S01.E01: The Beast Forever / S01.E02 Prison Of The Abject

[Camera One]

I thought it was alright.  I'm a bit more interested in this show after watching the EW interview with the people making this, and it does look like they read all the books.  Even though they are going metaphorical with many of the characters, I am curious to see how some of the never-before-adapted characters might translate.  To me, just using a name like Ojo isn't enough.  This is the first adaptation I've seen that actually had Mombi and Tip, with a friend named Jack, so I am going to stick with it to see where it goes.  I did think it was clever how they incorporated some elements of Oz, from the opium petals making the road yellow, to having Dorothy's car hit the Witch.  I'm glad there was an Aunt and Uncle.  I read initially the Scarecrow's name was Henry, and I'm glad they don't use the Uncle's name and it's now Lucas.  

Overall, though, the world was so thoroughly depressing and bleak that it just wasn't all that fun to watch.  I think there was just a single exchange of lines in 2 whole hours which showed the heroine (and the writers) having any hint of a sense of humor.

Having said that, I do think the main actress has the potential to be likeable.  I didn't really mind the lack of a plot since the gist of the adventure was pretty simple... Dorothy wanted to get home and she wanted to help her injured friend.  I liked that she had a skill of nursing.  The subplot in the Emerald City felt very much like watching Witch Trials of the Middle Ages mixed with the political stuff from "The Tudors".  Unfortunately, the Wizard was abrasive, the Witch of West was a mess in an unlikeable way and Glinda was cold as ice and unlikeable as well.  It's hard to be curious about their backstory when they're so unlikeable.  "The Beast Forever" concept didn't interest me either.

I was impressed they filmed in three European countries and the cinematography and the sweeping landscapes made the show feel more cinematic.  But again, it was lacking the "magic" and whimsy of Oz... more like drab Medieval drama.  I could imagine King Henry VIII walking up at any moment.  The gratuitous violence like cut-up man from the assassin team was a bit much, and unnecessary.  

There was a really abrupt cut between Dorothy kicking open Tip's door and Jack suddenly appearing after the commercial break.

A lot of this reminded me of the "Tin Man" miniseries, especially the Scarecrow character.  He seemed like a mash-up of the amnesiac Scarecrow and the former-Guard Tin Man from that series.  

Overall, it was decent and I hope I like it more with future episodes.  

Edited January 9, 2017 by Camera One

[dargosmydaddy]

6 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I think there was just a single exchange of lines in 2 whole hours which showed the heroine (and the writers) having any hint of a sense of humor.

I dunno, I got more than a hint of a sense of humor from Dorothy in her interactions with Lucas before he collapsed... Their exchanges were very (realistically) awkward, but I got the sense that both are capable of being quietly funny. Of course, I could be reading too much into that... I'm hoping they get more opportunity to show that in future episodes, when they're not getting tortured, poisoned, etc. 

[Morrigan2575]

I found the first knock knock scene to be akwardly humorous. The second was sadly tragic.

I also found the West/Wizard scene where she outs the Maiden and her lover quite amusing.

I actually chuckled at the Swordsman/military guys deadpan delivery of "Lions" after he chopped up the traitor.

Oh and I was amused at Ojo's don't thank me, "I voted to kill you" line.

Not a lot while lot for 2 episodes but, it was enough to entertain me and break up the drama.

[CooperTV]

3 hours ago, dargosmydaddy said:

But would they work that quickly? Mombi believed Lucas was past help

I'm convinced a modern person (with a great deal of medical knowledge) could use traditional remedies more effectively than any witch!

2 hours ago, call me ishmael said:

i''m not sure i get Mombi's larger motivation in the show.  Did she really think she was protecting Tip from the wizard?  Is she working for someone else?  Given her reaction to the sword i doubt she is in cahoots with the Wiz.

Maybe the Wizard (or whoever) said to her she had to protect Tip to mislead and make her more willing to do that?

Edited January 9, 2017 by CooperTV

[Chyromaniac]

Quote

 Kathleen Roberston unleashing birds from tattoos on her cleavage (yeah, I'm pretty sure that actually happened)

Were they not bats?  I distinctly remember calling them her "boob bats."

