First off, the movie looked great. The 1960s inspiration was fantastic, and the all of the landscapes were extremely impressive for the seemingly small budget. I especially enjoyed the House of Cards Casino.

The modernized plot, in which the Red Queen was kidnapping humans and sucking them dry of their emotions for profit, was just gonzo enough, and had that dark twist that kept us present in a modern day wonderland.

I stand by my standing ovation for the hopelessly charming and impossible to forget Andrew Lee Potts' Hatter. He was the heart and soul of this film. Even when the plot dragged on and the pacing died down it was consistently Potts who helped the cast pick up the pace. Plus he's exceedingly easy on the eyes.

But here's the rub. The chemistry between Alice and Hatter is great, not amazing, but I believe it even when the plot fumbles around with the characters. At the same time, I'm not really sure why these two like each other, besides the fact that Potts is charming and saved Alice's life a few times. But it's hard to understand what's going on in the Hatter's head. First Hatter wants to sell her ring, then he wants to use it to get to the other side and start over, and finally he wants to use it to lead the resistance. Sure characters can change their minds, but this happens so quickly and jerkily, the feelings behind these exceedingly strong sentiments are lost in the shuffle.

The same goes for Hatter's growing emotions for Alice, in the first half he mutters under his breath that Jack is a lucky guy and that later acts jealous when he finds out that Jack is the Prince of Wonderland. But we still never really understand the motivations or reasons why he fancies her. And it started so well, with the half-pervy half-sweet line, "Can't I be nice to a girl in a very wet dress?" We never really knew what his intentions were, at any time. Still we knew he wanted to be with Alice, based on the puppy-dog eyes he kept giving her.

The rest of the star cameos came and went rather quickly. Tim Curry yelled a lot and was gone forever, Colm Meaney managed to eke out some strange remorse for loving his heartless Queen Kathy Bates for so long, so much so that he stayed behind and died in the collapse of the casino while the Queen didn't even bat an eye. Very odd. I would have hoped that this would make her care a bit, but no dice. Matt Frewer was a loveable old Knight, until he dug up a bunch of his old companions to act as scarecrows. This moment was totally lost on me and I didn't understand why these skeletons were intimidating at all, if they couldn't fight.

The Father and the Carpenter plot line also made only the tiniest bit of sense, and rang dangerously close to The Tenth Kingdom, especially when Alice was pleading with her mind-wiped Daddy to save her life, so I was fine when he was axed in the end.

The heart of the story is the love story between Hatter and Alice, and while I hated not really understanding why things were so dangerously slow in some places, I adored the little moments here and there, like when you piece it together in the end that Hatter must have jumped through the looking glass moments after Alice left. I'll watch it again, if only to try and wrap my head around a few of the editing and plot decisions, like making Mad March from Long Island. But all in all I had fun, developed a new crush and enjoyed the gorgeous scenery. Horrible truth room CG background, flying flamingos and all.

But what did you think?

We were sent an extremely early edit of the film, so I'm not making a final judgment on the two-day mini movie until it airs, but what I did watch I got a excited about.

Here's the premise: Alice is a no-nonsense commitment-phobe and karate instructor. So yeah she kicks ass, and a lot, for better or worse. Strong armed Alice falls for one of her students who sneaks her some sort of magical ring and is promptly kidnapped. Alice follows her boytoy through the looking glass and is transported to Wonderland. But Wonderland has changed. It's now a dirty world that looks strangely like Vancouver. Alice soon learns that the Queen of Hearts is kidnapping humans and imprisoning them in her casino, siphoning off their happy emotions and selling them to the inhabitants of Wonderland. Thus making her beloved, for providing the quick fix, as well as rich.

Alice meets the Hatter in one of these emotion dens and the two strike a deal to go and save her boyfriend, who has presumably been kidnapped by the Queen for emotion harvesting. If I tell you more we'll get into spoiler territory, but there are plenty more twists and turns. It also gets pretty heavy with the family issues and inner love turmoil for poor Alice. In fact it really reminded me of a shorter and less in-depth version of the TV movie The 10th Kingdom, which I adored. So even coming close to that is a good thing.

