Emerald City - 'Science and Magic'

"You took out my heart!"
"And replaced it!"
Touche.

In the Land of Oz, life is cheap, but it turns out that people can fetch a pretty penny from the right buyer, as both Jack and Tip are about to learn.

Jack recovers consciousness in the care of Jane, a surgeon and clockwork cyberneticist, and discovers that much of his broken body – including his heart – has been replaced with mechanical parts. Yes, Jack is the Tin Man. He is not exactly grateful for this treatment, as it has left him an awkward half-man with a heart that ticks, and he refutes Jane's assurance that it will never break. As he does his physio, Jack is interrupted by a young woman in a gold-feathered mask and hella fancy clothes, who is later revealed to be one Princess Langwidere, and to have bought him from the surgeon for as-yet unexplored reasons. I'm thinking that time must work differently in different parts of Oz, or that Jane provides superlative physical therapy and palliative care, as this all takes no more time than anything else that happens this episode.

Whatever else I may say about this series, it does
look amazing.

Tip, meanwhile, is discovered by a guard trying to jump off a bridge and delivered to an orphanage, where she is offered a choice. Glinda wants her to become one of her nun-councillors, but before that can become a fait accompli, West staggers up and offers her a place in her brothel. Tip may have grown up as a boy in an isolated house, but she's woke enough to be pretty pissed that these are her options as a girl: Nun or hooker. She eventually chooses West, when magic training is thrown in to sweeten the pot.

Dorothy and Lucas encounter a young girl, seemingly lost and unable to speak, and Dorothy insists on taking her to the nearest town to find her parents. She is claimed by a couple, but they turn out to be kidnappers. Why they want to take the girl we never learn, as Dorothy finds them turned to stone while the girl shudders and glitches like a bad CGI and her eyes turn black. Then Eamonn finds them, but is distracted when he recognises Lucas's sword and they get away, Dorothy holding the guards at bay with her pistol.

News of a magic portal reaches the Wizard, who sets out with Anna to investigate, her correct prediction of the snow – and inference that the Wizard cannot call up the giants – proving that she is the nun for the job. She is hurt during the investigation as the portal vanishes, and later rebuffs the Wizard's advances – because some people take their nunning seriously – while advising him to win over a recalcitrant alderman with reason instead of force. The Wizard sits down and offers the alderman access to scientific means to better his lot and ensure the health of his daughter and future grandchild. In parallel to this, Dorothy explains technology to Lucas with her iPod and a little help from Mr Bill Withers. They make out, the whole 'savagely bludgeoning a herbalist's head into mush' thing being largely forgotten, or at least forgiven, because Bill Withers.

Ah; the good deed that shall not go unpunished.

Then Eamonn comes after Dorothy and Lucas, capturing Lucas and the girl, and Dorothy gets knocked out by the Munjakin chief from Episode 1.

Emerald City suffers somewhat from a common problem in gritty reimaginings, specifically that I find it hard to give a shit about most of the characters. Tip is probably the most sympathetic, if only on the grounds of having gone through a lot. Dorothy in particular is neither particularly sympathetic nor interesting, which leaves the show somewhat lacking. Insisting on helping the little girl was a start, and hopefully that will be built on, but so far there are precious few reasons to root for her. The nuns and hookers dichotomy of the Wizard's Oz is also pretty wearying, with women seemingly either witches or chattels and the whole binary system propped up by what should be the two most powerful characters in the world.

"So... creepy nun or creepy whore? And if I refuse I lose my Job Seeker's
Allowance?"

Currently, Emerald City is on the edge of being dropped from my viewing list and is hanging on mostly on strength of concept and to see if they continue their strong characterisation of unwilling woman Tip. It's well made and in places looks spectacular well beyond the bounds of a TV budget, but very little about it really pops. In particular the performances are all good, but none of them are exceptional. Even Vincent D'Onofrio, struggling for centre stage against his enormous beard, lacks the commanding presence of his Kingpin.