Tin Man has no heart

Yeah, I know, trite. I didn't get the chance to do a formal review of the new Sci Fi miniseries "Tin Man," so I'll give a few thoughts here.

"The Wizard of Oz" is a pretty rich bit of source material, as witnessed by the numerous interpretations of the books over the years. Turning "Oz" into a dark allegory on power hit its peak with the book (not the Broadway musical) "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire. That's a very, very dark, very troubling take on the story. Although I thought the ending sucked.

Anyway, if that's the very best, "Tin Man" is a very pale imitation.Here OZ stands for the Outer Zone, a parrallel universe ruled by an evil sorceress and the Tin Man is a former cop and Dororthy becomes DG and so on.

The visuals are creative enough - the sorceress' minions travel through tornados and the Tinman is punished by being locked in an Iron Maiden contraption and forced to watch a holographic film that endlessly repeats the murders of his family.

But despite that, the story falls flat. And the performances barely rise to the level of wooden. Zooey Deschanel in particular has some 'splaining to do for sleepwalking through this thing. In the interviews I've read, the actor's comments all have that trying-too-hard-because-I'm-a-little-embarrassed-how-this-turned-out quality to them. As well they might.

So, good idea, some points for execution, but Sci Fi's reach clearly exceeded his grasp on this one.