wonder Woman realizes that counterfeiting would be a potent economic weapon, which might explain that whole $2 bill message.

Steve returns to the War Department and sends Diana to fetch lunch. I think this is where Steve asks Secret Service Agent Dan Fletcher (Dean Harens) to keep an eye on Hank until they catch Wotan. Makes sense, the Secret Service were originally formed to handle counterfeiting.

At the Capitol Cafe, Diana looks into the counterman’s eyes and grows suspicious. Diana knows something’s afoot when she spots the autographed menu carelessly tossed aside.

Diana leaves, spins into Wonder Woman, and calls Steve. She asks him to meet her at the Capitol Cafe, but she does the creepy voice mimicry thing, pretending to be Agent Fletcher.

Wonder Woman returns to the cafe and tricks Fake Maggie into revealing she’s an imposter.

Wotan captures Wonder Woman and puts her in the cage in the basement with the Real Maggie and Real Hank after he confiscates her bracelets.

Steve Trevor goes to the Capitol Cafe to meet Agent Fletcher, but he’s not there! I don’t know why Wonder Woman pretended to be Fletcher instead of just outright telling Steve about the imposters, because it causes Steve to blithely walk into the middle of a dangerous hostage situation. This time it isn’t even his fault he’s bumbling around into a dangerous situation.

While I’m asking questions: how did Wotan get back here? Did he also parachute in? We didn’t see him parachute in with Fake Hank and Fake Maggie. Again I ask: why go through that whole Uboat explosion fake-out if Wotan can waltz in and out of the country whenever he likes?

At the BEP, Fake Hank steals the $2 bill engraving plates, trusses Agent Fletcher up like a Christmas goose, and plants a bomb. In the building, not in Agent Fletcher. That would be too weird, even for the 70s.

As he exits the BEP, Fake Hank runs into Steve, who is still wandering around looking for Agent Fletcher.

Fake Hank has a toothache so Steve insists on taking him to the dentist. Fake Hank confers with Wotan, who tells him to go get his filling replaced and then kill Steve.

Wotan takes the plates and leaves.

Wonder Woman breaks the chain on the cage, gets her bracelets back, frees Real Hank and Real Maggie, and renders the henchman powerless by bending his gun, which is probably a metaphor for something, don’t you think?

Wonder Woman sends Real Hank and Real Maggie to the War Department to tell General Blankenship what’s going on.

At the dentist’s office, the dentist tells Steve that Hank has a Nazi steel filling. Nazis!

Meanwhile, back at the Capitol Cafe, Wonder Woman captures Fake Maggie and uses her lasso to discover the UBoat rendezvous point.

Rosie the Riveter gets annoyed about the lousy service and storms out of the cafe just as Steve and Fake Hank return.

Fake Hank shoves Steve down the stairs and locks him the cage with the working padlock that we just saw get bent, broken, and shot 2 scenes ago.

It might be Wonder Woman’s fault Steve walked into the situation unprepared in the first place, but now he knows Fake Hank has Nazi fillings so I’m just going to go ahead and blame the victim: Steve should not have walked down the stairs in front of Fake Hank.

Meanwhile, at the War Department: Real Maggie and Real Hank convince Etta to let them talk to the General.

Meanwhile, at the cafe: Steve breaks out of the cage and runs to the BEP.

Meanwhile, at Smith Point: Wonder Woman intercepts the Nazi spies on their way to the Uboat rendezvous. How did they all get to Virginia Beach so fast? It’s like the writers didn’t care about authenticity.

Wonder Woman distracts Wotan and Company with the old “throwing a rock to create a distracting noise” trick.

At the BEP: Steve tries to defuse the bomb.

At Smith Point: from either up on a cliff or possibly from 3 feet away, Wonder Woman lassos Fake Hank and Fake Maggie. Wotan is getting away, but Wonder Woman uses her tiara to puncture his inflatable raft.

This has been a pretty big day for Wonder Woman’s accessories.

