Tin Man (TV miniseries)

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Tin Man

The primary cast
Genre Fantasy Miniseries
Created by Craig Van Sickle
Steven Long Mitchell
Directed by Nick Willing
Presented by Sci-Fi Channel
Starring Zooey Deschanel
Neal McDonough
Alan Cumming
Raoul Trujillo
Kathleen Robertson
Richard Dreyfuss
Theme music composer Wyatt Glennon
Composer(s) Simon Boswell
Country of origin Flag of the United States
Language(s) English
No. of episodes 3
Production
Executive
producer(s)		 Robert Halmi Jr.
Robert Halmi Sr.
Steven Long Mitchell
Producer(s) Matthew O'Connor
Michael O'Connor
Editor(s) Allan Lee
Location(s) Vancouver, British Columbia
Cinematography Thomas Burstyn
Running time 264 min.
Broadcast
Original channel Sci Fi Channel
Original run December 2, 2007 – December 4, 2007
External links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Tin Man is a three-part television miniseries reimagining of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It gives the story a heavy science fiction/fantasy steampunk emphasis and gives only allusive references to most of the original story.[1] Produced by RHI Entertainment and Sci Fi Pictures original films, it was originally broadcast over three nights on the Sci Fi Channel between December 2, 2007 and December 4, 2007 at 9 pm Eastern. All three parts reaired on Sunday December 9, 2007 and December 24, 2007 from 5 pm Eastern to 11 pm Eastern on the same channel.

According to preliminary ratings data released by Nielsen Media Research, the first night of the miniseries averaged more than 6.3 million viewers from 9-11 p.m., making it the most-watched telecast in the network's history.[2] It was nominated for Best Film On Television for the Critics' Choice Awards but lost to Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

The DVD was released in the United States on March 11, 2008.[3] A soundtrack of Simon Boswell's original music was released after Tin Man premiered on Sci-Fi channel.

This miniseries can be seen as a sequel, set many years in the future of Oz, as well as a modern retelling. Dorothy Gale is presented as one of D.G.'s ancestors. The Wicked Witch trapped in the cave with her mobats may have been the Wicked Witch of the West in spirit form, before taking over the body of Azkedellia.

Contents

[edit] Plot

[edit] Part 1

DG (Zooey Deschanel) is a waitress who has never felt like she fit in her small town life. Her dreams are plagued with strange visions of places she's never seen and a lavender-eyed woman warning her that a storm is coming. These dreams are realized when the sorceress Azkadellia (Kathleen Robertson), tyrannical ruler of the Outer Zone (O.Z.), sends her soldiers through a travel storm to kill DG, inadvertently dragging DG and her parents into the O.Z. Mistaken for a spy, she is captured and meets Glitch (Alan Cumming), a "headcase" who has only half of his brain because the other half was removed by Azkadellia.

DG and Glitch manage to escape, and discover Cain (Neal McDonough), a former policeman ("Tin Man") who had been locked in an iron suit for denouncing Azkadellia's rule. Once they start on their journey they soon meet the fourth member of their group, a "Viewer" -- an empathic half-human, half-lion -- named Raw (Raoul Trujillo),whom they save from being eaten.

The group then travel down the old road (now called the brick road). They then arrive at Milltown, where DG is reunited with her parents. She learns that her "parents" are actually androids who had been tasked to raise her by her real mother, the lavender-eyed woman of her dreams. DG is told to go Central City to meet the Mystic Man (Richard Dreyfuss), who has a message that will help her find her real mother.

Once in the central city the Mystic Man tells DG to go to the Northern Island. Once there she finds the ice castle of the former Queen of the O.Z. They learn that Glitch was once the former Queen's advisor, DG is the daughter of the former Queen herself, and Azkadellia is DG's sister. As children, Azkadellia killed DG using dark magic, but the Queen revived her by light magic, and whispered to her instructions to find the "Emerald of the Eclipse", an item that Azkadellia has been searching for.

Azkadellia and her Longcoats confront the group at the castle. DG and Raw are captured, and Glitch is left for dead after a struggle. In a fight with the Longcoat leader Zero (Callum Keith Rennie), Cain learns that his family, whom he thought Zero killed years ago, are still alive. Zero shoots Cain in the chest and he falls out the castle window into the ice lake.

[edit] Part 2

At the Northern Island, Glitch is alive and finds Cain, unconscious but still alive - saved by a horse-shaped knicknack that his son had made for him long ago, which caught the bullet. When Cain awakes, they journey back to Azkadellia's castle to attempt to rescue DG.

