Wonder Woman is one of the shows I can’t wait to see on TV. The original TV show was pre-me (I’m a child of the 80s) but I do recall it being on TV. I was excited when a concept was developed in 2011 and managed to see the unaired pilot. I was, I’m sure like the test audiences, disappointed. You can’t start a show where the super hero’s secret identity is already know by the world. Where can a show go from there with no mystery? As an audience we always like to know something that not all of the characters know.
The CW is now working on a new development for Wonder Woman… awaiting news on casting etc, but if it is going to be anything like Smallville or Arrow then I think the ultimate female super hero is in safe hands. Especially as this show plans to focus on Wonder Woman’s origin, much like Smallville did. What worked with Smallville was it was a story that we all knew, mostly via the start of the Superman movie, but we hadn’t seen in great detail on screen. Smallville took the Superman and Superboy comics and developed a show that would take this iconic character to the masses and position it as a teen sci-fi drama. I personally believe that the success of Smallville helped the development of Superman Returns. Fine I know you will reference that they had been working on the film reboot for over a decade, but I count Smallville for making me a Superman fan. As someone that studied film and media studies at university, I found I was drawn more to films and TV shows that I could see a lot of thought had gone in to e.g. The Matrix, Inception and How I Met Your Mother (for the latter you’ll have to read my Sci-Fi Drama Queen blog post on why the show is better than Friends).
For Smallvile it was two things. Firstly the villains, by the time the show finished, Clark Kent had met all of the villains that he has come across in the comic books, probably easy with 24 episodes per season and 10 seasons you might say. But in my eyes they could have just focused on new villains, but I liked how they were utlising the wealth of characters from the DC catologue, many of which we will probably never see in a Superman movie. Secondly it is the use of colour. This is where I get a bit more technical with my media hat on. To many people you might spot that Clark wears a red t-shirt and a blue jacket, or the other way around. But it is more than this. There are three key colours from Superman’s suit – red, blue and yellow. Clark Kent was always associated with these two colours, in the early seasons it was more checked shirts with both colours, a little more subtle. But as he grew closer to becoming Superman, he went for bolder block colours. Lex Luthor and his father always has stain glass windows and lighting in blue or yellow, linking them to being a strong part of Clark’s life. I personally think that the yellow linked to the sun which was Clark’s power source, showing that the Luthors were a key part of Clark’s development in becoming the great hero. BUT, these aren’t the only colours used. We know that Clark us affected by kryptonite and that there are more than one type. Green can kill him, red makes him loose his inhibitions, etc. When Clark’s powers or personality have been affected by Kryptonite the clothing colours change to black or white. Black is often used to show that his dark side has come out and white to show that he is pure and has lost his powers.
Ok, I have rambled on about Smallville there, when my intention was to tell you about Wonder Woman. I hope that this outlines what could be done with Wonder Woman. Arrow, another CW show focuses on the Green Arrow as he starts as the vigilante, intertwined with the back story of how he became the man he is. Both of these shows what the CW could do with taking a super hero to the small screen and making it relevant for today’s audience. If the show doesn’t have success on the small screen however, we can eagerly await to see Wonder Woman, alongside Superman, Batman, The Flash and Green Lantern, all of which are rumoured to be the key characters the 2015 film will focus around.
The only question now is, who will play her?
Image source: candy-lee.com
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