At the BEP: Steve Trevor diffuses the bomb in the BoE with 5 seconds to spare.

What appears to be moments later, Wonder Woman runs up to Steve outside the BEP, which is ridiculous.

The next day at the War Department, Steve tells Diana and Etta that the government is taking the 2 dollar bill out of circulation.

In reality, that didn’t happen, but I did learn this quirky bit of history about the $2 bill in 1942:

The fortunes of the $2 note were reversed with the entry of the US into World War II. In early 1942, the Treasury forbade the carrying of US currency across the Mexican-US border. The Treasury did this “to prevent use being made of Mexico as a place in which Axis agents may dispose of dollar currency looted abroad.” The only exceptions to this blockade were
$2 notes and silver dollars as it was believed that there were not many of these items outside the United States. As a result, demand for $2 notes skyrocketed along the border.

Meanwhile, back on the show:

Steve and Etta and Diana natter on a bit.

Steve says “Wonder Woman truly is a wonder. Strong and fearless and compassionate.”

Then he cheerfully adds: “All of the virtues of femininity with none of the vices!”

Diana replies: “Shut the fuck up, Steve.”

Wait. Diana didn’t say that, I did.

Etta says she wishes she was like Wonder Woman.

Diana responds: “The most we can do is be the best women we can possibly be!”

This episode contains:
Bomb defusing
Bullets and Bracelets
Counterfeiting
Disguises
Golden Lasso
Gun Bending
Jumping
Lunch
Nazi Spies
Plastic Surgery
Spinning
Stock Footage
Submarines
Tiara
Timebomb
Voice Mimicry

I’m aware that Wonder Woman aired in the dark time before VCRs, DVRs, or any of the other technologies that make life worth living. I’m still not sure we needed such a lengthy “previously on Wonder Woman” sequence to launch us into “The Feminum Mystique, Part 2 (1.6),” but here we are.

Let me save you some time:

In Part 1, the Amazon Queen sent her daughter Drusilla/Wonder Girl to America to talk her older sister Diana/Wonder Woman into returning to Paradise Island. Dru got hooked on ice cream and men. Steve Trevor managed to stay conscious for the entire episode. Everyone said XPJ1 a lot.

Nazi spies tried to steal the XPJ1, which doesn’t make any sense since XPJ1 designer Peter Knight is also a Nazi spy. Why do they need to steal this plane so badly since they have the designer and the plans? And if they’re just sabotaging the project so the Americans won’t put the plane into production, it seems like there are better ways to do that.

Oh, whatever.

XPJ1.

Let’s just get to the episode.

We join Wonder Girl’s captivity, already in progress in an abandoned warehouse in D.C.’s Nazi District. The Nazis believe she’s Wonder Woman. Wonder Girl doesn’t look a day over 1870, so it’s a leeeettle far-fetched to think these guys can mistake her for a woman in her 2500s.

As long as the Nazis don’t know there are two Wonder Beings, they don’t know they have two adversaries standing between them and the super-secret XPJ1 airplane. Let’s give Wonder Girl a few points for not tipping her hand in that regard.

Wonder Girl thinks she’s protecting Peter Knight, of XPJ1 fame. She thinks he’s also a prisoner. We know he’s a Nazi.

XPJ1 creator Peter Knight can’t get over how much Wonder Woman reminds him of a teenager he met just last night. How nutty is that!

XPJ1 designer Peter Knight uses his “masculine charms” to find out where the bracelets come from, because the Nazis want that metal!

Wonder Girl tells him the 1st rule of Paradise Island Club: “Never tell anyone about Paradise Island Club.” Then, unable to withstand his masculine charms and dreamy smalltalk about stargazing, she reveals enough information to enable your average 8 year old with a rudimentary navigational star chart to pinpoint the location of Paradise Island.

Meanwhile, at the War Department, Etta Candy tells Diana there’s intel that the Nazis are up to something on the coast of Florida. For some wacky reason, they seem to be suiting up to invade the Bermuda Triangle.

