I Want My Six Hours Back -- Tin Man!!!
Dear Sci Fi Channel,
I am writing to request that you please return to me the six hours of my life (less commercial time that I skipped through) now irrevocably lost because of Tin Man.
Your promotion of this so-called Mini Series Event led me to believe that I would be witness to a creative, dramatic and wondrous retelling of the beloved classic, The Wizard of Oz. Or better yet a reinvention using the world Baum created (during the Gold Standard wars).
You failed on so many levels that I fear I would lose another hour or two of my life recounted how awful it was. Here are just a few highlights:
1. “D.G.” -- a main character for whom no witness can have any sympathy. She’s a pathetic motorcycle speeder with the emotional range of a tomato. I couldn’t have cared less if she found her Somewhere and was hoping throughout that she'd get impaled by a Rainbow, just to make things interesting.
2. You called the thing “Tin Man,” which was a promise that the Tin Man would figure prominently. He did not. In fact, the character of the Tin Man was a walking cliché -- a thinly disquised cowboy, replete with hat and six-shooter, in a fantasy world. WTF??
3. I won’t waste a bullet point on the Cowardly Lion. And I was embarrassed for Glitch/Alan Cummings who seemed to be reprising his role from Spy Kids, but, yanno with a large zipper where his brain used to be.
4a. The whole thing was one big “And Then” plot with one thing after another happening and none of it building suspense, creating conflict, escalating conflict or resolving conflict. (cf: Turkey City Lexicon). Thank heavens for the time lock on the plot or you might have bored me for another four hours.
4b. At the same time, it was a Stupid Plot. The entirety of the action relied on everyone being stupid. The witch didn’t know that DG wasn’t dead? Why didn’t DG’s mom tell her to grab Askadellia’s hand and hold on to purge the witch BEFORE she got juiced with power? Why is that, at no time during the show, did the protagonists get out of a single scrape on their accord? (They were rescued by someone else each time or used magic.)
I got to the last half hour thinking -- redemption is possible. I was thinking -- oh, Mom knew that the only way to free her daughter from the witch was to use the emerald and the sun-thingy to drive the witch out -- and all of this one was great big set-up for the witch. Okay, then I could have bought all the improbable crap that came before -- because it would have had purpose. But noooooooooo ---
5. The pudding was over-weirded. Pudding is overweirded when a writer uses sci fi/fantasy tropes in lieu clever plotting. Instead of MacGyvering her way out of prison (which would have involved cleverness), a shape-shifting dog unlocks DG’s prison cell and leads her out. Instead of MacGyvering her way to the Emerald, she has frigging it handed to her by a black-and-white Judy Garland wannabe.
Another symptom of overweirded pudding: when SF/F tropes are used just because it might be neat to use them, but they serve no purpose in advancing or revealing the plot, or setting up a further exploit.. In such cases, a trope is used only once even though one could reasonably assume that the trope (a magic power or type of weapon) could be used repeatedly by the protagonists, but also by the antagonist. For example, when the Happy Band were running away from PapaJohn’s ROUSes, Dorothy revives something extinct. Plot problem solved -- ooo magic berries -- move on. But what was the frigging point? She used the magic to make berries -- is she going to use this magic trick again? And if not, why not? Why doesn’t she use her magic-berry-growing power to grow berries inside the Longcoats and make them all explode? Or use her magic-berry-growing power to light the nightclub when the six-arm bitch double-crosses her? The answer is that the writers needed to defeat the ROUSes before the Happy Band were shredded, so they pulled shit out of thin air -- or had DG do it, literally. Having the Happy Band shredded, blooded and battered would have been a lot more fun than magically Crunch Berries. Jeesh!
6. Lavender Eyes/aka Mom is a BITCH. Her daughter Askadellia suffers in the grips of a mad, evil witch for fifteen years and she doesn’t even give her a nice warm hug when it's all over? Meanwhile, DG, who grew up safe and spoiled gets a big smile and embrace? The little chicken-shit who put her sister in mortal peril to begin with gets the hug from mommy? What idiot didn’t think that whole thing through?
I felt worse for Askadellia than I ever did for Chewie not getting a medal at the end of Star Wars.
7. Referring to Oz as “The O.Z.” was just stupid. It rang to my ears like old people (my daughter would put me in that bunch) using gangsta slang to sound hip. Eh… no.
I could go on. But I won’t. Tin Man was a waste of time. If the writers of that bit of tripe are among those on strike, I think they should get a special contract that keeps the three of them at 4 cents.