As for this show - I am not entirely sure if I liked it, or just want to keep watching to find out if it starts making sense.  If nothing else, I'm kind of glad that this is getting 10 episodes.  So often when classic stories get "reimagined" we only get the most famous bits over and over again.  Even most "edgy" Oz stories usually just end up circling back to the first book - but it's already evident that this show is giving us some deep cuts.  I'm not particularly familiar with Oz lore, but I know there's a lot of stories to work with, and I'm looking forward to seeing that world fleshed out a bit more than usual.

[Camera One]

31 minutes ago, Chyromaniac said:

Were they not bats?  I distinctly remember calling them her "boob bats."

They were the Flying Monkeys.  She "released" them when they were needed to do a job.

[aradia22]

Quote

That said, I'm personally not aware of any rural small town of that size that has a medical center. You wouldn't have enough patients to support it. (Unless I missed something and the medical center is actually in a larger town near Lucas). 

It's called Lucas Medical (I'm going to be good with details since I'm recapping. It's taking forever, fyi, so many things to include from these first two episodes!). And yeah, they made it clear that Dorothy is a nurse, not a doctor. Sam, the guy she's sleeping with, is a doctor.

Quote

I'm really curious as to her motivation as well. I do believe she was protecting Tip but as to the ultimate goal, I'm not sure. Was she just doing it out of duty? Love? Her own nefarious ends?

Maybe it was how Fiona Shaw played it but I was getting a Witch in Into the Woods vibe. Like, overprotective mom. But then there's also the practical reason for keeping Tip hidden and disguised. I don't think it's anything like Tangled where she needed Tip for some nefarious ends. I was thinking about it maybe because Tip seemed kind of skinny and was pretty subservient but it seems like Mombi was treating her relatively well aside from keeping her inside. Though you can argue that and keeping her in ignorance about her real self is abusive. 

[Ariah]

29 minutes ago, aradia22 said:

 Sam, the guy she's sleeping with, is a doctor.

 

I thought that guy's name was Ollie :)
(I also did a recap for a wiki on Emerald City and yes, it was hard! but fun.)

[call me ishmael]

1 hour ago, aradia22 said:

It's called Lucas Medical (I'm going to be good with details since I'm recapping. It's taking forever, fyi, so many things to include from these first two episodes!). And yeah, they made it clear that Dorothy is a nurse, not a doctor. Sam, the guy she's sleeping with, is a doctor.

Maybe it was how Fiona Shaw played it but I was getting a Witch in Into the Woods vibe. Like, overprotective mom. But then there's also the practical reason for keeping Tip hidden and disguised. I don't think it's anything like Tangled where she needed Tip for some nefarious ends. I was thinking about it maybe because Tip seemed kind of skinny and was pretty subservient but it seems like Mombi was treating her relatively well aside from keeping her inside. Though you can argue that and keeping her in ignorance about her real self is abusive. 

Although I thought the skinniness was because she was keeping her weak and subservient.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

Should You Follow The Yellow Brick Road To Emerald City?

Does the new fantasy show have brains and heart, or will watching it take courage?

[AzureOwl]

On 7/1/2017 at 11:04 AM, Ariah said:

• The fact that handguns can be deadly to a witch (was it a loophole or is Dorothy a witch?)

We still can't be certain if the gun killed East because a gun is powerful enough to do so on it's own or because it was a witch that pulled a trigger. "Only a witch can kill a witch" also means that a witch can off herself, as Dorothy apparently figured out.

On 7/1/2017 at 11:54 AM, SnoGirl said:

I did like that they called the witches the Cardinals of Magic. Makes me wonder if there's more smaller witches out there, or how the magic works.

We know that there are witches in Oz other than the Cardinal Witches. The Prison of the Abject that East was running for the Wizard was full of hundreds of them. 

What I am more interested in is the Wizard's assertion that Mother South's death means there will be no more witches born in Oz. Does he mean regular witches or just the Cardinal Witches who seem to also double as high priestesses?  

On 7/1/2017 at 0:26 PM, tanita said:

I've never read any Oz books so can some of you give me hints or spoilers about these shout outs to the books. I'd like to know what to expect plotwise.

Spoiler

So far the most prominent element taken from future books is Tip. In the second book of the series, Dorothy doesn't appear and Tip is the hero, until the very end when it is revealed that "he" was really Princess Ozma, daughter of the deposed King Pastoria (the one the Wizard mentioned in the episode as dying during the last attack of the Beast forever) and had been magically transformed into a boy by Mombi to hide her, because everyone would be looking for a girl. 

