Alice has had a hard time letting anyone into her life ever since her father walked out on her & her mother 10 years ago. Jack is yet another man in her long line of boyfriends, but Alice feels this time it will be different and brings him home to meet her mom. After dinner though Jack pulls out a ring and suggests that they go visit his family that night. Scared by how fast things are moving Alice declines and asks him to leave. When she sees Jack taken by some men in suits though she realizes that she has feelings for him and runs after to try and stop them. Through some mishaps and a clumsy fall Alice is dropped into a world she thought only existed in children’s books.

But Wonderland is not quite the same as legends tell. The Queen Of Hearts still rules strongly and capitalizes off selling emotions. They capture humans and bring them to Wonderland. After numbing their thoughts where they even forget their own names the people are then shoved into a world where everyone wins, beautiful creatures surround them, and their dreams come true. As they feel joy, excitement, lust, and a variety of other emotions the specially designed floor harvests it and turns it into liquid form that many in Wonderland are addicted to.

Alice has little care for the state Wonderland is in though, as her main focus is finding Jack and returning home. However fate holds something different for her. Upon meeting Hatter, Alice discovers that there is a resistant working on other throwing the Queen and she holds the means of doing it. Their quest leads them all over, having to fight from being caught, and finally Alice comes face to face with Jack only to discover that he has been hiding several secrets from her.

I am a HUGE fan of Wonderland and when someone can add a creative twist and make the story something new I get interested. Sometimes it can go horribly wrong; but Syfy has found a wonderful new life to give a classic tale. You are not going to get an actual rabbit, or caterpillar, or walrus. Those characters are present but as humans using either code names or nicknames. They embrace the idea of the card suits and create an almost Vegas feel (imagine the classier side of Vegas). The humans that are kidnapped are held in a casino, which proves to be an ideal setting to harvest emotions.

Kathy Bates is fantastic as the Queen Of Hearts even if it is a little dialed down from how many imagine the Queen. Alice is strong. She can fight her own fights, she doesn’t breakdown and cry, and she never gives up. Hatter however is by far my favorite out of this tale. He is not the crazy, goofy Hatter that we have come to know. Instead he has made a living off of the seedy underground of Wonderland. He has been lying to the higher ups in order to carrying on with his business with the resistance. He is a con-man of sorts; but is incredibly likeable (and the accent doesn’t hurt).

The effects aren’t going to be that of a blockbuster movie; but made for TV movies never are. The costumes are impressive and just add to the characters, in some cases you can instantly guess which character they are by the costumes alone. And the ending of the whole thing IMO was the perfect way to go. But that does also lead me to the one complaint I have about it. Yes the ending of the story is perfect; the final scene is too short and just awkwardly & abruptly ends. Had it been perhaps another 30 seconds to minute longer then I think they would have nailed it.

While I can see that fans of the original book who do not like change perhaps not jumping behind something that has altered so much; I do think that there are many out there that will enjoy this for what it is a clever reimaging of a beloved tale. In fact I loved it so much that I will be watching it again when it airs.

This is a 2 night event starting on December 6th at 9pm and concludes Monday December 7th at 9pm.