SyFy's "Alice" (2009)

After watching Tin Man (produced for Syfy), I decided to watch their production of Alice. When I first heard of it, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland was just coming out so I wasn't interested in yet another version by 'that Syfy channel'. I'm glad that I did give it a chance since I was highly entertained by this twist on Lewis Carroll's tale!

This 2-part miniseries is 3 hours long and aired on Syfy in December 2009.

Director Nick Willing describes it as updating the 1866 book by imagining how Wonderland might have evolved over the last 143 years.
"Basically, what we did is drew upon the kind of surreal aspects of that world and turned them into the surprises of a thriller and wove a very powerful love story throughout," Willing said. "It's not the Alice in Wonderland that you would've seen adapted many times before. This is a much racier, tougher, sexier, more driven [show] with a classical story, more like a kind of thriller with twists and turns and surprises." [source]

I thought Caterina Scorsone was wonderful as Alice and my other fave character was Matt Frewer's White Knight! I loved his Quixote-like qualities and thought he stole the scenes that he was in! I wasn't surprised then to hear Frewer describe his interpretation of the White Knight. "He's a cross between Don Quixote, Baron von Munchausen and the Cowardly Lion. He's mad as a box of frogs, as Nick wrote, and there's a kind of a gap between who he is and who he pretends to be. Therein lies his madness." [source]

I don't think this series will satisfy die-hard Lewis Carroll fans but I thought it was worth a trip down the rabbit hole!

-> official site
-> IMDb

Caterina Scorsone / Alice

Andrew Lee Potts / Hatter

Kathy Bates and Colm Meany / Queen and King of Hearts

Philip Winchester / Jack Chase

Matt Frewer / White Knight

Harry Dean Stanton / Caterpillar

Tim Curry / Dodo

Charlotte Sullivan / Duchess

Alan Gray / The White Rabbit

Zak Santiago / Ten of Clubs