So Tip is the rightful ruler of all of Oz.

On 7/1/2017 at 8:04 PM, lordonia said:

I particularly liked the scene of the Wizard wearily removing his toupee. I was wondering if the beard would be next, but so far the wig seems to be his only curtain. He's quite intriguing to me as a character. I assume D'Onofrio was told to play him broadly? Hopefully his performance tones down a bit as we go along.

This was one of my favorite bits. I get the impression that D'Onofrio is playing the Wizard as playing a part every minute of every day when he is interacting with the Ozians. 

20 hours ago, I-Kare said:

I love that the small town - at less than 400 population - is actually a small town. Too many times in Hollywood "small town" means anything less than 100,000 people. As someone from a small town, I think if you don't know everyone in it, it's not *that* small. 

That said, I'm personally not aware of any rural small town of that size that has a medical center. You wouldn't have enough patients to support it. (Unless I missed something and the medical center is actually in a larger town near Lucas). 

I'll have to check, but the sign stating that Lucas had only 300+ inhabitants was from the very beginning when baby Dorothy was being dropped in the Gale farm. The population might've grown in the 2 decades since.

Another possibility is that the medical center services a larger area. After all, something Kansas doesn't have an overabundance off is high concentrations of people:

[AzureOwl]

What do you know! Lucas, Kansas is a real place.

[iMonrey]

Quote

But it feels like they were directed to be serious so the quips just get tossed off without much bite. I don't need it to be the 10th Kingdom which got too silly at times but letting the actors find more of the humor would be nice. 

Agreed; the few attempts made at humor, like the knock-knock jokes, fell flat because everything else was serious as a heart attack. That's the problem with taking a story like this and trying to make a "darker, grittier" version - humor doesn't tend to work within it.

Quote

That said, I'm personally not aware of any rural small town of that size that has a medical center. You wouldn't have enough patients to support it. (Unless I missed something and the medical center is actually in a larger town near Lucas). 

No, the most they would have is a small urgent care center and it would look more like a shop somewhere on Main Street. Also, having spent her whole life growing up in the middle of Kansas, I find it highly unlikely Dorothy would get into her truck and drive right into an ominous looking storm like that. It was positively other-worldly. I've spent almost my whole life in the midwest and have never seen anything like it, so if I looked out my window and saw something like that I'd head for the basement. 

Quote

I was impressed they filmed in three European countries and the cinematography and the sweeping landscapes made the show feel more cinematic. But again, it was lacking the "magic" and whimsy of Oz... more like drab Medieval drama.

Yeah, everyone keeps saying how great the show "looks" but to me it just looks like . . . Europe. Maybe I'm jaded from too many years of Game of Thrones but it's not visually impressive to me. It doesn't feel like some other reality, or convey a sense of magic or an alternate world. It just looks like it was filmed in Europe. I guess that's another result of trying to make it "darker and grittier." It doesn't look fantastical, it just looks kind of drab and depressing.

[aradia22]

Quote

Also, having spent her whole life growing up in the middle of Kansas, I find it highly unlikely Dorothy would get into her truck and drive right into an ominous looking storm like that. It was positively other-worldly. I've spent almost my whole life in the midwest and have never seen anything like it, so if I looked out my window and saw something like that I'd head for the basement. 

I call it out in my recap (which I'm trying to finish before the next episode premieres but two hours is hard to recap for someone who already writes too much like me). I refer to it as one of her "too stupid to live" moments. I feel like Dorothy bounced between being the typical protagonist making dumb choices/being way too chill about all the crazy things happening to being surprisingly capable and levelheaded (for instance, I really liked that scene right after the accident when she tried to call for help, then tried to use the police radio, and then got useful supplies from the trunk). I guess we're supposed to believe that she was so overcome by worry for her mom that she drove off into the storm but it was still dumb. There was no reason to think Karen wouldn't have had a storm shelter or that she wouldn't have gone somewhere she would be safe. 

[WendyCR72]

32 minutes ago, aradia22 said:

There was no reason to think Karen wouldn't have had a storm shelter or that she wouldn't have gone somewhere she would be safe. 

