So I’m browsing a blog last week and I see an advertisement for the miniseries “Tin Man” on Sci-Fi. I’m intrigued so I decide to investigate further. I’ve since seen a lot of TV spots for it and they look pretty weird, but good.

What I discovered from checking into it was a fantastic idea for a re-imagining of the Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum. Take that world, but turn it into a darker, scarier version. Sort when you go from the original Batman with Adam West to the movie with Michael Keaton. And then from the George Clooney Batman to the Christian Bale Batman. It’s just a whole new vision and feel.

Heck, Galactica is one of the best examples of an old show that was pretty campy remade into a serious drama years later.

Tin Man seems to fit this same mold.

The mini-series stars Zooey Deschanel as DG (Dorthy), Neal McDonough as Cain (Tin Man), Alan Cumming as Glitch (Scarecrow), Raoul Trujillo as Raw (the lion), and Kathleen Robertson as Azkadellia, the evil queen. Robertson is known for her role as Claire on 90210, while Deschanel was in Elf with Will Farrell a few years ago and also has a marvelous singing voice. Richard Dreyfuss is also in this movie and plays Mystic Man (The Wizard of Oz).

Here is a plot outline taken from Wikipedia since SciFi.com has their outline all in Flash and unable to be copied:

The once-beautiful “Outer Zone” (Oz) has been zapped into a frigid and decaying wasteland. One of O.Z.’s inhabitants, known only as Lavender Eyes, has been imprisoned. Her stunningly evil captor in black leather is the sorceress Azkadellia (The Wicked Witch of the West). The Woman is just part of the sorceress’s nefarious plotâ€â€Â?to suck the souls out of her minions and harness the energy to jump the gap between her world and the “other side”â€â€Â?a place called Earth. But Azkadellia’s prescient wolverine servant, Lylo, warns his mistress of a vile presence that embodies goodness, an alarming glimmer of light and hope that could be her undoing. She is DG (a re-imagined Dorothy Gale), a rebellious young waitress from Omaha, imbued with wanderlust and visited upon in her dreams by none other than Lavender Eyes and the fellow slaves whose pleas of “save us” urge DG to follow her destiny.

DG does just that, right over a cliff into a swirling storm, face first in a debris-strewn land of double suns. Enlisting the help of three new friends�Glitch, a man missing half his brain (The Scarecrow), Raw, a quiet yet powerful creature looking for courage (The Cowardly Lion), and Cain, a former policeman with a scarred heart (The Tin Man)�DG embarks on a journey of deliverance along a crumbling old road. Where it leads is into the decadence of the Twister Cabaret, the flamboyant shocks of the Realm of the Unwanted, the fetid horrors of the Black Swamp, and deep into the darkening heart of O.Z. and the mind of the Mystic Man (The Wizard) who knows all. Here, DG will discover her role in the fate of a city, her startling connection to Lavender Eyes and to Azkadellia herself.

Although I don’t remember most of them now, I’m pretty sure I’ve read all the Wizard of Oz books and absolutely loved them. This mini-series may suck, who knows, but I’m looking forward to checking it out.

Click here for a preview of the show for those that haven’t seen it already.