Paradise Island is in the Bermuda Triangle!

Diana tells Steve she’s going home to see if her missing sister is there. Steve blithely accepts that “wherever” Diana is from, it’s far away and they don’t have telephones.

Let’s assume this is what happens next: Diana walks away shaking her head because her boss is an idiot, turns into Wonder Woman, and hops in her Invisible Jet.

When she arrives on Paradise Island, Wonder Woman discovers that her sister isn’t there.

The Amazons could save a fortune in Invisible Fuel if they’d just get a telephone or some other form of communications technology. How hard could it be? They have Invisible Jet technology. It seems like anything else would be a snap.

Wonder Woman gathers some Amazons to guard the Feminum Mines. I’m not entirely sure how she knows the Nazis are after the Feminum, but it does seem like a pretty good idea to keep an eye on the magical invaluable ore. The Queen doesn’t want to cause a panic, so she tells the rest of the Amazons that Diana and friends are going on a “hunting party.”

In high heels and sheer chiffon mini dresses, the Amazons hop on their trusty horses and ride off to the other side of the island.

Elsewhere in the Caribbean, we see the Nazis preparing to invade.

Elsewhere in the Caribbean? They’re at Paradise Island.

Unfortunately, Diana’s sisters aren’t taking the Nazi threat very seriously. They play jacks when they should be keeping a lookout. They think the Nazis sound dreamy, what with their blond hair and blue eyes.

Jacks? That’s the best thing the director could come up with when he blocked the scene and asked “What would Amazons do if they weren’t doing a good job of guarding something and weren’t worried about being invaded by Nazis and were instead enamored by the Hollywood ideal of men with blue eyes and blond hair?”

I want to blame the writers, but the writers of this episode are woman and I feel I’d be letting Wonder Woman down if I heaped scorn on them without first considering if this was a dumb decision made by a male director. The usual cliches, particularly “soldiers play cards and let their guard down,” aren’t necessarily any more sophisticated, but visually they don’t have the same infantilizing and gendered connotations as woman sitting on the ground playing a game associated almost entirely with young children.

The Nazis invade! They get their asses handed to them by giggling girly Amazons…until the Nazis break out the knockout gas, as Nazis are wont to do.

Here’s a clip of the scene. It’s in Spanish but you can trust me when I tell you, even if you don’t understand Spanish you won’t have a problem following the action.

Meanwhile, at the airfield, Steve and Peter Knight stand by the XPJ1. Peter casually introduces Harvey Manning. Harvey is the new Chief Mechanic on the super-secret XPJ1 project. Harvey isn’t a new character, he’s Wertz, a pre-existing Nazi from the first episode.

You might think there would be bureaucracy or paperwork involved in bringing in a new Chief Mechanic on a project as super-secret as the XPJ1, but you’d be mistaken. How the hell else are they going to end up with more Nazi spies on this project?

You need to work hard to create security gaps wide enough to drive a Nazi through. Steve Trevor is well-suited for the task.

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C.’s Nazi District, Wonder Girl busts out of her cell, reclaims her bracelets, and escapes.

At Diana’s Apartment, Wonder Girl calls General Blankenship and learns Steve is at the airfield with the XPJ1.

Drusilla goes to the airfield looking for Steve and Diana. She tells Steve that the Nazis killed Peter Knight! Steve doesn’t believe her, of course, because he was just out at the XPJ1 chatting with Peter Knight. Steve doesn’t seem all that interested in Dru’s traumatic experience. He lays a guilt-trip on Dru about how Diana went home to look for her and then he goes back out to the XPJ1.

Can we just circle back around to the fact that Steve is such a terrible Intelligence agent he doesn’t even know his own secretary’s home town?

Back out at the XPJ1, Steve tells Peter that a teenage girl accused him of being a Nazi spy. Peter Knight does the logical thing: he freaks out and runs. Steve throws Peter Knight in the brig.

