Tips for Up and Coming Fairy Princesses (original) (raw)

I listened to the first two seasons of The Chronicles of Oz about a year and a half ago, and the third season is up now. Each one is based on a book, so this one is Ozma of Oz.

It keeps the basic plot intact while changing up the details a bit. The cast is trimmed down, leaving out the Hungry Tiger, the Army of Oz (who, admittedly, didn’t do all that much and just provided a bit of comic relief), and all but two of the royal children of Ev. While it’s Ozma’s book, Dorothy is the viewpoint character throughout most of it. Chronicles instead focuses on Ozma for some time before even bringing in Dorothy. And while Ozma and Dorothy were immediate best friends in the book, here they don’t get along at all at first, partially because they’re too similar. Tip still exists in Ozma’s head, and we also find out that the Wicked Witch of the West’s spirit is in Dorothy’s. I’m not sure how that will affect the plot of future episodes, and how much of the later story has been planned out. Tik-Tok and Billina aren’t much different from how they are in the original, although the language used to refer to the former’s machinery is modernized. There are a lot of references to Return to Oz, including that the Nome King’s power derives from the Silver Shoes instead of the Magic Belt. The main deviation from the book’s plot was an interlude where the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion are captured by Dr. Nikidik, who here is a mad scientist who apparently doesn’t believe in magic, despite living near the Nome Kingdom. Also, Nanda launches a revolution in Ev, and tries to execute Princess Langwidere.

The dialogue between the King and his steward that Billina overhears comes across as more natural than in the book, and Ozma (with help from Tip) manages to figure out the color-coding of the ornaments on her own anyway. I was amused by the reference to theme song of Tales from the Wizard of Oz, and other non-canonical material is incorporated as well. Grommetik from Wicked becomes an entire gang of robots working for Nikidik, and Dashemoff and Tryxie from the original Wizard stage play and Azkadellia from Tin Man are the names of former Ozian royalty.

The drama does a lot to flesh out the world, some of it fitting in with how L. Frank Baum portrayed it, and others differing quite a bit. While I don’t think all the individual changes necessarily work that well, I find it impressive that it keeps the basic storylines intact while going into a bit more depth.

This entry was posted in Characters, Humor, L. Frank Baum, Magic, Magic Items, Oz, Oz Authors, Plays and tagged aron toman, azkadellia, billina, cowardly lion, dorothy gale, dr. nikidik, ev, fairies, gregory maguire, grommetik, hungry tiger, magic belt, nanda, nome king, ozma, ozma of oz, princess langwidere, return to oz, robots, scarecrow, silver shoes, sir dashemoff daily, tales from the wizard of oz, the chronicles of oz, tik-tok, tin man, tin woodman, tippetarius, tryxie tryfle, wicked, wicked witch of the west. Bookmark the permalink.