Batman: "The Curse of Tut/The Pharaoh's in a Rut": I love the twist in the opening -- Gordon calls Bruce Wayne first, then Batman! Although one does have to wonder why Gordon doesn't realize he's hearing the same two voices within minutes.
But sometimes the inability of the production to match the script is frustrating. The statue was supposed to be a replica of the Sphinx of Giza, but it was some sort of horned Anubis-ish thingy sitting on a throne -- and far too small to have goons hiding inside as Robin suggested. (Also, Batman's encyclopedic brain failed him -- Tut was a pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, not the 14th. Heck, I knew that without needing to look it up.)
Still, it's a reasonably good debut for Victor Buono's King Tut, the first fully original villain created for the show (since Mr. Freeze was based on Mr. Zero, and Zelda the Great was gender-swapped from a character in the comic her episodes were based on). Okay, King Tut is still a derivative character in a sense, but not derived from the comics, at least. He's a suitably flamboyant and eccentric villain, and Victor Buono brings excellent comic timing and delivery to the role. Just the casting makes it funny, this jowly fat white guy imagining himself the reincarnation of an Egyptian boy king. (Unfortunately, Adam West overacts a little too much in a couple of scenes.)
I love the cliffhanger too, with Bruce rolling downhill on a stretcher. It's a nice change of pace from the usual deathtraps.
One thing I've always found weird is how the royal soothsayer's divinations accurately warned him that their hostage wasn't who they thought. I mean, they thought they had Bruce Wayne, but they actually had Batman!
Umm... Wait a minute. So... the guy, who wasn't even a real soothsayer but just a hood working for a delusional professor-turned-gangster, was actually tapping into some sort of supernatural force that told him about the hostage switch... but that force somehow wasn't aware that Batman actually is Bruce Wayne? That is confusing on so many levels.
And I love it that somebody in the show's universe actually cut a record of the Batusi.
Everyone seems to be stealing the Batmobile lately. What happened to the anti-theft system? For that matter, I find it hard to believe that a chubby guy like Tut could overpower Alfred, considering some of Alfred's future exploits in the show.
Cameo alert -- the TV newscaster here was Olan Soule, who would later play Batman on Filmation's 1968 cartoon and then for Hanna-Barbera in the '70s.
Wonder Woman: "Judgment from Outer Space": Oh, look, it's Dr. Huer! And he must not have built Twiki yet, since he's wearing Dr. Theopolous around his own neck.
Actually this is more like "Wonder Woman Meets Klaatu," except without the budget for Gort. The same basic premise of aliens sending an envoy to warn us that we'd be destroyed if we didn't mend our ways. Which is a weird change of pace for this WWII-set season. I wonder if the network was getting antsy at the period setting and pushing for more sci-fi stuff.
Still, Stephen Kandel's script is pretty good overall, unusually thoughtful and philosophical for this show, even though it's silly in other ways, like the sheer magic of Andros's godlike powers. (He can cause an eclipse? As in, move the Moon???) And Wonder Woman's oddly passive for most of it, like in her first appearance where she just stands there in the background and nobody even seems to notice she's there.
The alien council is appropriately loaded with genre actors, though. In addition to
Buck Rogers' Tim O'Connor as Andros, they've got
Star Trek's Janet Maclachlan and Vic Perrin. And
Land of the Giants's Kurt Kasznar as the Nazi spymaster. Odd guest-star billing, though, since Maclachlan and Kasznar both get credited in the opening titles even though their roles are small compared to Perrin and Scott Hylands as the Nazi spy who constantly reminds people that he's a harmless Swedish reporter.
The script was inconsistent in its treatment of the word "alien." At the time, most people in the general public would've still thought of it as meaning "foreigner," not "person from space." And Kasznar's character and the "Swedish" spy interpreted it that way at first, but later on, other characters were using "alien" in its modern sense when they would've been more likely to say "spaceman" or something.
And it's "To Be Continued!" Our first 2-parter. Complete with scenes from part 2! Tune in next week -- same Wonder-time, same Wonder-channel! The wonder-est is yet to come!
Hmm, I think Pauline is another unrepentant moll. The girls in this town are getting tougher.
Lynda Carter was pretty fit but she jiggled alittle, she's certainly not the track trained athlete Adrianne Palicki is or the fitness instructor Gal Gadot is.
