Ten Statements--No, Wait, ELEVEN!--About....WONDER WOMAN PILOT (2011)

Adrienne Palicki tries to run from David E. Kelley's dialogue.

"I know you want vengeance, but let's leave that to me. I'm kinda good at it."

1) Do you think Cary Elwes looked at what being on The Practice and Boston Legal did for James Spader and said 'I want some of that mojo' when he signed on for this project? Just saying.

Just like I'm saying the obvious plastic surgery makes Elwes look like one of those creepy ventriloquist dummies in bad horror films.

2) I have to be honest here--Adrienne Palecki may not look like Wonder Woman, who should be Greek and all...but she's actually not that bad at all. She's got a definite charm about her, has this megawatt smile and a sense of timing that does work, and I can almost buy her as a super-hero. It's just the David E. Kelley dialogue she's got to spout that prevents me from being all in with her on this project.

3) You know who else is pretty good? Tracie Thoms' Etta Candy, here reworked into one of her right-hand people at Themyscira Industries. There's a definite chemistry between her and Palicki, and you get the impression that, unlike Cary Elwes' Henry Johns--who comes off as the equivalent of Carl Sack, reining in Diana--she's the person who talks sense when our heroine doesn't want sense talked to her. There is certainly a groundwork on which to build a decent series.

4) ...if this wasn't a David E. Kelley production. Make no bones about it, whenever the dialogue creeps into the Kelley-esque, like the whole marketing argument about the size of the breasts on a Wonder Woman action figure (ever want to hear Adrienne Palicki say 'tits' repeatedly? Here's your chance!), the episode loses all the good will it's garnered. There are only a handful of actors--James Spader, Dylan MacDermott, Mark Valley, Candice Bergen, etc.--who can make David E. Kelly's fever dreams sound like they could come from a normal human being's mouth...and no one here is amongst them.

"I'm a bad guy...and I'm fabulous."

5) Well, no one except maybe Elizabeth Hurley, who throws herself into her role as villain Veronica Cale with true bravado. The actress manages to be larger than life without going all the way over the top, and truly seems to be enjoying the Hell out of strutting her stuff.

6) Mr. Kelley...you can either have Adrienne Palicki get all huffy about a doll of her with enormous tits, or you can have her literally wiggling her tits to get a policeman to let her into a suspect's hospital room. You can't have both.

7) Yep...nothing says 'David E. Kelley Production' like a supporting character who's a broadly acted cartoon character...well at least the Senator just has a Foghorn Leghorn 'tude and isn't a cross-dresser or a midget or something else that would entertain Mr. Kelley to the detriment of the story.

8) Is it just me, or are they trying to hint at something of an attraction between Diana and Pedro Pascal's Detective Indelicato? I guess this would make some weird sort of sense given the David E. Kelley playbook, playing Idelicato off Justin Bruening's void of a Steve Trevor if the series had made it past pilot.

9) Ahhhhh, the self-righteous left-wing politcal speech followed by an unusual euphemism for sex...we are definitely in Kelley territory.

Ahhhhhhhh!!!!  It's an evil dummy--no wait, it's Cary Elwes...

10) This is definitely the Greg Rucka Warrior Queen Wonder Woman who thinks nothing of breaking bones and tossing guys around like rag dolls. But jeez...there's no way around how she impales the security guard at the climax (not the main hench guy mind you--a security guard). Having her kill a peon in cold blood destroys all the sympathy we have for her up to that point.

11) I'm going to say something heretical here...Adrienne Palicki actually looks better in that updated pants outfit than she does in the classic tap pants. Quite frankly, she looks uncomfortable and ill at ease in the classic outfit.

Overall...here's something else heretical--this wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been. Sure, it's violently flawed and the David E. Kelley stank is overpowering...but I suspect that with some reworking this could've been something worthwhile.