CBS Orders (Wizard of) Oz MD (Yes. As in "Medical Drama". Seriously.)

"My Way Home" Scrubs episode tribute to The Wizard of Oz

Wut??
Ya.

(You give me news like this, you can't expect eloquence.)

According to CBS: Doctors + Drama + Dorothy & Co. = Must-See-TV

Let me put this another way: CBS have just announced they're developing a new medical drama based on Baum's The Wizard of Oz, titled Dorothy.

(Note: If you currently google the word "apocalypse", this is the story that appears.)

Do you remember Return to Oz? It was darker. It was more true to Baum's books. It had Dorothy getting a weekly dose of elctro-shock-therapy treatment.

(Actually, it was pretty great. [The movie, not the shock-treatment.] I loved it even as a kid but it was NOT at all like the movie and most definitely not MGM!*)

Now it looks like CBS is sending the (possibly-more-grown-up) Kansas heroine off on another journey, except this one might have green gowns instead of a green city: Dorothy is off to see the wiz, er,  doctor... (slow truck-in with soft focus over suspenseful music...)

From Deadline late last week:

The producers who brought Sherlock Holmes to New York forCBS, are doing the same with some other classic literary characters. CBS has put in development Dorothy, a drama project from Elementary executive producers Carl Beverly and Sarah Timberman. The project, fromCBS TV Studios where Timberman/Beverly Prods. is based, is described as a medical soap based in New York City inspired by the characters and themes from The Wizard of Oz. 

I have to admit I'm rather aligned with Collider on this one:

I’m morbidly curious to see just how Beverly and Timberman plan to make this work.  Scrubs did an excellent Wizard of Oz homage in the Zach Braff-directed episode “My Way Home,” but it seems like the adaptation works better within the comedy genre.  How clear will the parallels to the source material be?  Does the lion character have big, wavy hair?  Will our protagonist always wear red shoes?  Do Dorothy and Scarecrow have an on-again off-again relationship?  It sounds so terrible in theory that I just have see what this looks like.

O.o

All I can think of is all the "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" jokes, with heavy doses of "if I only had a brain".

Honestly, I can see potential for a modern psychiatric treatment/Dorothy-in-therapy series of stories but medical soap? Scalpels, electrocardiograms and breakdowns in the scrub room?

You know what? "It's so crazy, it just might work!"

Oh. And "apocalypse". That comes to mind too...

PS And before you wonder what next - they already did Alice In WonderLawland.

One was a briefly run courtroom series in Canada.

The other was titled Ally McBeal.

Well played Toto, well played...

*It didn't seem like Disney at the time either but that's another story...