Actually, of all the "out there" things to question, I actually can buy this part. Look at all those who, for whatever reason, refuse to leave their homes as a hurricane approaches. It's never the wisest course of action, but some do have the mindset of "riding things out", believing they will be okay until they aren't. So I could see this as a reason why Karen stuck around.

[I-Kare]

5 hours ago, AzureOwl said:

 

I'll have to check, but the sign stating that Lucas had only 300+ inhabitants was from the very beginning when baby Dorothy was being dropped in the Gale farm. The population might've grown in the 2 decades since.

Another possibility is that the medical center services a larger area. After all, something Kansas doesn't have an overabundance off is high concentrations of people:

I'm from rural Kansas (Mom and Dad still live there). Most hospitals are located in the town that's the county seat, which tends to have the largest population of the county: courthouse is there, law enforcement is there, most larger industry is there, etc. 

My own town is about 150 people, but the actual township has around 500 since a lot of the population involves folks living on surrounding farms. The nearest hospital is about 20 miles away in the county seat which is a town of 3000 (and they struggle to get funding), but it serves the entire county. My Mom is an unpaid/volunteer first responder who goes on calls, administers emergency medical help, and stays with folks until the ambulance can get there and take over. 

So yeah, Lucas must have grown a lot (to be honest, though, it's unlikely to go from 400 to large enough in 20 years to support a hospital in a rural area unless some big industry moved in). 

Edited January 9, 2017 by I-Kare

[AzureOwl]

Another possibility is that the Lucas "Medical Center" is a glorified nursing home, built in Lucas because land was cheap.

I will have to check again, but wasn't the only patient we actually see an old lady with dementia?

[call me ishmael]

4 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Look at all those who, for whatever reason, refuse to leave their homes as a hurricane approaches. It's never the wisest course of action, but some do have the mindset of "riding things out", believing they will be okay until they aren't. So I could see this as a reason why Karen stuck around.

Especially when you are secretly a powerful witch with a mysterious tatoo...

[Morrigan2575]

44 minutes ago, call me ishmael said:

Especially when you are secretly a powerful witch with a mysterious tatoo...

If she is a Witch (Witch of the South?) That would mean she's not dead, since only a witch can kill a witch. I wonder if we'll see her show up in Oz or just get flashbacks

Edited January 10, 2017 by Morrigan2575

[Shanna Marie]

7 hours ago, aradia22 said:

There was no reason to think Karen wouldn't have had a storm shelter or that she wouldn't have gone somewhere she would be safe. 

She did, didn't she? Dorothy found the storm cellar.

Unless this was supposed to have been a magical tornado, I get the feeling that the people who wrote this don't have much experience with actual tornadoes. For one thing, they don't sneak up on you. They're very loud, and the winds get to you long before the funnel cloud does. The cop would have known something was coming before it hit him. And if you can see a person getting hit directly by a funnel cloud, you're probably close enough that the winds will affect you. I doubt anyone who grew up in Kansas would take refuge in a car when a tornado is coming right at them. In fact, you get out of the car and lie on the ground, preferably in a ditch. I know they wanted to get Toto there (I approve) and wanted her to have the kind of supplies that would have been in the police car, but the Oklahoma girl in me was screaming about getting into the car. I was frankly a little disappointed that she didn't end up traveling to Oz in the mobile home. That would have been a proper updating as well as fitting in with the jokes about mobile homes and tornadoes.

I liked it enough to come back for more. The amnesia who gets the chance to shed baggage and figure out who he is based on what he decides to do now is one of my favorite character tropes, and I'm a sucker for German shepherds. It could do with a bit more humor, and I hope we get a better sense of what's going on and why soon.

[Chyromaniac]

On 1/8/2017 at 10:40 PM, Camera One said:

They were the Flying Monkeys.  She "released" them when they were needed to do a job.

Certainly.  Leathery-winged, snub-nosed, pointy-eared "monkeys."

Topic - "The Beast Forever" sounds like a Doctor Who title.

Edited January 10, 2017 by Chyromaniac
Added topical reference.

[Camera One]

36 minutes ago, Chyromaniac said:

Certainly.  Leathery-winged, snub-nosed, pointy-eared "monkeys."

Yeah, in the behind-the-scenes featurette, I think they are meant to be a combination... bat face and monkey body, with wings... they called them "Mobats".

