Prolific TV producer David E. Kelley is known for creating female characters who tend to polarize audiences — most notoriously "post-feminist" poster girl Ally McBeal. Fortunately, for the "Wonder Woman" pilot he's helming for NBC, he's already made one move that has been met with near-unanimous approval: Adrianne Palicki has been cast to play the titular superheroine.
Palicki is probably still best known for her role as Tyra Collette for the first three seasons of NBC/DirecTV's "Friday Night Lights." Here she is opposite Landry (Jesse Plemons) in a memorable moment from the Season 1 episode "Mud Bowl."
But if fans of that show might respond that her co-star Minka Kelly is a closer physical fit, with her long, dark hair, than Palicki (who played Tyra with a blonde bob), it may be because they didn't see Palicki as a brunette in Fox's short-lived "Lone Star." And as ComicsAlliance.com notes, at 5'11" Palicki also has the physical stature necessary to play the athletic descendant of Amazons.
The world hasn't seen a live-action Wonder Woman since Lynda Carter played her in the '70s TV series, but since then, many young actresses' names have been floated for the role. When "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creator Joss Whedon was writing a feature-film adaptation of the classic comic book, he had Angelina Jolie in mind, while Beyoncé Knowles and Charisma Carpenter also expressed interest in playing her. When Megan Fox distanced herself from Wonder Woman rumors, calling the character "lame," Carter responded in defense of the role that defined her career.
Others, however, had reservations. Earlier this month, Jace Lacob published a scathing review of the "Wonder Woman" pilot script at The Daily Beast, detailing such worrisome clichés as "pajama parties" and comments on the protagonist's breast size and dismissing the whole as "both cloying and tragically un-hip." So when Lacob's editor, Daily Beast West Coast Editor Kate Aurthur Tweeted, "Not on my worst enemy would I wish that role!," one assumes she knows exactly what she's talking about. At least producers have time for rewrites.
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