Azkadellia interrogates DG about the Emerald of the Eclipse, but the only clue she can get is that the Emerald is protected by the "Gray Gale". DG is placed in a cell adjacent to that of the Mystic Man, and he advises her to head southward. The Mystic Man is then killed by Azkadellia.

DG is released from her cell by a little dog, and she quickly finds Raw and is reunited with Cain and Glitch. After escaping Azkadellia's castle, the dog is revealed to be a shapeshifter named Tutor (whom DG as a child called "Toto"). The group heads south, and Toto is revealed to the audience to be a spy for Azkadellia, marking their path so that Azkadellia's flying monkeys may follow.

During their journey south to the lake country of Finaqua the group again crosses the fields of the Papé, who were once farmers but became deadly hunters when their crops were destroyed. DG rediscovers some of her magic by restoring one of the Papé's withered trees, after which the Papé leave the travelers in peace. The group meets some of the resistance, who help them cross a great chasm without alerting the Longcoats. In the south, Cain discovers the cabin where he was told his family had resettled, but he finds only his wife's grave and an empty iron suit. As they near Finaqua, Tutor's treachery is nearly discovered when Cain shoots and kills one of Azkadellia's mobats.

Arriving in Finaqua, more of DG's memories return. As children, she and Azkadellia were very close and loving, but that changed the day that DG found a cave in the Finaqua woods and accidentally released the spirit of an ancient, evil witch. Faced with danger, Azkadellia knew that if they stuck together and held hands, their combined magic could protect them from harm, but DG panicked and ran, resulting in Azkadellia being possessed by the evil witch.

DG is horrified by her recovered memory, concluding that everything bad that has happened to the O.Z. is her fault.

[edit] Part 3

DG finds a magical recording left behind by her mother, which instructs her to go further south to find Ahamo, who is DG's father. Cain leads them to the Realm of the Unwanted, where Ahamo supposedly lives. Following their trail is Azkadellia, who also finds the recording and learns about Ahamo. The group learn that Tutor is a spy, but he insists that he wants to help, and he only dropped a few markers to buy DG time in order to relearn her magic. The others accept his company on the condition that he remain in his smaller, canine form (Toto).

The companions enter the Realm of the Unwanted and are told by a fortune teller that only the Seeker can find Ahamo. The fortuneteller betrays the group to Zero and his Longcoats, and they are all captured except for DG, who is quickly snatched away by Seeker, and Toto, who in dog form follows DG's trail. The Longcoats march their prisoners out of the Realm of the Unwanted, but they are attacked by resistance fighters en route. The leader of the resistance is Cain's son, Jeb, who has become hardened following the death of his mother.

The resistance learns the rest of Azkadellia's plan from Zero. Her great machine is run by a brain codenamed Ambrose, which is Glitch's real name. Ambrose had designed a machine called a Sun Seeder, which was meant to extend the growing season in O.Z. Azkadellia removed his brain to get the plans and turn it into an Anti-Sun Seeder, which she will use to lock the O.Z.'s two suns behind the moon during the double eclipse, which is due to happen soon. After convincing Jeb not to murder Zero, Cain locks Zero in the empty iron suit and tells Jeb they will return for him in a few days if they succeed.

DG learns that the Seeker and Ahamo are one and the same. Although initially furious at her father for abandoning her mother, DG learns that he has been in hiding, preparing for her return. Ahamo gives her a magical compass, which DG uses to point toward the Emerald. Travelling by air balloon, they find the magical resting place of the entire royal family since past. Prominently featured is the mausoleum of Dorothy Gale, DG's "greatest great-grandmother" and the "first slipper" who traveled to the O.Z. from Earth. DG enters Gale's crypt where she finds herself in a black-and-white representation of her farm in Kansas; a similarly black-and-white apparition of Dorothy (i.e. The Gray Gale, complete with shiny slippers) gives D.G. the Emerald. (The use of black and white references the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz).

Before DG can escape with the Emerald, Azkadellia takes it and entombs her in a sarcophagus of green marble within the royal mausoleum. DG escapes using her magic, and is reunited with Glitch, Cain, Raw and Toto, and together they head back to Central City.