[aradia22]

Quote

Unless this was supposed to have been a magical tornado, I get the feeling that the people who wrote this don't have much experience with actual tornadoes. For one thing, they don't sneak up on you. They're very loud, and the winds get to you long before the funnel cloud does. The cop would have known something was coming before it hit him.

I agree, but that was one of the best parts of the episode. We've been talking about the show being too serious but that moment? Comedy gold. How many shows have weather phenomenon take out bad guys?

[Ariah]

It was most certainly a magic tornado and those do sneak up on you.

...Unless all tornados in Kansas tend to dump whatever they carry from Earth to Oz (which, in itself, is an interesting concept for a short story).

A thing that puzzled me after rewatch:
How did Glinda managed to travel from the North, gather East's body and come to the Emerald City in such a short time? Unless she secretly uses magic to zap around :)

[cooksdelight]

Keep an eye out for Scotty beaming witches around, perhaps? ;)

[AzureOwl]

7 hours ago, Ariah said:

It was most certainly a magic tornado and those do sneak up on you.

...Unless all tornados in Kansas tend to dump whatever they carry from Earth to Oz (which, in itself, is an interesting concept for a short story).

A thing that puzzled me after rewatch:
How did Glinda managed to travel from the North, gather East's body and come to the Emerald City in such a short time? Unless she secretly uses magic to zap around :)

 

1 hour ago, cooksdelight said:

Keep an eye out for Scotty beaming witches around, perhaps? ;)

Maybe she has Littlefinger's teleporter.

[aradia22]

Quote

How did Glinda managed to travel from the North, gather East's body and come to the Emerald City in such a short time? Unless she secretly uses magic to zap around :)

Travel is weird in this show. How did Ojo and Dorothy walk from the Tribal Free Lands (where it's snowing) to the Prison of the Abject (where it's sunny)? How long were Dorothy and Lucas traipsing around that mountainside? Yes, the sweeping vistas were pretty but I feel like they covered an unreasonable amount of ground. Did Dorothy really race Lucas up that mountain to get to Mombi? It was so far, and also like, a mountain. How do you walk up that thing when you're healthy, never mind injured? Also, it bothered me that Glinda was leading that procession with East's body but she was walking. Even if she can't do magic anymore, she still has a high status position. Would she have really been walking out among the peasants? How long was she walking out in front like that? It would have been dirty. 

Edited January 10, 2017 by aradia22

[mauledbypandas]

I haven't read the original books but I do know that they are darker and more complicated than the movie.  Did ABC even promote this show much?

I'm enjoying it in a "I think this is a B movie" and "oh look at the viewful scenery" kind of way, not taking it too seriously.  

I'm impressed that some of those locales were real and they shot there!  I thought it was all CGI.  I'm surprised that $$$$ was spent on this show, honestly.  Seems choppy and they don't explain much.  But I'll keep watching.

[jhlipton]

21 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Actually, of all the "out there" things to question, I actually can buy this part. Look at all those who, for whatever reason, refuse to leave their homes as a hurricane approaches. It's never the wisest course of action, but some do have the mindset of "riding things out", believing they will be okay until they aren't. So I could see this as a reason why Karen stuck around.

On To Tell The Truth the other night, there was a woman who in her car when she saw a tornado coming and thought it would be cool to record it!

15 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The amnesia who gets the chance to shed baggage and figure out who he is based on what he decides to do now is one of my favorite character tropes... It could do with a bit more humor

You should check out Dark Matter on SyFy.  6 ruthless criminals (well, 5 now) develop amnesia and decide that their past doesn't determine who they are now.  And it has a lot of snarky humor.

11 hours ago, Ariah said:

How did Glinda managed to travel from the North, gather East's body and come to the Emerald City in such a short time? Unless she secretly uses magic to zap around :)

Don't you remember her magic bubble? LOL 

[Shanna Marie]

4 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

You should check out Dark Matter on SyFy.  6 ruthless criminals (well, 5 now) develop amnesia and decide that their past doesn't determine who they are now.  And it has a lot of snarky humor.

Already there, for that reason. :-)

[Kelda Feegle]

On 1/8/2017 at 3:32 AM, attica said:

Eamonn's dry as dust line delivery of 'Lions' cracked me all the way up. 

The scenes with East sitting on the rock outcropping in her scarlet dress looked straight out of The Cell, another of Singh's visual stunners.