Steve does nothing about Harvey/Wertz, the mechanic who is 3 feet away on a ladder working on the XPJ1 while they arrest his Nazi spy boss who vouched for him and put him to work on the super-secret project 10 minutes ago.

Drusilla/Wonder Girl hops in her Invisible Jet and flies home.

On Paradise Island, Nazis force the Amazons to work in the Feminum Mines. Can I just point out that, technically, they’re mining the Feminum from a lagoon. Can you call a lagoon a mine? You know what? I don’t care.

The Amazons stand in water in their sheer white mini-dresses, mining Feminum. The Nazis took their bracelets. The Nazis have machine guns. For now, the Amazons do what they’re told.

Once all of the ore is extracted, the Nazis plan to take the Amazons back to Berlin for experimentation and breeding.

Wonder Woman is so happy to see her sister! She does the old “I’ve got a plan pssst pssst pssst” silent whisper to Wonder Girl.

The Amazons stage a catfight in the lagoon. It’s a distraction! Wonder Woman stealthily steals back the bracelets. Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl knock out a few Nazis and drag them into the bushes.

So far so good.

But then things get stupid.

I imagine the script read: “Dumb plan, dumber Nazis.”

The rest of the storytime-consuming plan involves returning the bracelets to the Amazons in the lagoon one pair at a time as each Amazon makes the lengthy boring journey up from the lagoon to the ore collection basket and back to the lagoon. They have these huge baskets! One Amazon could carry all of the bracelets back in one trip! But no.

They carry on like this until it’s time for the next commercial break, at which point the plan develops a certain urgency. Wonder Woman dumps the remaining bracelets in a basket and returns them all at once.

Nazi Commander Radl calls the Queen an old woman. Ageist jerk. She’ll show him. She holds her bracelet in his face and the hostage situation ends and are you kidding me?

The Queen orders her scientists to erase the Nazi’s memories, put them back in their boats, and set them adrift for the American Navy to capture.

I have questions about all this memory erasing and mental manipulation. The Queen seems to be working from the Charles Xavier Code of Ethics, a subject we’ll return to at a later time.

Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl wing there way back to D.C. from off the coast of Florida by way of New York City so we can enjoy a gratuitous shot of the Statue of Liberty.

Meanwhile, at the airfield, Steve prepares to test the XPJ1. Wertz/Harvey disguises himself as Steve, hits Steve over the head, and takes his place as the XPJ1 test pilot. Again. I bet someone in the writers room thought that this provided the story with great symmetry.

It doesn’t.

Wonder Woman arrives in the nick of time, using her strength to keep the XPJ1 from taking off. Wertz hops out of the plane and runs down the runway, but Wonder Girl catches him.

Diana and Drusilla are conspicuously absent.

Wonder Woman shows up with a teenage sidekick.

Whoa!

Steve doesn’t notice this wacky coincidence. To be fair, he did just get knocked unconscious and probably has a Traumatic Brain Injury.

And yet, he’s allowed to test pilot the XPJ1 based on the sound medical judgment that he says he’s fine to fly.

I give up.

Later, Steve takes Diana and Drusilla out for ice cream.

It’s possible Diana bends the Nazi gun barrels when the Amazons overpower the Nazis on Paradise Island. This is a thing that I need to review in previous episodes, because I see notes in the margins for a “Gun Bending” category. I’ll note it if I update the categories retroactively.

This episode contains:
• Amazons
• Bullets and Bracelets
• Disguises
• Giggling
• Golden Lasson
• Horses
• Ice Cream
• Invisible Jet(s)
• Knockout gas
• Kooky Queen
• Mining
• Nazi spies
• Sisterhood
• Spinning
• Unconscious Steve Trevor
• Wonder Girl
• XPJ1

Welcome back to “Oh shit I had no idea you actually meant it when you said you rewatched every episode of the Wonder Woman TV series with Lynda Carter & Lyle Waggoner that aired from 1975-1979 and now you’re going to blog about it.”

