Morenews on the casting for the pilot. Elizabeth Hurley reported on her Twitter account that she “will be playing the evil villain”, though a source says that there are some outstanding visa issues to be fixed before the deal is official. She will play Veronica Cale, "an evil scientist and businesswoman with a secret, nefarious plan". The Hollywood Reporter adds that Pedro Pascal had been cast in the show as Ed Indelicato, a police officer who befriends Wonder Woman.

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Boo hiss.

:: Throws tomatoes. ::


I had the painful realization just now that tv execs are going to want to go with the reboot. Not because it's good -- it's awful -- but because the names will give it credibility.

"The classic comic book...
reinvented by the creator of Babylon 5...
adapted for television by the man who brought you Ally McBeal, Boston Legal, and The Practice...
it's WONDER WOMAN!!!!"

Simone Gail hasn't made a ruckus, so I'm not interested in making a ruckus either. But Simone Gail was the first female long-term writer of Wonder Woman, and she was turning in arguably the best scripts in Wonder Woman's history. Gail, a long-time blogger on women in the comics, really seemed born to write Wonder Woman, and she was doing a terrific job.

And she got fired so they could bring in J. Michael Straczynski.

Straczynski's scripts were dull, stale, derivative, and shallow. One of his issues contains material that, to my mind, crosses the plagiarism line (plagiarized from Mike Carey). And he quit after six issues because something else caught his attention.

Apparently WW's role has been cast. Here's a photo. I'm underwhelmed.

Television Without Pity posted a list of the top ten things they wish were April Fool's jokes. This was #2.

"2. David E. Kelley is doing Wonder Woman
We were trying to be optimistic about this awful-sounding idea, but once we saw the liquid blue pants and the corset that forced Adrianne Palicki's breasts into two different hemispheres, we lost all hope. And those photos of her running? The worst. Now we fully expect her to fall in a toilet at some point - though perhaps that's when the golden lasso will come in handy."

On the brighter side, The Killing looks like a good show about a female detective, and Daenerys Targaryen and Arya Stark are about to be depicted on TV, though it'll take them both some time to come into their force.

I've been watching the original Danish series of 'The Killing' - the BBC screened it, so it's available from the usual, slightly disreputable sources. Very solid drama: I do like the central heroine a lot, she's got an implacable resolve to her. Reminds me a bit of Marge Gunderson from Fargo (without the pregnancy), in that she had to juggle work and family, and is often under-estimated by those around her.

From what I've seen of the AMC version, it's so close to the original, I'm not sure I can be bothered to watch it. Still, recommended for those who don't like subs. :-)

The problem with Wonder Woman is that no one has ever really gotten a good handle on the character. Gail Simone was actually fired as writer after 5 issues and was kept on as script supervisor for another 12, Jodi Picault was canned after 5 issues - Strazcynski only survived because of his position within the DC heirarchy. It's also interesting that sales of Wonder Woman are also seriously lower than alot of other DC titles to the point that it is outperformed consistently by second string titles.

I do think that Wonder Woman is inherently difficult to write - after all, there's that central Amazon tennet of bringing peace through the application of force that's somewhat at odds with itself. Not many folks can accurately portray that - plus a lot of the time she simply isn't that interesting without Superman and Batman to contrast against.

Personally I won't be watching this reboot - in much the same way as I avoided Smallville and Birds of Prey - I prefer the comics and I'm not interested in seeing it watered down by the time it hits TV.

She's listed as writer, not script supervisor, for volume 3 starting with issue 14 and ending with issue 44, and then she has a story within the next issue (called, confusingly, issue 600). I think maybe after she wrote five issues, they informed her that Straczynski was going to take over the title when he was ready.

600 and 601 sold well, but only because of the publicity and Straczynski's name recognition. He did a bad job, no one found it interesting, and the sales tanked.

I agree with you about the fundamental difficulties of the character. I think it could be done, I think her character and her story could be brought to life and made legendary. It would require a reinvention of the character, a rediscovery of forgotten elements, a creation of new story: get rid of the Cheetah, get rid of Etta Candy, get rid of Steve Trevor, find some texture and depth from the older stories, and create a new world of allies and antagonists. Straczynski did this, but he did such a half-assed job, it was hard to believe. Her allies were such painful cliches and her antagonists were forgotten the moment the comic was done. The story seemed to have been minted at the Cliche Factory.

Grumble grumble.

I did enjoy the way Mark Waid wrote her in Kingdom Come and how Darwyn Cooke handled her in DC: The New Frontier, yet in both of these she comes across as a deeply unlikeable and inflexible character - to the point in both of them that Superman points out that he doesn't like her or her approach to things and he will hold her accountable for her actions in the end.

I don't know - maybe I just don't like her because I've always been a bigger fan of the other members of the trinity and I've found Black Canary and Huntress more intriguing female characters.

Shutting up now.