Plus the cast is just bafflingly great. Tim Curry plays the Dodo, Kathy Bates is the Queen of Hearts, Harry Dean Stanton is the Caterpillar, and Colm Meaney is the King of Hearts. Those names alone are worth tuning in for. You won't want to miss watch Tim Curry walk around with his stomach forward, Dodo-style. Sure, I could mention that Curry really pushes the level of running and screaming that I can take from him, and that Kathy Bates seemed like she was sporting dead face for most of the movie, but they're are small issues.

But the real standout was Andrew Lee Potts' Hatter. Call me a sucker for British heroes who wear funny suits and like to throw their weight around, but I couldn't rip my eyes off of the Hatter when he was on screen. Almost to the detriment of Alice. Potts is familiar with the scifi world, having starred in the BBC's Primeval, but he really hits his stride here. And while I was watching him on a version that needed copious edits and tweaks, I still really enjoyed watching him try to elevate the story and dialogue he was handed. Yes, making the Hatter a cute hipster is a little eye rolling, but he made it work. Potts really attempted to sell some of his totally implausible actions he was taken in by the script. You heard it here first: If Matt Smith the new Doctor crashes and burns, certainly wouldn't be any worse off with Potts. But that's just hopeful projecting on my part.

So the bottom line: I'm tuning in. I'm anxious to see what the home of Matt Frewer's dimwitted White Knight looks like, as it's merely described as a chessboard forest kingdom. Along with the flying jetski-like flamingo sky cars, and the Queen's casino once the FX are all finished. Plus I wouldn't miss the opportunity to watch Andrew Lee Potts make me reassess my staunch views on men who wear guyliner.

Even though some of the story did feel a bit pushed here and there, and the plot was in an eternal loop of running to the casino and escaping, then running back, and escaping, the characters, settings, costumes and actors make this worth your time. And for those of you worried it's a Tim Burton rip, fear not: This contemporary Wonderland has a strange feel all on it's own.

Here's the trailer:

The first part begins December 6th, 8 PM.

DreamWorks TV and Spielberg will executive produce the miniseries based on the 1088-page book. And it's good that they are trying for a miniseries, because this novel is big and full of characters. There's no way it could be a one-night affair. Under The Dome takes place in a little Maine village which is quickly and forcibly sealed off by an invisible force field. So quickly, in fact, that one towns person loses an arm.

If this is done well, it could mean more cable miniseries, which would be a good thing, The Prisoner notwithstanding. After all, we all know Watchmen would have been a brilliant miniseries. But let's hope this big project opens doors for more.

Synopsis:

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when - or if - it will go away. Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens - town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing - even murder - to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out.

[Variety]

The new press release describes "The Plan" as a 90-minute feature, but we're guessing that's just the length of the shorter televised version. Amazon is listing the DVD release as 112 minutes long, meaning we'll hopefully get to see a lot more tangled Cylon sex and politics. (And given how racy the Caprica DVD was, this could be pretty strong stuff.)

Here's the official synopsis:

The Cylons began as humanity's robot servants. They rebelled and evolved and now they look like us. Their plan is simple: destroy the race that enslaved them. But when their devastating attack leaves human survivors, the Cylons have to improvise. Battlestar Galatica: The Plan tells the story of two powerful Cylon leaders, working separately, and their determination to finish the task.

The DVDs will include:

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN - BONUS FEATURES

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan on Blu-rayTM Hi-Def and DVD takes viewers deeper into the acclaimed space drama with exclusive bonus features, including:

EXCLUSIVE TO Blu-rayTM Hi-Def:

* BD-LIVETM: Access the BD-LiveTM Center through your Internet-connected player to download more exclusive content, the latest trailers and more!
o MY SCENES: Bookmark your favorite scenes from the movie.
o BATTLESTAR GALACTICA TRIVIA: All-new trivia game.

BONUS FEATURES (BLU-RAY™ HI-DEF and DVD):

· DELETED SCENES

· FROM ADMIRAL TO DIRECTOR: EDWARD JAMES OLMOS AND THE PLAN – A day-in-the-life with director and actor Edward James Olmos, as he tackles the most ambitious Battlestar Galactica production to date.

· THE CYLONS OF THE PLAN – Features interviews with the actors who play the film's key Cylons, including Dean Stockwell, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, Michael Trucco, Rick Worthy and Michael Bennett.

· THE CYLON ATTACK – This featurette takes viewers behind the scenes for the planning and execution of one of Battlestar Galactica: The Plan's major action sequences.

