Despite being the streaming service that made streaming by subscription a thing, it's not until now that Netflix has turned their heads to having an Oz-based show. (Amazon has
Lost in Oz and Warner Brothers' Boomerang had
Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz as a streaming exclusive before it moved to broadcast.)
Dee and Friends in Oz is aimed for a preschool audience, featuring child characters inspired by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in a brightly-colored magical world.
Dorothy "Dee" Davis from New Jersey is visiting her grandmother when she discovers the music box in her room can be unlocked with a key, transporting her to the wonderful world of Oz, where the kind Miss Emerald shares magic with everyone from her Wonderful School of Oz.
The show has three parts currently on Netflix. It's officially broken into two seasons, with the first season being a single 48 minute episode establishing the lore of the show before the 16 episode proper season begins. The episodes break into two 8 episode arcs. (Wikipedia says these are separate seasons, but Netflix lists it as a single season.)
In the prequel, we meet Miss Ruby, the villainous sister of Miss Emerald, who wants all the magic of Oz for herself. We also meet her minion Stuffley, a teddy bear with mechanical wings that allow him to fly. Miss Ruby locks Miss Emerald in her school and begins draining Oz of its magic, while Dee heads down a multicolored brick road, meeting new friends Tin, Scarecrow and Lion who join and help her out.
The first eight-episode arc has Dee begin finding the four magic gemstones that will create the Gemstone Loop, creating a magical transit system around Oz. Stuffley at first tries to get the gemstones for himself, but eventually decides to help Dee and reforms.
In the second arc, Miss Ruby returns to find four crown pieces that will give her great power and let her take the title of the Wizard of Oz, with Dee and her friends trying to find the pieces first.
As you might have guessed, this isn't a straightforward adaptation of Oz lore. Tin, for example, lives in a town of tin people like himself, and doesn't have the tragic origin of Nick Chopper from the original Baum books. Scarecrow is a young boy from a village of living Scarecrows. Only Lion isn't shown to have a family.
In the first batch of eight episodes, we also meet magic-working girls Eastyn and Westyn who happily join the school. Instead of Munchkins, Winkies, Gillikins or Quadlings, we have the Ozlings, humanoids with acorn-shaped heads. They reminded me a bit of the Munchkins as they appeared in Tales of the Wizard of Oz.
There's a few other nods to other takes on Oz. Dee's grandmother looks very similar to Miss Emerald and they are both voiced by LaChanze. Similarly, all five of the other students in the school have counterparts in children who live around Dee's grandmother's apartment with their clothing and hair suggesting the characters they are similar to and being voiced by the same performers. (They seem to have gotten an age-appropriate cast, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's eventual recasts if the show keeps going.)
At the start of the second arc, Dee is reading her own chronicle of her Oz adventures to the neighboring kids who love it and want to hear more, but Dee says that her new adventures haven't happened yet before her key starts glowing and she hurries back to Oz. This struck me as being similar to how Baum eventually settled on the idea that Dorothy relayed him Oz adventures he'd write into books, but now, our Dorothy character is telling her story herself.
Miss Ruby is basically a classic Oz villain, whose wickedness is based around only caring about herself, stealing all the magic and taking over Oz. Miss Emerald is the opposite, wanting to share magic with everyone, keeping Oz a bright, happy and welcoming place.
Stuffley's reformation feels like a nice Oz-appropriate character development. He's voiced by James Monroe Igleheart, who originated the Genie in Disney's Broadway adaptation of Aladdin, recently going to the Broadway production of Spamalot, working with Oz fan Michael Urie and original Wicked Broadway Boq Christopher Fitzgerald and Wicked movie Boq Ethan Slater. He also voiced Calvin Carney and the Jitterbug in Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz.
There's also songs. You won't find show stoppers like
The Wiz's "Home" or
Wicked's "Defying Gravity," or perennial classics like "Over the Rainbow
," but the songs are charming, and a few are catchy. (I missed Stuffley's villain song, which disappears after his reformation.) Dee sings a variation of a journey song every episode, re-establishing that she's her own hero in her own story. LaChanze and Tarriona "Tank" Ball as Miss Ruby also get a number of songs as well.
To be clear, I'm writing this after watching the first ten episodes
and the prequel so I haven't watched it all yet, only watching one
episode a day, but I've got a pretty good feel of the show.
While this might not be the Oz adaptation of your dreams, it's a fun take on Oz if you need a bright-colored escape for a moment now and then, or if you have appropriately-aged kids who you want to get into Oz.
An additional thing I noticed is that while I have an ad-supported Netflix plan, ads don't play during these episodes. It might be just for Netflix Kids programming, though I don't watch much of that.