Next up: “The Feminum Mystique (1.5 & 1.6), which was advertised as a “special” because it was two parts. I guess that was why. Honestly, they said it was special so I took it on faith because I was a small child.

I remember watching this episode with my friends. It was advertised as a two-part special. I remember this blowing our little minds. Two parts! Are they even allowed to do that?

Rewatching these two episodes, my mind still reels, but for entirely different reasons.

Holy cats. I don’t even know where to begin, so let’s just begin at the beginning, with Part 1 (1.5).

Title In: Off the Coast of Virginia – 1942 – Dawn. A man (John Saxon) watches from the shore. A submarine surfaces and a man rows to shore. Radl, the man on the beach, greets his Nazi pal Wertz (Paul Shenar).

Terrible German accents ensue.

These guys are spies. Couldn’t the writers just tell us they’re German but they’re really good spies so they don’t have discernible accents? Wouldn’t that have been easier for everyone?

The average depth of the Chesapeake Bay is 21 feet, right? A submarine couldn’t cruise in and drop someone off, right? That said, submarines did deliver Nazi spies to the coasts of Jacksonville, Florida and New York in 1942, so I’m going to allow this bit of creative license to go relatively un-mocked.

Major Steve Trevor and Yeoman Prince arrive at Aldrich Field, Virginia – One Hour Later . In case you don’t understand that this is a military installation, the soundtrack is snappy snare drumming and lots of it.

Brilliant engineer Peter Knight (Charles Frank) unveils his revolutionary new plane: the XPJ1. The XPJ1 is powered by jet propulsion. The XPJ1 doesn’t have propellers. The XPJ1 is going to change the course of the war.

Diana acts amazed at the wondrous XPJ1, but we know she’s got a supersonic jazzy-jazz playing invisible plane that can fly circles around this contraption so let’s choose to read her performance as barely-concealed contempt and condescension.

XPJ1. XPJ1. They say it so often you might at first think “hey that’s a promising-sounding drinking game.” It’s not, unless you want to be as unconscious as Steve Trevor.

That wasn’t fair. Steve isn’t gassed or drugged or knocked unconscious one single time in this episode, but you get my drift.

The soundtrack swells with an anemic rendition of the fanfare from Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. (Most know that as “the 2001 music”). The little plane they wheel out of the hanger does not live up to that hype.

Steve has been taking secret flying lessons so he can be the XPJ1 test pilot…but Nazi spies Radl and Wertz have been studying an ill-gotten set of XPJ1 plans so Wertz also knows how to fly the XPJ1!

While the XPJ1 is being wheeled onto the runway, Wertz and Radl blow up a nearby fuel depot to create a distraction. Other spies, disguised as MPs, provide cover so Wertz can steal the XPJ1.

Diana runs away and spins. Her newly acquired flash of light, which starts blue, glows white-hot, and then shrinks and turns red to reveal Wonder Woman, is on-point.

Wonder Woman deflects some bullets with her bracelets and catches the phony MPs, but Wertz gets away with the XPJ1…or does he?

While Wonder Woman is being a badass, Steve saunters to his jeep phone and puts in a call to General Blankenship (Richard Eastham) at the War Department asking him to put Code Z into effect.

The General blows up the XPJ1 with the most hilarious remote detonator ever – it’s a pair of doorbell buttons housed in a locked case hardwired into the wall at the War Department which detonate a bomb in the XPJ1. This seems a little pessimistic if you ask me.

Wertz parachutes to safety.

At the War Department in Washington D.C. Steve tells Diana a secret: Code Z is a trick to fool the Nazis into thinking that the XPJ1 isn’t ready for prime time.

Now safely back at Nazi Intelligence Headquarters in Germany Wertz isn’t buying the “XPJ1 is a failure” ruse.

The Nazis still want the XPJ1 plans, but they also want to get their hands on this Wonder Woman and her bullet deflecting bracelets. Bullet deflecting metal sounds even more useful to the war effort than the XPJ1. What is that metal? (Spoiler alert: it’s called “feminum”).