As the double eclipse nears totality, Azkadellia uses the Emerald's power to lock the suns in place behind the moon. DG tries to reason with her, encouraging her sister to fight back, invoking her memories of their love. Meanwhile, Cain, Glitch, and Raw are attempting to stop the Anti-Sun Seeder. Finally, Azkadellia clasps hands with DG, who pulls her free of the beam, separating her physical body from the spectral form of the old witch. The two sisters hold hands, their combined magic shielding them against the witch's attack until DG's companions are able to reverse the Sun Seeder pulse, causing her to melt.

The royal sisters are reunited with their mother and father. Together with Cain, Glitch, Raw and Toto, they watch the suns come out from behind the moon and bathe the O.Z. in "suns-light."

[edit] Cast and characters

  • Zooey Deschanel as DG, the heroine of the story [4] (analogous to Dorothy Gale and partially Ozma), a young woman who, like the original Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, finds herself in an unfamiliar realm after a storm. She finds and befriends several inhabitants of the O.Z. who have suffered under Azkadellia's rule while searching for her missing parents. As she travels, she finds herself discovering places she has dreamed of and drawn all of her life. She learns her "parents" are actually cyborgs who were programmed to raise her, and then explain things to her once it was time for her to return. Her real mother is the former Queen of the O.Z. who sent DG away after Azkadellia, her sister, tried to murder her. DG must travel in search of a powerful emerald that will enable her to defeat Azkadellia and free their mother. As she travels, DG continues to remember more of her past life and begins to develop her own magical powers. Eventually it is revealed she has an ancestor named Dorothy Gale that her parents named her after. (Dorothy Gale was "the first slipper" - i.e., the first person to "slip" over from the real world into the O.Z.). Dorothy Gale is associated by DG with the mysterious "Gray Gale", and she has the Emerald of the Eclipse. DG is played by Rachel Pattee as a child.
  • Neal McDonough as Wyatt Cain (analogous to the Tin Man), a former police man, a.k.a. "Tin Man", of the Mystic Man's protection detail. He joined a resistance movement against Azkadellia's rule, incurring her wrath. After his family was captured by Azkadellia's Longcoat soldiers, Cain was locked for years in a tin suit resembling an iron maiden, while the scene of his family's torture was played repeatedly. Despite his seemingly cold nature, he agrees to lead DG and Glitch to Central City and acts as their guardian. Along the way, he learns his family had not been killed by Zero. He finds their new home, but it is too late. He finds the grave of his wife.
  • Alan Cumming as Glitch/Ambrose (analogous to the Scarecrow), a man with a zipper on his head whose brain was taken by the sorceress because of something he knew, earning him the name of Glitch (because sometimes his "synapses don't fire right"). He was once named Ambrose, a brilliant inventor and the former adviser to the Queen. When Azkadellia began her coup, he destroyed the blue prints of the Sun Seeder machine to try to protect it from Azkadellia, but she removed his brain so she could get the plans directly from it instead, and uses the brain to control her deadly Anti-Sun Seeder machine. Though he sometimes forgets his name and repeats himself, he also has moments of clarity in which he can remember things clearly but there are holes in his knowledge. He has also demonstrated a surprising proficiency in martial arts, instinctively and spontaneously dispatching several Longcoats during a prison break. He has also stated that he is sure he was once a brilliant dancer, but made no mention of any combat training.
  • Raoul Trujillo as Raw (analogous to the Cowardly Lion), a man DG rescues from being the Papé's dinner. Though somewhat human in appearance he has an animal-like nature. Raw is a "viewer" with empathic and healing abilities who ran away from his people out of fear.
  • Kathleen Robertson as Azkadellia the Sorceress (analogous to the Wicked Witch of the West), a powerful enchantress who imprisoned her own mother and assassinated her sister to take over the rule of the O.Z. Her rule has been tyrannical and she uses her Longcoat troops to kill anyone who opposes her. She also has markings on her chest that contain flying bat monkeys (known as mobats), which she commands at will. When she learns DG is still alive and back in the O.Z., she sends her Longcoats out to kill her. She is building a machine to destroy the O.Z. As children, Azkadellia and DG were close sisters who loved each other. When they were exploring a cave, Azkadellia was possessed by an evil witch who had been sealed inside. This plot twist reveals that Azkadellia herself is not evil; but that it is the witch's spirit who desires to kill DG. DG eventually realizes this, and struggles to free Azkadellia from the influence of the witch. Azkadellia is played by Alexia Fast as a child.