 

 

Must have been lions had my laughing till tears!

Yes I got a very Cell vibe in that shot also.

I'm in for this show.

[iMonrey]

Quote

I haven't read the original books but I do know that they are darker and more complicated than the movie. 

Not really. They are essentially children's books. 

[AzureOwl]

On 1/11/2017 at 2:03 PM, iMonrey said:

Not really. They are essentially children's books. 

 

Spoiler

 

They do however, have a ton of stuff that is casually thrown around, but when analyzed a little has some profoundly messed up implications.  

For example, the fact that the Wizard sent Dorothy & Co. to basically carry out a hit on the Wicked Witch of the West, or the fact that when you think about it, it was actually a suicide mission. Then there's the fact that the flying monkeys are basically enslaved. Or as the end of episode 2 showed, the implications of Tip spending all of his formative years as a biological boy and then suddenly be reverted to the girl he/she was born as. 

And I'm sure people who have read further along the series than me will be able to come up with many more examples. 

 

Edited January 13, 2017 by saoirse
Spoiler tag added

[Zoe]

Spoiler

 

I remember thinking the stuff with the vegetable people in the fourth book was pretty dark.  And the origin of the Tinman?  Ick.

The Return to Oz movie was dark too, more so than its respective book.

 

Edited January 13, 2017 by saoirse
Spoiler tag added

[aradia22]

My recap is up! Just in time to do it all again next week. I'm trying to work up the enthusiasm I had watching the actual show since recapping has been such a slog. 

[Randomosity]

On 1/8/2017 at 1:16 AM, aradia22 said:

I can tell you one location was Park Guell in Barcelona. The place with all the mosaics? I thought I was imagining it but then they pulled back. They certainly spent money on this show. After the beginning when everything was just scary smoke/weather, the money really started to appear on screen.

It was also filmed in Croatia, in Plitvice Lakes National Park (it was already on my list of places to visit). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plitvice_Lakes_National_Park

(They mentioned many filming locations on a 'making of' special that aired about a week before the show. I know it didn't air everywhere based on talking to relatives, but it did here in the Boston market. ...Although we did just have a wonky NBC switch, which may have affected if/when we saw if relative to others.)

I'm waiting for more episodes before I form a full opinion. For now, my verdict is that German Shepherd Toto is the best :)

[hatchetgirl]

On 1/9/2017 at 3:09 AM, Tara Ariano said:

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

ShouldY

Who is the woman behind the wizard with the mask or something on her face? Why no tinman out clearly lion, when they are in a trailer?

[Ariah]

15 hours ago, hatchetgirl said:

Who is the woman behind the wizard with the mask or something on her face? Why no tinman out clearly lion, when they are in a trailer?

 

Spoiler

The woman is Lady Ev. She'll be in fourth episode, I believe. And there is a lion and a tinman in the picture, just not up front.

Edited January 13, 2017 by saoirse
Spoiler tag added

[hatchetgirl]

13 hours ago, Ariah said:

Spoiler

The woman is Lady Ev. She'll be in fourth episode, I believe. And there is a lion and a tinman in the picture, just not up front.

 

 Thank you!

But I'm just lost on the tinman and lion. Could the lion be Eamon?

[Morrigan2575]

5 hours ago, hatchetgirl said:

 Thank you!

But I'm just lost on the tinman and lion. Could the lion be Eamon?

That is the odds on spec.

[Fireball]

On 1/12/2017 at 9:16 AM, AzureOwl said:

Spoiler

 

They do however, have a ton of stuff that is casually thrown around, but when analyzed a little has some profoundly messed up implications.  

For example, the fact that the Wizard sent Dorothy & Co. to basically carry out a hit on the Wicked Witch of the West, or the fact that when you think about it, it was actually a suicide mission. Then there's the fact that the flying monkeys are basically enslaved. Or as the end of episode 2 showed, the implications of Tip spending all of his formative years as a biological boy and then suddenly be reverted to the girl he/she was born as. 

And I'm sure people who have read further along the series than me will be able to come up with many more examples. 

 

 

If you come up with more examples, could you please put them in spoil tags? I've never read the books and would like to stay unspoiled. Thank you.

