I was extremely excited when I saw the preview for the new Sci-Fi channel miniseries Tin Man this fall. Being a fan of the original Wizard of Oz books and movie, Wicked by Gregory Maguire and the musical Wicked, I was looking forward to a new spin on the same story of Oz. I was hesitant about it being on the SciFi channel, considering their pension for making the worst movies in history. However, the preview looked rather promising, with an interesting cast including Richard Dreyfuss, Zooey Deschanel and Alan Cumming. So, when I sat down with my friends on Sunday to watch the premiere 2-hour episode I was deeply disappointed, and here is why.

            The miniseries was not what was portrayed in the preview: a world of vivid color and magical things with excellent performances. The story starts in Kansas, per usual, with a girl named D.G. (Zooey Deschanel) living a very normal life with her overly normal parents. Then she starts having dreams. He parents freak and tell her a storm is coming and she has to return. At the same time, we meet an evil sorceress who looks like she was kicked out of a bad LARP session. She sends her cronies, large men in black leather trench coats oddly reminiscent of Nazis, to go catch D.G. by way of travel storm. This part was kind of cool because the cronies appear in bolts of lightning during the classic tornado part. I want to travel by tornado lightning. So cool! Sorry, sidebar. So after an elaborate chase scene, and dad getting shot in the leg, the parents push D.G. off the roof into the tornado! Talk about parental affection. Also kind of cool ‘cause I kind of want to ride a tornado too.

            So we find out eventually that D.G.’s parents aren’t really her parents, surprise, but androids sent to watch over her after her sister sucked the life out of her and her mother gave here part of her life to reanimate her. Convoluted anyone? We meet the Scarecrow character, named Glitch (Alan Cummings), who is also an android with part of his brain removed through a zippered opening in his head. The Cowardly Lion is found in a trap set by Predators that spit acid or something. He isn’t really a lion, but a psychic hippie with long hair, beard, shaggy clothes and bare feet included. The Tin Man is actually an ex police office for the wizard of the O.Z., the Outer Zone, who was trapped in a tin box and forced to watch his family be tortured for 20 years or something. He’s a little odd to say the least. The characters and plots are far too convoluted and try too hard to fit in with current events and are overly concerned with being politically correct. The fact that Zooey Deschanel looks more dazed than Lindsay Lohan also makes it rather painful to watch. The dialogue was unnatural and forced, making it hard to watch and harder to understand. The complexities of the story were over explained through flashbacks in hazy filters, literally recounting what had happened no more than 30 minutes ago. Truly a Sci-Fi miniseries.