Let me start by pointing out that I am not a hardcore Wonder Woman fan, nor have I ever read any wonder Woman comics, so my views on the pilot are from a completely neutral point of view.
By now I'm sure you have all heard about and seen the leaked clips and pictures from the pilot, and like me had probably already dismissed it as looking very poor and cheesy. Well it certainly is cheesy in places, but overall I found myself entertained.
In terms of story, we don't get anything too deep here; the pilot opens with a young man, Willis, finding out he has been accepted into college, when all of a sudden blood starts to appear from his eyes and ears and he is soon rendered unconscious. The opening very much reminded me of how Smallville or Buffy would open, in terms of style, and how it would be a precursor for the story that follows. The main story in the pilot focus' on Veronica Cale, played by Elizabeth Hurley, supplying people with unstable drugs in an attempt to give them super human powers, and how Wonder Woman is desperate to stop her. The story is pretty basic but works fairly well for the pilot without over complicating things.
The cast was a mixed bag, Adrianne Palicki as Diana Prince/Diana Themyscira/Wonder Woman, was easily the best thing about the pilot. Not only did she look the part, physically imposing over almost every other character she shared a scene with, but she also brought a good sincere performance to the role. There were times where she would overact a bit but I often felt these cheesy moments were due to the script more than her performance. However with the exception of Diana's assistant the rest of the cast were very very poor. Cory Elwes portrayal of Henry Johns, Diana's right hand man and CEO of Themyscira Industries, was very over the top and cheesy, as was Elizabeth Hurley's turn as arch nemesis Veronica Cale. However the worst performance of the show has to go to Willis' mother, who only had one important scene, which due to awful delivery and acting was memorable for all the wrong reasons. Much had been made about Justin Bruening's depiction of Steve Trevor, however I felt his small role was convincing if a bit bland.
The pilot had some good direction, and good action scenes which were far more eventful than anything ever seen on Smallville. However I found Wonder Woman killing her adversaries a bit much and surely out of character. One of my favourite scenes was the classic Wonder Woman bullet deflection which was worked in perfectly, but was however slightly soiled with her piercing the shooters throat with a pipe. The now infamous "tits" scene which was recently leaked online, was nowhere near as bad as it seemed once it was in context and really didnt stand out as being bad or out of character.
Did the pilot have problems? yes! Was it cheesy? Yes! However it was also very enjoyable, and I can at least say I was never bored! The dialogue needed work, and the characters needed some more fleshing out, but that could have easily been rectified with some more episodes and a bigger budget. Overall it was fun, and not groundbreaking, and I am a bit upset it didn't get picked up as I would like to have seen where it went next, it could easily have become a fun superhero TV show in the same vein as Lois and Clark.
In my opinion it's unlikely this will get released as there were clearly alot of unfinished scenes, her pants going from shiny to dull, wires in the fights, and even a scene with the subtitle "police cars to be added", and I can't see NBC investing even a little to get this finished. Hopefully for Wonder Woman fans it will leak online so that they can see it, as I think its worth a watch for them.
If you have any questions about the pilot or about anything I have left out please ask them below and I will be happy to answer them...
Footage from failed Wonder Woman TV pilot -... by kahramanlarsinemada