This review is for the Sci-fi channel Original Miniseries "Tin Man", which ran in three two-hour segments from Sunday until Tuesday evening, and will undoubtedly be repeated several more times.

The miniseries, which is a "unique" take on the classic The Wizard of Oz, stars Zooey Deschanel as DG (Dorothy), Alan Cumming as Glitch (the Scarecrow), and Richard Dreyfuss as The Mystic Man (the Wizard of Oz). Neal McDonagh,Raoul Trujillo and Kathleen Robertson also star as the spinoffs of the tin man, the cowardly lion and the wicked witch, respectively.

I could barely get through the first installment, and watched only as much of the second and third parts my brain could tolerate. After watching this, I envision a cramped office where a bunch of writers are sitting down with two dartboards. One has the names of the Wizard of Oz characters and basic story elements, and another has every Science Fiction and fantasy cliche ever used. The writers must have thrown darts at one and then the other, probably after some drinking and with a blindfold on, to reach their decisions for what they did with the story.

Here's the basic gist: DG-yes, DG, she is never called Dorothy- is a rebel without a cause living with her parents in Kansas. She then escapes a band of shotgun-toting bad guys (and you KNOW they're bad because they're wearing leather jackets) through a tornado, meets up with her companions, and embarks on a journey through the OZ (standing for the Outer Zone) to combat the evil Azkadelia and discover the predictable truth about her past.

My eyes bled watching this mess, not only because of the deplorable CGI but because of the shear outlandishness of it. The list of ridiculousness is too long to detail here, but here's just some of the silly changes the writers seemingly made to the original story for change's sake.

First off, the cowardly lion is a telepathic creature who can show the future in mirrors. Toto, the beloved pet dog of Dorothy, is in this miniseries an elderly African American gentleman named Tudor, who can then change into a dog at will. Oh, and the horrific flying monkeys that terrified you when you were a kid? Yeah, here they're called Mo-Bats, and fly out of tattoos on Azkadelia's bosom. If I were speaking this, I would repeat that, as it bears repeating. But you can just go back and read it.

A lot of Sci-fi miniseries are cool, like the Dune and Children of Dune miniseries from several years ago, and Battlestar Galactica, which is now a critically acclaimed series.

This however, is most definitely a failure. It's simply too silly and of too poor of quality to take seriously. The performances are the only good part of it, but the talent here is wasted.

Score: 1/10

Later on,
Brian