YMMV / Emerald City

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • The Wizard: Fantastic Racist who was massively paranoid and a power addict, or a man who started from the bottom and is acting the way he is because he never got this far in life before?
  • Mistress West: Whiny drug addicted Miss Kitty who cannot help herself, or an entertaining and emotionally deep character representing both the best and worst in people?
  • Dorothy: Idiot who ruined literally everything or a naive person who isn't used to being in Oz?
• Award Snub: Was considered for the Emmys, but in the end it wasn't even nominated.
• Complete Monster: The Wizard of Oz is the tyrannical ruler of Emerald City, driven by a desire to never be seen as the pathetic bully he truly is. Once a "nobody" named Frank Morgan, he sabotaged a lab experiment of his colleagues to murder the lover of the object of Frank's affections, and in the process dragged them all to the land of Oz. Quickly using science to allure the residents of Oz, the Wizard murdered the king and queen of Emerald City—trying to have their infant heir slain as well—and uses his claim to have single-handedly stopped the Beast Forever to gain the city's adoration. Betraying the witch allies who helped him fight the Beast to keep all credit for himself, the Wizard traps dozens of them in the Prison of the Abject, burns countless others alive, and threatens an entire city of children just to weed out possible witches. The Wizard has entire cities razed to suppress magic; murders his one friend Anna in a paranoid rage; and ultimately intends to wage war on all witches and slaughter them all, willing to kill anyone who stands in his way to maintain his false image of power.
• Cult Classic: Is slowly becoming this.
• Designated Hero: Dorothy is supposed to be The Hero of Oz, who saves it from the evil Wizard and witches. Instead, she shows up out of nowhere and starts destroying everybody's plans to keep Oz safe. What's more, her only concern seems to be that the Wizard might have the power to take her home; the fact that he engages in widespread and unjustified Fantastic Racism and that Oz seemed to be doing just fine under the Witches and the old King and Queen doesn't appear to register. To be fair, no one actually tells her about the whole truth. And when they do, they are either torturing her or outright going to kill her. The Wizard is one person who does not do this. He even tells her about her parents and tells her how he helped take care of her as a baby.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: It's implied in the episode "Everybody Lies" and more or less confirmed in "Beautiful Wickedness" that King Ev is suffering from dementia, but the citizens of Oz don't have a name or treatment for it
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Ana Ularu's Mistress West is widely regarded as the best character in the show, to the point where she is sometimes considered as a Supporting Protagonist or even a Deuteragonist.
  • Eamonn has a small fanbase amongst fans of the show, despite having little to no screen-time or dialogue.
  • Same with Mistress East.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Even those who may dislike the show may agree that West and Tip's storyline is the best in the series.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Absolutely nobody believed that the show would kill off Tip, especially after the reveal that he's the long-lost Princess of Oz.
• Moral Event Horizon: If the Wizard didn't cross it when he caused the death of Dorothy's father, he surely crossed it when he shot Anna dead with the revelation that Glinda might be conspiring against him.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The show is listed under the "Family" television category on Hulu, likely due to its origins being from the Land of Oz series. However, Emerald City is a much grittier adaptation than most other versions of the books, featuring frequent violence and sex scenes that push things about as far as broadcast TV will allow.

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