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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 66329" data-attributes="member: 23">THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE / THE PHANTOM OF THE ROLLER COASTERYet another reboot with The Man Who Could Not Die. As mentioned earlier, this was the last episode filmed and was intended to set up the premise for the following season. Watching it makes me grateful the series ended when it did. While the series had certainly found its niche, it's been sad to see all the original elements being dropped one by one. With The Man Who Could Not Die yet more go out of the window. The Washington setting is gone and - even more crucially - so is Steve.Steve's diminishing role in the series has been much talked about. But it hasn't been as drastic as I remembered. He was still appearing in every episode for a scene or two. Granted he was mostly tied to the IADC where he'd interact mostly with IRAC and Rover (and sometimes even with Diana, on those occasions she deigned to show up). But he was still enough a part of this series to deserve a proper exit. It's sad to see how it was handled here. One episode he was there. The next he was gone with not a single mention. Diana had moved on.Adding insult to injury, Diana's move to California still saw her working for the IADC. She just reports to another man doing Steve's role. In place of IRAC we have a smart mouthed streetwise kid played by an actor named (oh dear god) James Bond III. In Rover's stead is a chimp.This series was never shy of jumping on trends, and the kid feels like an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Diff'rent Strokes. He's entertaining enough as a one-off, but it's not really what this series is about and would have got wearing on a regular basis. As for the chimp... well, he's certainly cute enough. But there's something very uncomfortable about the thought of an intelligent animal being held captive, trained to perform and placed under hot lights in an unnatural environment for long periods simply to give this show the comic relief it didn't need.Gone is Inglewood City Hall doubling for the now-iconic IADC building.I can't help but wonder what purpose this reboot served. Why drop everything that is so familiar simply to have variations on a theme?As previously mentioned, the move to California makes sense. It's all filmed there anyway and it's been quite unconvincing at times when doubling for Washington or (chortle) Heathrow.But most tellingly there's now a definite hierarchy. Lynda Carter is now the sole, undisputed star of the show and the only person shown on images in the titles. Everyone else is tertiary at best. I dare say it saved a bit of money. And bruised egos. All the co-stars now know their place.The addition of the invulnerable man feels like one of the many ways this series has started taking its cues from the Kenneth Johnson Bionic series. Several episodes in Season Three have featured Wonder Woman being shown in slow motion as she runs. It's partly, perhaps, a nod to jiggle TV, but also very much reminiscent of the way Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers would be seen to run. There have also been close-ups of WW's ear as she turns to listen to something. Again, this is shamelessly lifted straight from The Bionic Woman. Now onto the scene comes a man who has been enhanced into a superhero through science and chooses to join a government agency. He's basically Steve Austin. Add to the fact that he's teaming up with a woman who also has special abilities and it's basically the Bionic team ups. The invulnerable chimp (did I mention he was invulnerable though scientific enhancement?) is basically Maximillion the Bionic Dog. Oh - and the invulnerable guy seeing his new abilities as a curse and searching for a cure was very reminiscent of Johnson's Incredible Hulk series. I can't help wondering if there were spinoffs planned in the long term. Because it seems a sure thing they'd be fired from this series if they got too big.On the plus side, Diana's new residence is very nice. Certainly a step up from her apartment. But with true Warner frugality, Diana's apartment does indeed show up in the rebooted version. Redressed, it's now the invulnerable man's apartment.Diana being tied to her car in the garage is one of those scenes I clearly remember watching back in 1980. I'm fascinated by the stuff my selective memory remembers.The episode features what I believe is the only overt reference to another superhero in the entire series. Diana told the new superhero that he could make a fortune as "the Man Of Steel", to which he replied that he'd look terrible in a cape and tights.All in all, it's safe to say that not renewing the series put it out of its misery. Three seasons with perhaps half of the episodes being decent is just enough.It's gratifying that the final episodes aired in America were in the "classic" format and featured Washington, Steve Trevor and the good old IADC. I was even almost happy to see Rover. Steve actually got to leave the office in this episode. Ok, so he only went to another set (God forbid Lyle would be allowed to go on location at this point) but still, he got a change of scene and the chance to interact with Jared Martin.Speaking of which, Martin's dual role was enjoyable. There's a poignancy to watching these with him having died so recently. And it felt almost fitting for that reason that he had the final line the series aired.Diana's car crash at the end of the first part of Phantom is one of those fragments of memory from watching the first time round. One of my earliest experiences of a cliffhanger and having to wait until the next week to watch. Turns out it was a terrible cheat. According to everything we've seen in this series, Diana is not superhuman until she spins into Wonder Woman, and there's no way she could have escaped the car before the collision. Not the way it was filmed. I forgive them because they gave me a whole week of worrying intensely about Diana's fate, but anyone else would feel very cheated indeed.I was looking at the IMDb for air dates, and it seems Season Three was shown in a VERY random order in the UK. Episodes from earlier in the season were shown way after these three. I'll have to go through sometime and try to recreate the order I would have originally watched them in.</blockquote>

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