I found out recently that there were two scripts floating around for Wonder Woman TV episodes that were never actually filmed. As I'm a huge fan of the show, I was immediately interested.

The two scripts in question are called "The Velvet Touch" and "Wonder Woman and the Watergate Baby." I ordered copies of them, and these are my findings:

Both scripts were apparently made for the CBS version of the show. They certainly look genuine to me: the layout is correct, and the terminology matches up with other genuine scripts I have read.

"The Velvet Touch" is kind of interesting, in that it is clearly a setup to a spinoff TV series that was never made, starring a black superheroine called Black Velvet, who seems to be based off of the Pam Grier character Foxy Brown. She and Wonder Woman are trying to find the kidnappers of a set of beauty queens who work for a cosmetic company. The rumor on the internet is that this script was never made because the storyline, featuring cosmetics that scar the users, was an affront to Lynda's Maybelline cosmetics endorsement. I think it was never made because the spinoff never happened. At any rate, it's nothing special for WW fans. Because they are introducing Black Velvet, Wonder Woman gets even less screen time than she usually does in a CBS episode, and she is never in any danger, though Black Velvet does get trapped by a net and tied up.

"Wonder Woman and the Watergate Baby" is a very typical episode for season 3, in that it is another "Wonder Woman saves a teenager in trouble" story. In this one, Diana Prince is tasked with finding a runaway girl who is the daughter of one of the Watergate conspirators, a G. Gordon Liddy type. The IADC is afraid that she will get captured by bad guys and used to blackmail her father into revealing top secret information that he knows. So Diana chases down leads trying to find her, occasionally turning into Wonder Woman to clobber some cheap thugs she really ought to have been able to handle just fine as Diana Prince, secret agent. I mean, these losers wouldn't have even slowed down TJ Hooker, much less someone who can bench press a tank. Meanwhile the girl and some hitchhiker dude wander through a lame after-school special runaway storyline. In the end, Diana catches up to the girl by posing as a singer, but they both get kidnapped. Then she turns into Wonder Woman and catches the bad guys easily. The only scene of any interest is one where Diana and the girl wake up in a jail cell, apparently after having been hit with knockout gas OFF-SCREEN, DURING THE COMMERCIAL BREAK. This, CBS, is why shows get canceled. It's no great loss that this one was never filmed.

For some reason, I also wound up receiving a third script I didn't order, which is called "Thieving Lady," and is apparently the script for the second season episode "Light-Fingered Lady" (a better title). The funny thing about it is, the script sells itself so much better than the actual episode that resulted from it. For instance, when the criminal that Diana is trying to get to bring her into the gang of thieves calls up his boss, "The VOICE that answers is filled with enough intelligence and brutal power to produce envy in Orson Welles." As filmed, it's just some guy's voice. The script is full of over the top bits like that, which makes it almost more fun to read than the actual episode is to watch.

What a fascinating read! Thanks lurkndog. I'm sure there were tons of ideas that never made it into the show. It's always fun to wonder "what if?"

Yes. I also have one dream about this series. That is to have access to scenes rushes that weren't used in the final editing (and I don't want to envisage they've been dumped !).
I indulge myself thinking there are like 5 or 6 takes of the "Fausta chloro scene", waiting on some dusty forgotten studio shelves for no one to watch them...
One of my biggest fantasies, as a teen, was to imagine myself in the shoes of the actor who "chloroforms" linda Carter. If I were him, I would enjoy the scene so much that I would have done something silly during the shooting, like sneezing or coughing (at the proper moment), just enough to ruin the take and make another one necessary...
Aaaah ! Those were the days...

Monsieur Paul.

Call me a weirdo, but I think I've watched the Fausta chloro scene on the internet something like a hundred times. Every single time I watch that scene it is absolutely amazing, even with all the times I've seen it already. It completely sets the bar for sleepy scenes. There is someone on youtube who has uploaded a version of it in slow-motion which is also fantastic; you can see all of Linda Carter's sleepy and limp motions in wonderful detail.

I always wonder at what other amazing scenes they could have potentially done with Wonder Woman in that series. I know she was knocked out a few more times, several of them great scenes, but none anywhere near as good as the Fausta scene (as no scene from any show ever has been).

What I would love is if low budget fetish movies could aspire to the same standard as the Fausta scene. There must be hundreds of attempts to film erotic knockout scenes by internet film companies, but none of them are up to that kind of standard. Is it just really hard to make a scene that great? Seems to me that all you really need is a very attractive actress prepared to do heavy breathing and to go limp for the camera. What excites me is that there is no reason I can see why a fetish film couldn't improve the Fausta scene! Although the knockout is absolutely perfect pretty much, imagine how many more unconscious shots we could be given. Or, something daring but very erotic, the Nazi agent could kiss Wonder Woman on the lips after she is put to sleep. There could more groping and feeling of Wonder Woman's body as well. So much of the fetish movies are boring and feature way too much torture porn etc, and it frustrates me. The Fausta scene is a lesson in how to do sleepy scenes: why haven't people copied it?

LN, I'm guessing the reason you don't see more improvements on the Fausta scene is that it costs money, and requires talent on both sides of the camera. Plus someone who is into that sort of thing.

Lynda Carter was really quite amazing at playing Wonder Woman, just look at any number of attractive actresses who have put on the costume as a stunt for some other show. Most of them can't pull it off, even though they are attractive women and gifted actresses. They just don't look at home in the role. Likewise, most porn starlets can't make it work either. To get someone who can carry it off, you've got to find talent, and that costs real money. The cost to do serious auditions is probably more than most fetish productions spend on the whole shoot.

Likewise, making a film look good isn't cheap either. Finding locations is difficult and expensive, which is why so many fetish shoots are done out of the producer's own house. Making props and costumes that look really good is also expensive. Most productions can't afford to build sets or rent a classic car to do the Fausta scene with, either. And the producer has to be the director and the cameraperson, too, and is probably self-taught at both.

Add to that the fact that any production doing a Wonder Woman knockoff is by definition flying under the radar, which seriously limits the professional resources the producer can draw on, and you start to see why most of them end up the way they do.

I see your point.

However, I don't see that making a scene which satisfies this particular fetish need be very difficult. I am not imagining an overall production up to the standard of the Wonder Woman tv series: it doesn't have to be! The fausta scene could be recreated pretty much anywhere, you don't need much of a set, you only need two actors. The vintage car would be good if you were trying to actually make a good movie, but I am talking about a good sleepy scene.

Maybe we should have a thread for superhero-related sites we liked/disliked.