  • Richard Dreyfuss as the Mystic Man (analogous to the Wizard of Oz), a former leader of Central City that aided DG's mother in smuggling her out of the O.Z. He is addicted to Azkadellia's vapors, a euphoria-inducing mist. He regains some of his senses after seeing the sign on DG's hand. He sends her to the Northern Island where Lavender Eyes is located. He also makes Cain swear to never leave DG's side on his honor as a Tin Man. Azkadellia captures him and puts DG in the cell next to him, he tells DG to go south but nothing more since he knew that Azkadellia was probably listening to them. Azkadellia eventually kills him for refusing to cooperate; he briefly appears to DG in spirit form immediately after his death.
  • Anna Galvin as Lavender Eyes (analogous to the Good Witch Glinda), the true Queen of the O.Z. who has been imprisoned by her daughter, Azkadellia. She is DG's real mother who sent DG away to protect her after Azkadellia killed DG. She poured all of her power into DG to save her life, leaving her helpless to stop Azkadellia's later take-over. She then asked the cyborgs of Milltown to take DG to the Other Side and raise her there in safety. "Lavender Eyes" is how she is identified in the credits; the character's actual name is never revealed.
  • Blu Mankuma as Tutor (analogous to Toto), a shape-shifting human who was once the teacher of magic to DG and Azkadellia. As a child, DG mispronounced his name/title and called him Toto. After Azkadellia took over the O.Z., Tutor was imprisoned in her dungeon. Azkadellia frees him under the condition that he attach himself to DG's group as a spy so she will know when DG finds the emerald. He drops magical discs that record events and are picked by Azkadellia's Mobats (winged monkeys) and taken to her. When his subterfuge is discovered, Tutor claims that he is working to delay Azkadelia's pursuit and later redeems himself by assisting in rescuing DG and the subsequent assault on Azkadelia's fortress. The Dog Tutor is played by Baxter. Tutor is the only analogous character (discounting the special case of DG) who is referenced directly by his/her original source name.
  • Shawn MacDonald as Lylo, a seer enslaved by Azkadellia. Azkadellia uses his abilities to read the minds of any one she wants information from, using electric shocks to torture Lylo if he disobeys or is struggling with an assigned task. He also has some abilities to see into the future or far off places, which is how Azkadellia first learns that DG is still alive. Azkadellia uses him to try to read DG's magically locked memory, but the effort kills him.
  • Callum Keith Rennie as Zero, a Longcoat who is promoted to leader after General Lonot is killed for failing to capture DG. He led the band of Longcoats who tortured Cain and his family and locked Cain in the tin prison.
  • Doug Abrahams as General Lonot, the commander of Azkadellia's Longcoats until Azkadellia executes him after his failure to capture DG. He was once the queen's loyal commander of the 4th guard, but he betrayed her to Azkadellia.
  • Ted Whittall as Ahamo/Seeker (also sharing qualities of the Wizard of Oz), DG and Azkadellia's father. "Ahamo" is "Omaha" (where Ahamo is from) spelled backwards. He was also a slipper who, while ballooning at the Nebraska State Fair, was caught up in storm and found himself in the O.Z. (in similar fashion to how the original Wizard of Oz made his crossing). He fell in love with Lavender Eyes and stayed in the O.Z.
  • Ian A. Wallace as Raynz
  • Donny Lucas as Vy-Sor

[edit] Ratings

Episode Title Original Airdate Share Total Viewers (millions)
1 "Into the Storm" December 2, 2007 4.2 6.3 [5]
2 "Search for the Emerald" December 3, 2007 3.2 4.4 [6]
3 "Conclusion" December 4, 2007 3.5 5.1 [7]


[edit] International Broadcast

Shown in three weekly instalments, Tin Man made its UK TV debut on Sci-Fi at 9 pm on Sunday, 11 May 2008.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sci Fi Wire - Tin Man Previewed
  2. ^ Nordyke, Kimberly. "Tin Man" is gold for Sci Fi Channel night.. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved on 2007-12-09.
  3. ^ "Tin Man (mini-series) - There's No Place Like Home Video: Wizard of Oz Remake Scheduled For DVD".
  4. ^ TV Review Tin Man in Entertainment Weekly
  5. ^ Sci Fi Follows Tin Man on Record Viewership Road
  6. ^ Tin Man finishes off strong, most watched program in Sci Fi history, Entertainment Now - December 7, 2007
  7. ^ Sci Fi's "Tin Man" recovers from ratings dent

[edit] External links

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