The Nazis have heard rumors about a Wonder Woman, presumably from two episodes ago (1.3) WHEN THEY HELD WONDER WOMAN PRISONER IN THIS VERY BUILDING. Sure, yes, at the end of that episode it’s implied that Wonder Woman probably erased a few Nazi memories, but Operation Fraulein – the plan to capture Wonder Woman and study her – came from Hitler himself, so surely there are at least a few Nazis who remember this thing that just happened a month or so ago.

Wait.

In the pilot (1.1), Wonder Woman was billed as the star attraction in a daredevil show where she deflected bullets with her bracelets.

Two episodes later she appeared at public War Bond rallies to raise money because she’s a well-known superhero.

In the last episode (1.4), Wonder Woman won a super-big-time beauty pageant and was crowned Miss G.I. Dreamgirl 1942.

In this episode, Hippolyta is surprised that Wonder Woman became super famous all over the world.

How are the Nazis the only ones who don’t know about Wonder Woman?

Isn’t she their arch-nemesis?

Meanwhile, Radl takes refuge in Hibbsville, Virginia with a Nazi collaborator in the U.S. Forestry Service.

Geography note: There is no Hibbsville, Virginia. On the show, it seems to be somewhere between downtown D.C. and Fort Belvoir. Trust me when I tell you that submarines have never surfaced in that area. It’s not even on the Bay, that’s the Potomac River.

Moving on.

I haven’t posted any screenshots of the titles yet, so here’s one. The comic book style is as awesome now as it was then. It’s the only visual effect that has aged well, although the flashing Wonder Woman morph is still a delight, but it’s not a delight because it’s retro-cool.

Title In: Paradise Island – An Uncharted Body of Land with in the Bermuda Triangle.

Amazons in flouncy sheer white outfits do jumping jacks as the Queen (Carolyn Jones) swans about. She announces that the games may begin and we’re treated to a bizarre montage of footraces, archery, staff fighting, and balletic lifts.

The Queen’s daughter Drusilla (Debra Winger) is the best at everything: athletics, agility, scholarship, and cruelty! Seriously, she put a snake down a classmate’s back even though Drusilla knew she was terrified of snakes.

The Queen misses her eldest daughter and wants Diana to eschew her fame in the world and return to Paradise Island. She sends Drusilla to fetch her.

At the War Department: Steve tells Diana that they’ll be having dinner with Peter Knight because they have sensitive intelligence to discuss. Discussing sensitive information in a restaurant is a stupid thing to do, so Diana suggests they have dinner at her place.

Etta Candy (Beatrice Colen) is sad that no one takes her out to dinner. Diana promises to take her out to dinner, but that’s not what Etta wants. Etta wants a man. Sexy saxophone music plays as Diana assures her that she has never wanted to be a man.

Diana arrives at her apartment to cook dinner and immediately senses the presence of an intruder.

Spinning into Wonder Woman, she creeps into the kitchen to find…her kid sister Drusilla eating ice cream!

How large is the Paradise Island Invisible Jet Fleet?

Diana shows Dru her “dowdy” alter-ego, Diana Prince.

Oh, Diana, STFU.

Diana explains to Dru why she can’t return to Paradise Island right now: she has to stay and fight the Nazis so they don’t enslave the world. Sounds legit, but Dru isn’t ready to leave just yet. She wants to know more about men.

Diana explains that men are children, gods, geniuses and fools. That’s really what she says. Diana tells Dru she can stay for dinner so she can see some men.

Dru can’t show up at the dinner table in that yellow chiffon mini-dress, so Diana gussies her up and puts ribbons in her pigtails. This makes me question how old Dru is supposed to be and who thought it appropriate to dress her so young but then spin her into a weirdly revealing Wonder Girl get-up later.

At dinner Dru is awkward and strange, saying things like, “I like men!”

