belhoste

We’ve been watching the Tin Man miniseries. I wasn’t too sure about it at first, but I must admit I like it. In case you haven’t heard about it; here is a very brief synopsis (for a more detailed synopsis - check out wikipedia). It is a three part miniseries on the SciFi channel. The story is a dark”re-imagining” of the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It starts out in a small town that could be rural Kansas with a young woman (she is 20 according to the movie) who lives with her parents. She doesn’t feel like she belongs there. She rides a motorcycle, draws pictures from her dreams and is pretty mechanically inclined. She travels via a tornado into the O.Z. and her world is turned upside down from there. A Sorceress has taken over the place and is hot to find the “Emerald of the Eclipse.” One thing is for certain - this is not quite the Oz you remember.

The Cast:

• DG (short for Dorothy Gale) - played by Zooey Deschanel of the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie.
• Tin Man/Wyatt Cain - played by Neal McDonough of Star Trek: First Contact
• Glitch - played by Alan Cumming of the X2 -X-Men United
• Raw - played by Raoul Trujillo
• Azkadellia - played by Kathleen Robertson
• The Mystic Man - played by Richard Dreyfuss of Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Lavendar Eyes - played by Anna Galvin

Some of this may contain spoilers - you have been warned.

What I liked:

1. DG’s waitress uniform. It was a perfect hat tip to the original movie.
2. Azkadellia’s chest tattoo - just way to cool!
3. A visual treat - great landscapes and cool steampunk.
4. The characters have depth and are very interesting.
5. Actual action is occurring (chases, fights and escapes) - I am hoping for more of it.
6. Truly altruistic acts of kindness and caring for others from DG.

What I didn’t like:

1. The overuse and abuse of initials as proper names
   1. Oz was referred to as the O.Z. which was short for Outer Zone - I would have called it the O. Zone
   2. Dorothy was constantly referred to as DG - they could have called her Gail
   3. I just can’t wait to find out what they will call Toto
2. It was in poor taste to have drug use and street-walkers in Central City (aka the Emerald City)
3. DG needed a little more range - in some parts she acted like she had been to the David Caruso school of acting
4. The flying monkey bats - ugh!
5. Too many commercials!! This is one to DVR and watch later to fast forward through all the commercials.
6. Too many blanks - they should have spent a little more time on providing some back-story.

The first part left out a lot of information that I thought would have been really nice to know. However, SciFi.com was nice enough to provide a comic book (digital graphic novel?) giving you part of the back-story. It still doesn’t fill in enough of the details for my liking, but it helps.