This looks really terrible, sorry..

I was thinking the same thing.

The original story:

1. Dorothy is taken from Kansas to Oz by a cyclone that drops her house on the wicked witch of the east.
2. Dorothy has the silver slippers placed on her feet by the good witch Glinda.
3. At Glinda's suggestion, Dorothy walks to the Emerald City to ask the Wizard of Oz to solve her problems for her.
4. On her way, she is joined by companions who also want the wizard to do things for them.
5. The wizard sends them out to kill the wicked witch of the west before he will do any favors for them.
6. The witch defeats Dorothy's companions and makes Dorothy her slave.
7. One day the witch tries to take Dorothy's pretty silver shoes.
8. Dorothy gets angry and throws a bucket of water on the witch.
9. The water happens to be poisonous to the witch and she melts.
10. Dorothy runs back to the wizard and discovers that he is a humbug with no magic.
11. He tries to make amends by building a balloon to carry her over the Deadly Desert back to the U.S.
12. Dorothy misses the balloon launch.
13. Dorothy goes to Glinda for advice and she says, "Those magical silver shoes could have carried you home whenever you liked."
14. Dorothy fails to slap her for not mentioning that before.
15. Dorothy goes home but the shoes fall off her feet and are lost in the Deadly Desert.

In other words,
1. Dorothy falls victim to freak circumstances.
2. Dorothy stands around with her mouth hanging listlessly open while Glinda steals the western witch's family heirloom.
3. Dorothy does what she is told because she can't think of anything to do on her own.
4. Dorothy picks up companions as easily as a dog gathers ticks from running through long grass.
5. The wizard makes demands and Dorothy goes obediently off to comply rather than return the shoes to which she has no right.
6. Dorothy doesn't even put up a fight.
7. The witch of the west wants her sister's shoes back.
8. Dorothy finally shows a spark of actual spirit at having her stolen shoes almost taken from her by their rightful owner.
9. Dorothy has some blind luck.
10. Dorothy finds out that she was sent to kill the witch because the great and powerful wizard was the only person in Oz less dangerous than Dorothy.
11. The wizard turns out to be clever enough to make a balloon that will carry him home but not clever enough to control his launch.
12. Dorothy mucks up her chance to go home in the balloon.
13. Glinda turns out to have been withholding key information for no good reason.
14. Dorothy is so submissive she doesn't even complain.
15. Dorothy is inept enough to lose actual magical shoes; she loses them at the halfway point on her trip home but is still flown the rest of the way somehow.

Now I ask you, what was really so intelligent about the original story? And aside from the insanity of charging at a fully grown lion in order to save her dog, when did the original Dorothy show strength of character? When she did everything Glinda said just because Glinda was prettier than the witch of the west? When she submitted to being the witch of the west's slave? When she went off to commit murder rather than return stolen property? The original Dorothy was a Pollyanna - so sweetly cheerful she didn't even know she was a doormat being abused and victimized.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed the books. I loved Polychrome especially. But Baum's stories were cute and fun, not intelligent and compelling.

_____
Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath.

If they were going to make such an effects heavy series, why didn't they spend more time and money on the effects? They look pretty bad.

Turns out the trailer was nothing to go by. Imagine that.

I tried to watch the first episode, too weird!