KEY POINTS:
DG has not yet said, "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more, Toto", but we knew we weren't in Wizard of Oz land last night. Or were we? The first episode of the two-part remake (well, "re-imagining") of the Wizard from the Sci Fi Channel, Tin
Man, on Prime 8:30 last night had enough references to the original to give you something to compare during the dull bits.
DG is a Kansas farm girl who spends her time speeding on her motorbike and waitressing at the local diner where she wears, yes, a gingham pinny and pigtails. Her mom (not really: her folksy folks are robots) is upset when she finds DG's hidden travel brochures. DG is dreaming of a getaway to a foreign country called... Australia. Ha, ha.
DG is a nod to Dorothy Gale, a naff nod to what was a naff joke. At least she wasn't called Dorothy Tornado in which case she would have had to be DT, although a condition resembling the delirium tremens might have been brought on watching this.
DG (played rather stolidly by Zooey Deschanel) is a handy sheila with tools; she got the Tin Man out of that rusted old diving suit faster than you can say "Toto". She stomps her way along the road to OZ rather than skips. She wears pants.
OZ is the Outer Zone where there are nasty things, and mad things, and where The Mystic Man puts on a nightly show, complete with belly dancers. Mystic Man, played with dipso languor from a peacock feather throne by Richard Dreyfuss, is in a bad way. The evil witch has got him hooked on the vapours.
Tin Man tries to create some campy moments by way, presumably, of homage. There is the evil Azkadellia (Kathleen Roberston), who is got up like Joan Collins' Dynasty character might have been got up if somebody decided to set Dynasty in a sci-fi future. Azkadellia wears a gold-plated corset with (I know this doesn't make any sense; it's sci-fi, they dress funny in the future) metallic shoulder pads and a lot of cleavage. The cleavage has a life of its own: it sports tattoos from which evil Az can summon horrible bitey winged beasties that are not very convincing computer-generated beasties and not as scary or as silly as the original flying monkeys.
There is a Tin Man (Neal McDonough), a former cop, who has no heart but will discover one. "Why the sudden change of heart?"asked DG. Tin Man: "Believe me, heart's got nothing to do with it."
Tin Man looks pretty good, but it's been a long, less than rompy journey along a sci-fi brick road already, with another distance to cover tonight. But so far, no songs.
