Welcome to Television Turmoil, a new feature in which I mock some of the worst TV currently on the airwaves. Today’s target: NBC’s needless and unwanted Wizard of Oz remake, Emerald City
Gritty reboots have become something of a joke in the modern film and television landscape with the DC Cinematic Universe and films like Dracula Untold failing in the eyes of fans and their studios. Yet, for reasons foreign to any rational thought, people continue to take a stab at matching the success of the fabled “Dark Knight” that inspired so much of this. The most recent and, perhaps, the most egregious example comes in the new NBC show, Emerald City.
Emerald City is The Wizard of Oz by way of Game of Thrones and if that sounds completely ridiculous strap in because it’s only crazier from here. The show finds Dorothy (Adria Arjona) transported to the magical land of Oz via police car after it is hit with a tornado. Luckily, she has a trusty police dog or as they call them in Oz, “Toto,” by her side. This is one of many useless changes that are made seemingly for the sake of them and to make material originally targeted at children seem “dark” and “edgy.” Yet Emerald City doesn’t stop there, no it runs the gamut of bad decision making. The munchkins become a tribe of facepaint wearing natives, the Wicked Witch of the West runs a brothel and is addicted to opium, the Scarecrow isn’t made of straw but is a handsome man with memory loss and loads of unwanted sexual tension with Dorothy.
All of this shows either a lack of self-control in the writer’s room or a need to fill in the tame and dated trappings of a well-worn story with “modern” elements that not only don’t fit, they simply don’t belong. The show attempts to make the classic land of Oz feel like Westeros without understanding that doing so fundamentally changes things to the point where it might as well not even be a remake at all. It’s Game of Thrones without the intrigue.
Never is that more clear than in the scenes featuring the Wizard himself, played to the best of his ability by Vincent D’Onofrio. The show attempts the politic intrigue of Thrones but doesn’t bother to dive into the political landscape of Oz much at all. It assumes that all we really need to know is that there is a North, South, East and West and that will be enough to keep us invested. D’Onofrio tries his hardest to give his scenes weight but they often come off as filler, something to bridge the gap between whatever Dorothy is doing and all the other inane actions of the splintered cast.
In the three episodes I watched for this review. there were roughly three to four separate groups who got screen time in the episodes and usually only one of those groups actually seemed to have anything worthwhile going on. There’s a reason most attempts at this only follow Dorothy, she’s the most well-rounded character in a story where almost everyone is reduced to one trait and City never bothers to expand on these other characters, the Scarecrow, referred to as Lucas here, is an almost complete blank slate, the Wicked Witch is slightly nefarious and all the others can be summed up Gilligan’s Island style as “the rest.”
There is one aspect where Emerald City gets it mostly right and that is behind the camera. The production and direction of these episodes is the only thing keeping this show from becoming a fan-film as the men and women behind the scenes make Oz look wonderful while also making it fit with the narrative “grit” and “grime” required of this dark reboot. The colors are all still there but they are muted to match the anesthetic and they provide just the right balance to bring this world to life.
None of this forgives the worst mistake Emerald City makes, however, it’s just really boring. When you get right down to it there isn’t enough material here to last ten 1-hour episodes. There’s an attempt at an ongoing mystery with the “Beast Forever” who was apparently defeated by the Wizard and might be returning and might actually be Dorothy but none of that amounts to much more than random conversation in between attempts at plot. In a given episode we split time between Dorothy, who is traveling to the Emerald City, except for when the show deigns for her to not be, The Wizard who is attempting to keep control of his city while dealing with the Wicked Witch and Glinda, Eamonn, the not-at-all cowardly not-so-much a lion, who is hunting for Dorothy and Tip and Jack, characters from other Oz books who were added and seem to have no purpose to the overall tale. Perhaps it’s not the lack of material that is harming the show but a lack of clear momentum. It’s clear the writers want to hold off on that fateful meeting with Dorothy and the Wizard but that doesn’t excuse dedicating entire episodes to Dorothy “controlling the weather” or to a magic burial ceremony for the Witch of the East.
In the end, Emerald City desperately wants to be the bold re-imagining of an old tale but doesn’t have the heart, courage or brains to do it justice.
Jesse Swanson is a would-be writer, podcaster and funny guy who covers TV shows of all shapes and sizes. You can find him on Twitter @JesseSwanson