[Fireball]

I'm late to the party. I wasn't sure about the show, but I really enjoyed it. I didn't find it slow or boring; however, I did watch it in two parts so maybe that helped. Things that I liked about the pilot.

• The landscapes
• The twists like the monkeys being machines
• The costumes
• Toto being a German Shepherd
• Their take on the Scarecrow
• Dorothy (she’s smart & so far I find likeable)

I also like Ariah's list

On ‎1‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 9:04 AM, Ariah said:

Things I liked most in no particular order:

• West outing one of Wizard's handmaidens as being pregnant. And then outing the father.
• The funeral dance and song number
• The fact that handguns can be deadly to a witch (was it a loophole or is Dorothy a witch?)
• Glinda's cool in front of the Wizard
• Tip and Jack, 'nuff said
• Lucas the person in general and as a concept of amnesiac psycho
• "The lions did that"
• The fact that Dorothy is capable and not whinny

Looking forward to the next weeks. I wish it was a Netflix show so I could binge watch it.

I'm looking forward to tonight's episode.

[formerlyfreedom]

Please remember to talk about the episode here. The discussion of what happens in the books needs to go over in the Emerald City vs. The Original Books topic. If you happen to reference the book in an episode topic, it needs spoiler tags.  Please don't make us send the flying monkeys in! Thank you.

 

[Neurochick]

On January 8, 2017 at 6:45 PM, jhlipton said:

Let's get this out of the way -- she was promoted as a major character ("See how progressive and diverse we are -- we have a an actual black woman as one of the witches!" They put her in about 4 scenes and BANG! she's dead (and is in a total of 3 episodes.)  Feh.

This bugged me and I might stop watching because of it.  That and the actress who plays Dorothy looks a lot like Halle Berry, to me (but it a better actress).

[Fireball]

On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 4:45 PM, jhlipton said:

Let's get this out of the way -- she was promoted as a major character ("See how progressive and diverse we are -- we have a an actual black woman as one of the witches!" They put her in about 4 scenes and BANG! she's dead (and is in a total of 3 episodes.)  Feh.

23 hours ago, Neurochick said:

This bugged me and I might stop watching because of it.

It also bugged me that they killed off the darkest skinned character! Now I do think the show is more diverse than other network tv shows; although, I'm not sure that's something to brag about since the bar is set pretty low.  It also annoyed me that they killed off the only women that didn't have long flowing hair. I'm not saying that killing off the women with short hair is worse than killing off the black women, it's not, it's just something else I found annoying.

I'm disappointed the witch of the east is dead; I thought she was more interesting then the other two witches.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Fireball
typo

[spankydoll]

This show is terrible! Laughably terrible - I wish that they could set it up as an MT3K episode! I don't understand why you have an excellent story full of magic, fantasy and fascinating characters and have to turn it into a middle school production of Game of Thrones. The costumes and makeup are awful. The scenery has a production level akin to the string holding up the Enterprise. How did a room full of director, producers and actors view this finished product and think that it was small screen worthy?

[cooksdelight]

1 hour ago, spankydoll said:

This show is terrible! Laughably terrible - I wish that they could set it up as an MT3K episode! I don't understand why you have an excellent story full of magic, fantasy and fascinating characters and have to turn it into a middle school production of Game of Thrones. The costumes and makeup are awful. The scenery has a production level akin to the string holding up the Enterprise. How did a room full of director, producers and actors view this finished product and think that it was small screen worthy?

Ask Shaun Cassidy.

[spankydoll]

4 hours ago, cooksdelight said:

Ask Shaun Cassidy.

The Shaun Cassidy that I crushed on when he was in "The Hardy Boys" with Parker Stevenson?  More disappointment if that's the case.

[cooksdelight]

Yes, he's executive producer. One of several EPs, but his name shows up big at the very end of the credits.

[WildPlum]

The landscape is wonderful. Some of the sets are great - the costuming, dialog (and shifting accents!), acting drops after that. I keep seeing something that looks like a mish-mash of a lot of other things, without being particularly original. Sure, "Hero's Journey" and all that, but a lot of it feels like the director/writers/producers took their shopping cart to "Plot and Movie R Us" and just walked up and down the aisles, grabbing things from other movies and shoving them in here.

I've seen the first two episodes (well, 3, I guess the pilot was a double). I'll watch the fourth and then I will decide if they've made all of the elements come together into their OWN story.