The idea of updating L. Frank Baum’s classic “The Wizard of Oz” isn’t exactly a new one. Since the hard-to-top version with Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr…oh, hell, you know who’s in it. Anyway, point being, there have been several attempts at re-doing it, but most of them have fallen flat. I will say that “Tin Man,” Sci-Fi’s take on the story, has a few elements that make me cringe – Dorothy Gale (Zooey Deschanel) is referred to as D.G., and the land of Oz is constantly referred to as “the O.Z.” (ugh!) – but, damn, it sure looks awesome…and the fact that the cast includes the aforementioned Ms. Deschanel as well as Alan Cumming, Richard Dreyfuss, and others doesn’t hurt any, either.
(Don’t bother looking for Cumming and Dreyfuss; the latter apparently had a scheduling conflict, and the former, while represented, actually appeared via video, in a satellite link-up.)
The writers of “Tin Man,” Craig Van Sickle and Steven Long Mitchell, tried to deflect the references to the musical “Wicked” that several reporters wanted to throw at them, but they seemed legitimately enthusiastic about their script.
“For us, it was a labor of love,” said Van Sickle, “because the books were such a big part of our childhood. When SCI FI said, ‘Go, give it a shot, and let your imaginations run wild,’ we did, and it was just — I mean, it was just a labor of love. I mean, it was something we have always dreamed of doing.” Added Mitchell, “Since the book itself is such a classic, it allows itself to be re-interpreted or re-invented, and I think that we knew when we were attempting this that we were going to be compared to the original book and any other interpretations, but our feeling was the source material was so strong, the iconic nature of all those characters were so strong that we could bring it to a whole new generation in a new way, hopefully.”
There’s definitely been a considerable amount of re-envisioning of characters. In this case, the Tin Man is completely human; he’s so called because he’s a policeman…with a tin badge. Says Neal McDonough, who plays the character, “He was a sheriff in the outer zone, and I was then captured and put into this pod for eight years and watched my wife and son be murdered in front of me through this hologram for eight years. And that was the torture that I was put through. And then I come out of it, and I’m going to seek revenge. My character in particular — well, all of us, actually. We’re all very, very human…and very real.”
Yeah, but how will it work with such a dramatic re-imagination? Time will tell. (It doesn’t air ’til Decemember.)
Let’s close with the best throwaway line from the conference: one of the reporters asked Deschanel if there were any similarities between D.G. and her next role, Janis Joplin, and while Deschanel couldn’t imagine there were any, her co-star Raoul Trujillo quipped, “They’re both looking for the poppy fields.”
