IMDb Rating
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6.4
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From left to right: Caleb Jansen, The Patchwork Girl, and Alexandra Wilder. The cast of Lost in Oz.
- This article is about the television series pilot. For the novel of the same title, see Lost in Oz. Not to be confused with an unproduced project by Tim Burton also called "Lost in Oz" or with Amazon's Lost in Oz.
Lost in Oz is a pilot for a cancelled Oz television drama series. The series would have taken place in the present day with references to the 1939 film, and contain a cast of new characters, some of whom are references to previous Oz characters. It would have similar to CW's Smallville and The WB/UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was written by David Hayter who was also executive producer and directed by Mick Garris.
History
The series was picked up by WB but too much time had passed from when the pilot was filmed. Melissa George for example had already moved to America and had no interest in traveling back to Australia where it was going to be filmed because her intial contract associated with the pilot had expired.
In a 2012 interview it was noted by a reprepresentative for the website Bullz-Eye that: "You had a couple of other pilots that didn’t go, but they’ve still become a bit legendary among TV geeks because they really seemed like they should’ve gone. The first that leaps to my mind is “Lost in Oz.”
Her response to this was: "Lost in Oz was actually my decision. It was weird, because my contract lapsed. They picked it up, they wanted to do a second episode, but my contract lapsed, and by that time I didn’t want to move back to Australia. I was living in America, and the show was shooting in Australia. So, y’know, it was partly my decision. But what a show! What a concept! And then “L.A. Confidential,” with Kiefer Sutherland and I. That was for HBO." (interview link)
In a short press release dated January 27th, 2002 (Variety link), it was suggested the name of Melissa's character was going to be named Tina Vittori and that the plot synopsis was going to consist of it being "a romantic fantasy in which Tina ends up leading a revolt against the Emerald City’s powers-that-be". It also notes a pilot commitment had been made on August 16th, 2001. It was suggested the series was supposed to start airing on September 1st, 2002 but of course no further episodes were filmed but is not known if other pre-production materials such as scripts were created. On Melissa's website, the role is listed on her digital resume as Tina even through the description says Alex Wilder.
As a network, the WB would be replaced by the CW about four years later in 2006.
Characters
- Alexandra Wilder (Melissa George) - A young kansas woman who is about to get married but is having cold feet. An unexpected cyclone carries her to Oz.
- Caleb Jansen (Colin Egglesfield) - A World War II air force pilot, whose callsign is 'Scarecrow'.
- The Patchwork Girl/Brianna (Sandra Allen) - A mysterious girl who has been patched together much like Frankenstein's monster. She always speaks in rhymes and also was friends with Loriellidere before she became the next wicked witch.
- Bellaridere (Lynn Whitfield) : The Good Witch of the South that replaces Glinda who helps Alexandra and Caleb on their journey.
- Loriellidere (Mia Sara) : The new Wicked Witch who was a simple peasant named Theressa who became wicked against her will by a magical force after Dorothy killed the Wicked Witch of the West.
- Ozma: Reduced to only a little girl by a magic spell cast by Loriellidere.
Unaired Pilot
Wiki Notice: We once hosted a YouTube upload of the pilot but it was blocked simply due to copyright involving music owned by Warner Music Group. Regardless of this, the footage is understood to be under the rule of "Fair Use" more so possibly within the public domain as the project presented no commercial value. It will be re-added here if and when it becomes public again and as of 2020, its been discussed briefly on the Lost Media Wiki.