· BEHIND THE PLAN - An in-depth look at some stunning visual effects and the role post-production plays in bringing the world of Battlestar Galactica to life.

· FILMMAKER COMMENTARY

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan debuts on Blu-rayTM Hi-Def and DVD on October 27.

And here's a clip!

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan airs this Fall on Syfy. [L.A. Times]

Sexy!

We already appreciated the immense sassiness of Udo last week, with a clip from Uwe Boll's Far Cry. And that inspired me to dig up this supremely sassy Udo webcam show.

It comes from the TV movie Ice, which aired on the Syfy Channel a couple years ago and remains my favorite Syfy Original Movie. As its name suggests, Ice is about a new age, which turns L.A. into a replica of the North Pole... and soon, only the equatorial regions of the globe will even be habitable. Nobody listens to Kier's sexy, sexy webcam warnings, until it's too late, of course.

The main character of Ice is actually a cop, who has to get his ex-wife and son out of L.A., but first he has to contend with his wife's dickish new husband, who's a stuck up architect. Here he is taking a swim in his outdoor pol, even though it's a billion degrees below outside:

Can you tell I loved this film? It was so awesomely cheesy, even besides the Kier-cam action. And here's one final clip. The cop springs a convict out of jail, rather than just letting him freeze to death there. And they stop by the convict's neighborhood, which has been totally buried in snow. Check out the telephone poles and rooftops sticking out:

The 1972 TV movie Moon Of The Wolf is a lovely slice of Southern Gothic. I picked it up from the dollar DVD bin, without realizing it was made for TV, but it was still an excellent purchase. It feels a bit like a Rockford Files episode, except with all the supernatural stuff, plus the old founding family with the ancient house full of secrets. Not to mention, it stars David Janssen (Dr. Kimble from The Fugitive) as the town's gruff sheriff, who's determined to get to the truth no matter who he has to squint at.

In Wolf, Sheriff Whitaker has to investigate the murder of a young woman, and there are several suspects. There are the town's wild dogs, which the townspeople collect a hunting party to wipe out. (After which, the sheriff observes, they'll have nothing to talk about for the rest of their lives.) There's whoever got the girl pregnant. And then there's the town's founding family, the people she worked for as a maid - a family whose male relatives often have funny "spells." (And apparently being a werewolf also makes you ambidextrous, since most of the male relatives have that trait, too.) This being the early 70s, every man in the TV movie displays miles of chest hair, which reinforces the feeling that any of them could be the werewolf. And the dialogue is pretty great. Like the daughter of the local gentry, Louise, says at one point, "We really own this town, don't we?... It got drummed into me when I was little: 'You're FFL, child. First Family of Louisiana. Don't you ever forget it, child.' You know, I forgot it." [IMDB]

According to Galactica Sitrep, the TV movie has already offered a contract to Dean Stockwell, who plays the atheist cylon Brother Cavill. Other actors that the studio is approaching include Michael Trucco, Aaron Douglas, Grace Park, Michael Hogan and Katee Sackhoff. What do all of those actors, except Katee Sackhoff, have in common? Well, they're all very good-looking people. Oh yeah, and they play cylons. Could we be getting some juicy cylon backstory? (But how can we do that without Tricia Helfer?) Espenson seems to have an interesting handle on the cylon culture, and the fact that the cylons can share memories and traits among different members of the same model. [Galactica Sitrep]

Ba'al [is] about a rogue Smithsonian archaeologist, dying of cancer, who will stop at nothing to retrieve the ancient amulets of the storm god Ba'al, which could cure him or make him a god ... Riddles of the Sphinx stars Dina Meyer (the Saw franchise) and Lochlyn Munro (Deck the Halls) in a story about a father and daughter who find themselves in a series of battles of mind and body with the deadly Sphinx as they attempt to decode seven riddles in an effort to save humankind.

I'd rather watch Stargate: Peoria than either of those films. Reading plot descriptions like that makes me feel as though the Sci-Fi Channel is actively on a mission to destroy science fiction. Or rather, that they don't have a clear sense of what makes good science fiction. I know these TV movies have to be easy to throw together. But how hard would it be to do something along the lines of ABC's recent Masters of Science Fiction series, which managed to be cheap and science fictional?

A Paranormal Day At Sci-Fi [Hollywood Reporter] [Image by Getty Images]