STEP FORWARD, TIN MAN!

Last night the four of us settled in for dinner and watched part two of Tin Man, the SciFi Channel (okay, Syfy, but I'm a purist that cannot stand that name change) steampunk adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In this case, the main character is not a man made out of tin -- which by the way does not rust, so scientifically it's inaccurate, but just imagine how "a man made out of iron" which DOES rust would have changed twentieth century media! -- but rather a law enforcement officer in Central City, and this one was locked into a metal suit for opposing the regime of Azkadellia, the daughter of the queen who's corrupted by magic. DG a girl from our world and Glitch who had half his brain removed find the tin man, let him out of the suit, and with the lion -- in this story a leonine creature whose race can read minds and project visions from all over Oz (here called the O.Z. or Outer Zone) find their way into Central City, out again, and race to get the Emerald of the Eclipse -- and the eternal light or darkness of the O.Z. depends on it.

OK, it's not epic fantasy, but you DO NOT want to get stopped in the middle of it. Which we did Tuesday night because it was eleven by the time we got done with Part One; Martha and the kids couldn't wait (Martha's words: "I was thinking all day about watching Tin Man!" And even if that's not exact, the more this is read the more people will be convinced she did say that.) to watch Part Two, so we're all snuggled on the couch eating macaroni shells and cheese with bacon bits -- that was my idea -- and within a few hours came to an end. (And for dessert we each had a king-sized Snickers bar that we got from Kmart on clearance for FOURTEEN CENTS EACH! Yum!) But it was a weird ending, with Azkadellia letting loose the Monkey-Bats (this show's version of winged monkeys) to find and deal with DG and the others. Turns out that Tin Man was a TWO DVD set and we'd only bought the first one! So Sarah and Mommy and Jeffrey are all asking me because I offered would I please go get Part Three because they really want to see the ending. For that matter so did I.

Sarah went with me to Premiere Video which is only a few blocks from our house and we were done with Part Three (final line: "I'm so glad I'm home.") Friendly warning: parts of this story are truly bleak and ... I think no more scary than parts of The Wizard of Oz, the original 1939 movie based on the book, especially when the winged monkeys are coming down on them. Or so I'm told. Both the kids helped Martha this morning on the paper route and so far no cancellations! But when I came out this morning to find Jeffrey sleeping on the couch and Sarah playing on the iPad I trusted them to not rip into each other too much ... of course, after next Wednesday it's two weeks to school starting so they can't help us any more! And did you know that horses love carrots? Jeffrey said this last night after Martha and I wondered aloud 1) where DG and her companions got horses from and 2) why so many fiction and fantasy outings set in places far removed in place and time from our world have a preponderance of horses. Horse, Earth horse, I will control the animal myself. (Yeah, right.)

And if you don't have heart, you have nothing.

David