Emerald City

[meganbmoore]

 I watched the first 2 episodes of Emerald City earlier and while I want to see what happens before I comment much on the plot, and disliked certain things, I mostly enjoyed it.  Can given trigger warnings if needed.  The trailers played it as fantasy with a bit of mystery and darkness but it's a horror-fantasy and occasionally played up the horror more than the fantasy. It's possibly even more diverse than the trailer made it look, we have a latina lead with curly hair who speaks Spanish with her adopted family in Kansas, another WOC with natural hair, and several other POC as well.  Some things have been flipped around from the books, while other elements that don't don't normally make it into adaptations are in it.

It's directed by Tarsem Singh which means it's the most incredibly lush and visually stunning TV show you will ever see on American network TV.  And that I really hope it's either a miniseries or intended for each season to be self-contained because there's no way NBC can afford a second season unless the ratings are amazing.  (Not to mention that I'm pretty sure the supporting cast is very costly.)

The internent is annoying me with it's inability to let me have a fantasy show (or historical drama with swords that's produced by the US or UK, though I've started seeing this crop up in sageuk and cdrama tags on tumblr) without comparing it to Game of Thrones, but that's another matter.

Comments

[aphrodite_mine]

I love Singh's art/costuming/direction, so I am very curious (with spoilers if possible) what you didn't like so far. I haven't decided to watch or not.

[meganbmoore]

SPOILERS AHOY:

Unsure, we'll see how it plays out: The Witch of the West is played by a Romani woman (who is amazing) who runs a brothel and is an opium addict. This I mostly sideeye because while it makes sense within the narrative and for the character, I feel it places into some racial stereotyping.

I get why they did it but I didn't like it: The second episode has Dorothy and Lucas (Scarecrow) meeting Mombi and Tip/Ozma. Unlike the books, Mombi seems to be hiding Ozma from the wizard and keeping hir safe, but Ozma, Dorothy, Lucas, and Jack (all human, no pumpkinhead) only know that Mombi is a witch who keeps Tip/Ozma locked away. After Dorothy and Lucas help Tip and Jack escape, Mombi catches them and tries to kill Dorothy, and Lucas stabs her in the chest. At this points, things are largely ok, but it's heavily driven home that "only a witch can kill a witch" so the stabbing won't kill her, only stop her for a little while, so Lucas hits her over the head several times with a heavy pot, apparently temporarily leaving her head a gory mess. (Most tumblr commentors missed that he did that because he knew she wasn't going to die, in the same breath they repeat the "only a witch can kill a witch" bit). So while I can buy his actions in the situation, I really disliked that they set that up.

Part B: Dorothy gets waterboarded in the first episode. Not graphic and done to help establish the danger she's in, but I didn't like seeing it.

That Was Cool But Also Terrible: Related to only a witch can kill a witch" Dorothy accidentally "kills" the Witch of the East when she first arrives, but the Witch gets better, establishing that Dorothy isn't a witch. East captures Dorothy and Lucas later and uses mind control to torture them. Dorothy has a gun because she hid from the tornado in a cop car, and tricks East into shooting herself in the head. Which is actually an amazing scene for Dorothy, except that East was th only black woman on the show, and is the first important character death. (Pretty sure there will be flashbacks for her there.

So, pretty much, it is mostly things I can see working within the narrative and nothing nearly as bad as we get in other shows, but I'm still not pleased that the people making the show decided to set things up for those scenes.

[aphrodite_mine]

Thank you SO much for writing all of this out! I really hadn't seen much in the way of the promotional material because we don't actually have television, but this gives me a good feel for the vibe of the show. I'm definitely curious. I think the wife and I will start watching in a few weeks, once more of the episodes are out.

[meganbmoore]

Now having slept on it: While it's been several year since we talked about them, based on my recollections of your opinions of Tin Man, 10th Kingdom and some other fairy tale properties (not that it's really very like those 2, though it's certainly closer to a darker version of Tin Man than to the Franco movie) I do think it has things that you'll like. There's also a potential F/F ship with two of the witches.

I wouldn't say it's grimdark or grim and gritty because it lacks certain things I associate with those, and I associate both with a feeling of eternal struggle and lack of hope that the hero(ine) will succeed and be OK in the end, and EC gives me that feeling.


I've seen some people on tumblr for whom the things I mentioned might be considered dealbreakers under most cases, but for most, the result was along the lines of "I didn't like that but there's enough good to make up for it."

[st_aurafina]

It sounds amazingly beautiful, that's for sure. I hadn't heard much about it yet, but I might check it out. (Your spoilers for aphrodite_mine were helpful to me, too, so thanks.)

[meganbmoore]

You're welcome! I hope you like it.

I added a few more comments above.

[jesse_the_k]

Very useful info, thanks!