I was hugely excited about Sci-Fi's original mini-series "Tin Man," which just wrapped a three-night, six-hour run last night. The dark fantasy adapts L. Frank Baum's "Oz" stories, a property ripe for the picking, as several comic series have done their own takes on the rich subject matter, which can be used by anybody now that it's in the public domain. And I love me some "Oz" stories. The cast and previews looked impressive, and the possibility of a spin-off series like the net's superb "Battlestar: Galactica" has been bandied about. So I wanted to love "Tin Man."

I did not love "Tin Man."

To be fair, there were a lot of really good, interesting ideas at work here. And the mini had some wonderful little surprises in it. But it had problems. Lots and lots of problems. And I'm not sure the good points are strong enough to outweigh the bad in the final counting.

The big problem, unfortunately, was in casting. It's hard to like an "Oz" tale if you don't like the Dorothy analogue, and man, it was hard to like Zooey Deschanel. And the truly sad thing is, I typically like her. She was charming as all hell in "Almost Famous." But she was so wooden here, so utterly passionless in her delivery, it was like she was sleepwalking through the show. That might have been a deliberate acting choice, but it was the wrong one. Her character, "DG," is our entrée into this bizarre world and we're supposed to be experiencing it all through her. She seemed so disinterested in her surroundings that I couldn't help but be bored by them too.

The rest of the cast fared better, especially Alan Cummings as the Scarecrow-esque Glitch (a formerly brilliant scientist who was lobotomized by the bad guys) and the Neal McDonough as the "Tin Man," an ex-law officer whose heart is nearly dead after being forced to watch his families beating and abduction on a video loop for years and years. Richard Dreyfuss was also great in his brief cameo as a drug-addled Wizard. Less successful was Raoul Trujillo as Raw, the Lion counterpart who never really came into own, mostly due to a fairly slight character.

But almost none of the actors could overcome the often lazy, uninspired dialogue. I think science-fiction projects require an especially high level of writing to really be successful, since the concepts can often be dismissed as hokey, and because the average sci-fi fan tends to be fairly intelligent. "BSG" would not be nearly the fan-favorite it is if the scripts weren't so damned good. And "Tin Man"'s scripts weren't great. There was very little nuance or subtlety, and while things got better after the fairly dreadful first part, a lot of it just didn't spark. It seemed almost sloppy.

It's a real shame, because as the mini-series went on the layers started to be revealed, and it became clear that this wasn't merely some darker version of "The Wizard of Oz." It was actually a continuation of the story. "DG" wasn't meant to be Dorothy; she was Dorothy's descendent. Central City wasn't supposed to just be a dingier version of the Emerald City; it WAS the Emerald City, just devoid of all its emeralds after all these years. The Sorceress wasn't supposed to be a sexier, new Wicked Witch, she was...well, that's complicated actually. And complicated in a good way.

The best parts of the mini were the flashbacks that explained the relationship between DG and the Sorceress (they're sisters, and the fact that DG was originally from the O.Z.-Outer Zone---was our first clue that she wasn't supposed to be a hipper version of our Dorothy). They became increasingly more engrossing, reaching a fairly brutal, emotional peak at the end of Part II when it was revealed why the Sorceress (I'm sorry, I can't spell her name) turned on her family and all of the O.Z. That was a genuinely awesome plot twist, and it made me excited for Part III. Unfortunately, the ending was beyond rushed, and the Sorceress' ultimate plan didn't make a hell of a lot of sense. Those flying monkeys that erupted from her bosom were pretty boss, though!

The first night scored huge ratings for the network-its best ever, apparently-but I'm curious what the drop off was for parts II and III, since the online fan reaction I read was overwhelmingly negative. As flawed as the mini-series was, I do kind of hope it gets picked up as a regular series. The possibilities from the "Oz" stories in general, and from "Tin Man"'s version in particular, are nearly limitless. If the producers and writers take some of the criticism to heart, it could turn into something very cool. As a mini-series, though, it didn't quite work. Better luck next time?