And that’s my two cents on Tin Man.
I am writing to request that you please return to me the six hours of my life (less commercial time that I skipped through) now irrevocably lost because of Tin Man.
Your promotion of this so-called Mini Series Event led me to believe that I would be witness to a creative, dramatic and wondrous retelling of the beloved classic, The Wizard of Oz. Or better yet a reinvention using the world Baum created (during the Gold Standard wars).
You failed on so many levels that I fear I would lose another hour or two of my life recounted how awful it was. Here are just a few highlights:
1. “D.G.” -- a main character for whom no witness can have any sympathy. She’s a pathetic motorcycle speeder with the emotional range of a tomato. I couldn’t have cared less if she found her Somewhere and was hoping throughout that she'd get impaled by a Rainbow, just to make things interesting.
2. You called the thing “Tin Man,” which was a promise that the Tin Man would figure prominently. He did not. In fact, the character of the Tin Man was a walking cliché -- a thinly disquised cowboy, replete with hat and six-shooter, in a fantasy world. WTF??
3. I won’t waste a bullet point on the Cowardly Lion. And I was embarrassed for Glitch/Alan Cummings who seemed to be reprising his role from Spy Kids, but, yanno with a large zipper where his brain used to be.
4a. The whole thing was one big “And Then” plot with one thing after another happening and none of it building suspense, creating conflict, escalating conflict or resolving conflict. (cf: Turkey City Lexicon). Thank heavens for the time lock on the plot or you might have bored me for another four hours.
4b. At the same time, it was a Stupid Plot. The entirety of the action relied on everyone being stupid. The witch didn’t know that DG wasn’t dead? Why didn’t DG’s mom tell her to grab Askadellia’s hand and hold on to purge the witch BEFORE she got juiced with power? Why is that, at no time during the show, did the protagonists get out of a single scrape on their accord? (They were rescued by someone else each time or used magic.)
I got to the last half hour thinking -- redemption is possible. I was thinking -- oh, Mom knew that the only way to free her daughter from the witch was to use the emerald and the sun-thingy to drive the witch out -- and all of this one was great big set-up for the witch. Okay, then I could have bought all the improbable crap that came before -- because it would have had purpose. But noooooooooo ---
5. The pudding was over-weirded. Pudding is overweirded when a writer uses sci fi/fantasy tropes in lieu clever plotting. Instead of MacGyvering her way out of prison (which would have involved cleverness), a shape-shifting dog unlocks DG’s prison cell and leads her out. Instead of MacGyvering her way to the Emerald, she has frigging it handed to her by a black-and-white Judy Garland wannabe.
Another symptom of overweirded pudding: when SF/F tropes are used just because it might be neat to use them, but they serve no purpose in advancing or revealing the plot, or setting up a further exploit.. In such cases, a trope is used only once even though one could reasonably assume that the trope (a magic power or type of weapon) could be used repeatedly by the protagonists, but also by the antagonist. For example, when the Happy Band were running away from PapaJohn’s ROUSes, Dorothy revives something extinct. Plot problem solved -- ooo magic berries -- move on. But what was the frigging point? She used the magic to make berries -- is she going to use this magic trick again? And if not, why not? Why doesn’t she use her magic-berry-growing power to grow berries inside the Longcoats and make them all explode? Or use her magic-berry-growing power to light the nightclub when the six-arm bitch double-crosses her? The answer is that the writers needed to defeat the ROUSes before the Happy Band were shredded, so they pulled shit out of thin air -- or had DG do it, literally. Having the Happy Band shredded, blooded and battered would have been a lot more fun than magically Crunch Berries. Jeesh!
6. Lavender Eyes/aka Mom is a BITCH. Her daughter Askadellia suffers in the grips of a mad, evil witch for fifteen years and she doesn’t even give her a nice warm hug when it's all over? Meanwhile, DG, who grew up safe and spoiled gets a big smile and embrace? The little chicken-shit who put her sister in mortal peril to begin with gets the hug from mommy? What idiot didn’t think that whole thing through?
I felt worse for Askadellia than I ever did for Chewie not getting a medal at the end of Star Wars.
7. Referring to Oz as “The O.Z.” was just stupid. It rang to my ears like old people (my daughter would put me in that bunch) using gangsta slang to sound hip. Eh… no.
I could go on. But I won’t. Tin Man was a waste of time. If the writers of that bit of tripe are among those on strike, I think they should get a special contract that keeps the three of them at 4 cents.
And that’s my two cents on Tin Man.