Emerald City - 'Prison of the Abject'

"Were you looking for a veteran British character actor?"

We're off to see the Wizard,

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Because, because, because, because, because,

Because of the dubious beard he has.

We open with Dorothy trying to teach the amnesiac Lucas about knock-knock jokes, only for him to be overcome with blood poisoning. She gets directions to an apothecary named Mombi, who turns out to be a witch who lives in a house with a magically activated thorn-bush door, which I'm pretty sure is illegal in the Wizard's Oz. Depressingly, I'm far less certain of the legal status of Tip, the boy she keeps locked up 'to protect him', but Tip certainly feels that free is what he's meant to be, and intends to be so with the help of his friend Jack.

The fearsome Geometric Guard.

In the Emerald City, the last remaining Cardinal Witches gather for the funeral of East, which will seal away her soul and magic. In a PR move, the Wizard opens the ceremony to the public, knowing that it's some freaky shit and will damage the witches' standing with the people. Glinda of the North also brings a new councillor/nun from her orphanage to make political side-eye at Councillor Knocked-Up, and tells him that since he banned witches from taking apprentices, no-one knows how to maintain the spells on the Prison of the Abject where potential witches are held(1), so nyeah.

Speaking of, the Wizard's goon Eamonn leads a group of guards through the Prison in pursuit of Dorothy, and kills a would-be mutineer who for some reason mistakes Mr Intense for a shiftless eccentric.

Mombi takes Dorothy and Lucas in and treats the latter's wounds, despite identifying him by his sword as one of the Wizard's witch-killing guards, only for Dorothy to get all confrontational about Tip. While Mombi is sleeping, her guests try to help Tip escape and the boy gets away, although he refuses to let Jack steal anything. Mombi goes all Black Canary and Lucas flips out, stabs her and bashes her face into a pulp. As Dorothy leaves, Lucas follows, face all bloodied, and tries to engage her with a knock knock joke, which, fair play, is hella creepy.

Out in the woods, Tip runs out of medicine and, as much to his surprise as Jack's(2), turns into a girl. Back at the house, Mombi starts to recover, because only a witch can kill a witch, if you recall.

"Of course I'm a girl now; look how much hair I have."

Emerald City is a bit of a mixed bag. I'm starting to suspect that it is secretly brilliant, but that a wealth of strong ideas are mired in the unfortunate collision of director Tarsem Singh's unique vision and the constraints of an Anglo-American television budget. The casting is a dead giveaway – all unknown talent and jobbing thespians, with D'Onofrio the only significant 'name' – although the problem is definitely not the actors. Rather, it lies in a production where every element is heavy with unachieved spectacle. I am reminded somewhat of the original production of Neverwhere, a decent effort that had everything necessary to be amazing except a realistic expectation of what was possible on a television budget, although at least Emerald City wasn't stuck with Neverwhere's video filming problem.

I'm still on board with Emerald City for now, but with Person of Interest and The Magicians coming back, and my family due to move in with me in a month's time, we may be approaching another crunch.

(1) I'm pretty sure this is the same spell that she used on Lucas and Dorothy last episode, which makes them roll around on the floor, convinced that they are trapped in a James Bond opening sequence.

(2) Although serious Baumheads were almost certainly all going 'duh!'