Peter Knight, designer of the XPJ1, thinks she’s adorbs. Peter Knight, designer of the XPJ1, is obviously a Nazi spy.

Nevertheless, Steve and Peter discuss Top Secret sensitive information relating to the XPJ1 at the dinner table in front of this strange teenager, a total stranger attending their secret XPJ1 dinner.

This post was begging for a TEDXpj1 joke but I never came up with a good one.

Later, Drusilla puts on her yellow dress again for some reason and takes an unsupervised wander around Diana’s ‘hood, paying a visit to the maltshop where she meets normal teenagers who do not wander around in chiffon mini-dresses and bullet-deflecting bracelets.

Diana gets Dru new clothes and takes her to the War Department the following day. Take your sister to work day takes a peculiar twist when Dru goes on an supervised fieldtrip with General Blankenship to Fort Belvoir so he can explain Nazis to her and point out Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon is, in fact, on the way to Fort Belvoir if you take the GW Parkway. I was going to call bullshit on this but the segment of the Parkway between Mount Vernon and Memorial Bridge was completed in 1932 and the show takes place in 1942. It’s the Northern segments of the Parkway that weren’t completed until the 1950s, so this is entirely plausible. Well, the part about driving from D.C. to Fort Belvoir by way of the George Washington Parkway is plausible. The General who runs the War Department taking a teenager he’s known for all of 30 seconds on an extensive tour of sensitive military locations? Not so much.

Unless this is further proof that he knows that Diana is Wonder Woman and that this girl must also be an Amazon.

Nope. Not buying that either.

The GW Parkway is scenic, but it’s also a great place to be ambushed by Nazis! The General is taken prisoner. The trap for Wonder Woman has been set!

The kidnappers leave Drusilla in the abandoned car since they think she’s just a random annoying teenager who happens to be riding around with the head of the War Department. Dru runs to a gas-station where the mechanic doesn’t believe her that the General was kidnapped so she asks for directions to the nearest Ranger Station and then runs away.

Dru doesn’t know anything about America or pretty much anything unrelated to Paradise Island, so why would her panicky reaction be to ask directions to something as specific as a Ranger Station?

The Ranger Station is, of course, a Nazi hideout.

After a few false-spin-starts, Dru has a flashback to the day the Queen taught Diana how to spin into Wonder Woman, and then Dru successfully spins herself into Wonder Girl. Here, now you don’t have to imagine what this looks like:

Then, of course, she walks right into the trap and is chloroformed by Nazis.

Meanwhile, at the gas station, Steve and Diana question the mechanic. He sends them to the Ranger Station, where they find the General trussed up. Since he was locked up in a closet, the General doesn’t know who showed up or why the Nazis left.

Steve is probably delighted not to be the mansel in distress for a change.

No one has said XPJ1 in at least one minute.

Diana goes back to her apartment. Dru isn’t there! Diana calls Steve, who brushes aside her concerns and assures her that Dru is probably just out having fun.

This sneak preview of Steve’s parenting skills explains a lot about the events in seasons 2 and 3.

A Deserted Industrial Area – a Refuge for Nazi Spies . Seriously, that’s the title card.

The real question is: what isn’t a refuge for Nazi spies on this show?

Wonder Girl is in a holding cell. The Nazis believe they’ve captured Wonder Woman, although they’re confused because she seems smaller than they expected.

Her costume is totally different and so is her hair and also her age but sure whatever, why not: that’s definitely Wonder Woman you’ve got in that cage.

From Nazi Intelligence Headquarters orders are sent to the Deserted Industrial Area to test Wonder Woman’s bracelets.

TO BE CONTINUED….

This episode contains:
• Amazons
• Bullet and Bracelets
• Calisthenics
• Chloroform
• Cliffhangers!
• Dinner Party
• Ice Cream
• Invisible Jet
• Mansel
• Nazi Park Rangers
• Nazi Spies
• Sightseeing
• Sisterhood!
• Submarines
• XPJ1
• Wonder Girl