The difficulty in dealing with something iconic like L. Frank Baum's THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ, is that you might screw it up royally. Hollywood has demonstrated that much of the time it doesn't have a brain, the heart or courage to follow through on a radical rethinking of a classic because it's all about ratings and money. "Tin Man" was originally pitched as a TV series to the Sci-Fi Channel who wisely decided it should be a mini-series instead. As a TV series it would have become nothing more than a variation on "The Fugitive" marching down the Yellow Brick Road. While it might have worked, there was always the risk of creative fatigue. In the mini-series format "Tin Man" avoids overstaying its welcome. Although the story is imaginatively told with stunning visuals, the writers borrow so much from a variety of sources (from science fiction and fantasy to Sergio Leone's iconic westerns) that "Tin Man" often stumbles becoming little more than the sum of its parts. ***

DG (Zooey Deschanel) finds her life with her parents in rural America boring. She longs for adventure and more than her dead end job at the local diner. DG gets whisked away from that boring existence with her parents when a tornado strikes taking her to the Outer Zone a bizarre world where magic reigns supreme. She meets up with Glitch (Alan Cummings) a man literally with half a brain, Wyatt Cain (Neal McDonough) a former "Tin Man" police officer who, like Clint Eastwood's iconic western drifter, has lost his "heart" when his family was taken from him and Raw(Raoul Trujillo) an empathic but cowardly creature with second sight on the Old Road trying to find her parents. DG also must avoid the evil Sorceress (Kathleen Robertson) who believes that DG may hold the key to ruling the O.Z. ***

Featuring a strong cast including Richard Dreyfus in an extended, "Tin Man" borrows broadly from other films and TV shows which is ironic given that many of the fantasy novels and films we've seen in the past century have borrowed as liberally from Baum's classic series of novels. The main problem with "Tin Man" is that the seams of all of these borrowed bits often show and the show doesn't quite hang together dramatically. The other chief weakness in the show (which was Sci-Fi Channel's most highly rated show of the year) is its fidelity to the basic elements of Baum's work. Nevertheless, it's a noble and ambitious effort that is worth watching. ---

Image & Sound:

"Tin Man" receives a sharp, colorful transfer nicely translating the rich colors of British Columbia (where it was shot) to the screen. Skin tones are accurate and image quality is very good. ***

The 5.1 mix is nicely used although it doesn't really spring to life unless there's an action sequence on screen. Dialogue is crisp and clear throughout and there's nice use of the surround speakers with ambient sound effects. ---

First up is a half hour featurette on the making of the TV show. It's interesting primarily for the clips featuring the cast, crew and director Nick Willing discussing the themes of the show and what attracted them to the series. These are elaborated on in four interview segments for stars Zooey Deschanel, Neal McDonough, Alan Cumming and director Willing. Willing brings a bit of dry humor to his interview discussing how he was read the story by his mother in Portugese (he's British) while growing up in a remote castle that only had movies once a week. Deschanel, Cumming and McDonough are all asked when they first encountered the original story (Cumming had only seen the film mentioning it’s the type of film he would watch with friends at his upstate New York home if he wanted to cry while Deschanel and McDonough were read the original and had also seen the film) and are questioned about their characters. ***

We also get a featurette on director Willing that focuses on his approach to the material with plenty of behind-the-scenes footage. I love the brief bit where he is coaching the dog on her "motivation" and the dog barks in response. It's a clever bit that's amusing. ***

We also get a "blooper" reel that really focuses on the bloopers from the behind-the-scenes featurettes and NOT the show itself which is kind of peculiar but also interesting in that we get to see the crew and actors goofing around on the set. ***

We also get the trailer for the show as well as previews for "Hogswarth Father" and "Battlestar: Galatica". ---

Final Words: