One thing that I missed from the 90’s was the mini series. Back then they had some great ones, such as Stephen King’s the Stand and Golden Years, It, just to name a few. I know there were others, but the titles of these evade me at the moment.
So, I was very pleased to see that over the past couple of years there have been several new mini series that have popped up, and quite a few of them have been from the Sci Fi Channel.
And, thanks to DVD’s, I’ve been able to purchase these DVD’s and have been able to watch these mini series at my leisure… which usually means watching the entire thing in one shot because my wife hates to wait.
The first one I bought and watched was the mini series called Tin Man. This was a re-imagining of the classic Wizard of Oz.
And I do mean re-imagining.
Now, I have stated before I’ve never read the original Oz novel, but I did read Wicked. I will also state that this mini series had far more in common with the Wicked novel than it did the original Wizard of Oz movie starring Judy Garland.
D. G., a young woman working as a waitress feels that she doesn’t belong. Sure, her family loves her dearly and they are close, but she never felt at home.
Well, as you can imagine, there is a good reason for this. This world, the family she’s with, she doesn’t actually belong here at all. She was actually born in the O.Z, or the Outer Zone.
And it isn’t until she finds herself under attack from complete strangers in the middle of a storm that she learns the truth.
One unexpected tornado ride later, she finds herself deposited in a strange and unsettlingly familiar world.
It’s in this world that she discovers her true heritage, and the truth behind her parents, and the people she believed were her parents.
Just like in the original movie, D.G. finds companions on her journey. A former Advisor to the Queen, who’s had his brain removed, the Tin Man, a police officer with vengeance on his mind, and a hirsute man who can see images through emotions – and who is quite the coward.
Sound familiar?
The mini series is a quest. D.G. has to locate the powerful Mystic Man in a Vegas like city to find out where she needs to go next and what she’s to do to fulfill her destiny.
Visually it was quite impressive, although the acting was pretty average, as none of the actors in the movie really stuck out in my mind.
The movie starred Zooey Deschanel starred as D.G., Alan Cumming as Glitch, Neal McDonough as the Tin Man, Raoul Trujillo as Raw, Kathleen Robertson as Azkadellia and Richard Drefuss as the Mystic Man.
I have to admit that despite the fact that it had so little to do with what I remember about the Wizard of Oz, I was enthralled by the mini series and I did enjoy it.
Even though it was quite cliché in parts.
The one thing that set it apart from a full length series is that it had a clearly defined beginning, middle and end. There really wasn’t any ‘filler’ as you wuld find in a typical series, which meant that the writers could tell the story in one shot.
I hope that this won’t be construed as a spoiler, but near the end of the mini series it is discovered that it is, in fact, more of a sequel than an actual re-imagining. I don’t know about other people, but I liked that.
The world itself is a mixture of magic and modern technology. You have powerful sorcerers, people who can read thoughts, Tornados that can break the barriers between worlds, but you also have gun-slingers, automobiles and the like.
It was worth watching, and I found it quite enjoyable. It certainly has renewed my interest in the mini series, something we haven’t seen in a very long time.
This, at the time of me writing this review is just the first of four mini series that I have and will be watching. The Lost Room, Triangle and the Andromeda Strain.
3 out of 5