The Lounge
Oz goes cyberpunk
by Fiona Rae
The yellow brick road gets a radical makeover.
It still begins in Kansas, but Tin Man (Prime, Tuesday, 8.30pm) is a radically different version of The Wizard of Oz.
L Frank Baum’s story has been made all cyberpunky and science fictiony by the Sci Fi Channel in the United States.
The lovely Zooey Deschanel (the sister of Emily from Bones) stars as DG, a waitress in a small Kansas town.
A storm drags her and her parents into the Outer Zone (OZ), where she meets a number of characters, including Glitch, who has had half his brain removed by a sorceress. He is, of course, a version of the Scarecrow, but actor Alan Cumming, who plays Glitch, says he did not take many leads from the 1939 movie.
“I had a little few remnants of the physicality that Ray Bolger gave to the Scarecrow,” says Cumming. “But Tin Man is very much its own thing.” Cumming is a favourite with the sci-fi community for his role as Nightcrawler in the X-Men movies. Both Glitch and Nightcrawler were physical roles and Glitch has a high level of humour, too, “because he’s slowly remembering things”. Plus, he has a zipper in his head.
Other cast members include Neal McDonough as an ex-cop – a Tin Man – and Raoul Trujillo as a human-wolverine hybrid. The powerful wizard of Central City is played by Richard Dreyfuss.
Tin Man garnered the biggest ratings in the Sci Fi Channel’s history; it would seem that sci-fi and fantasy are truly mainstream these days. One reason is the technology, says Cumming. “It’s amazing how good things can look – it’s not so much wobbly sets and tinfoil.”
