SyFy aired Alice last night, and after Tin Man, you had better believe I was ready for the worst.

The worst never came! Instead, Passable came, and Passable was so much better than what I had prepared for that by the end I was like, “That was GREAT!” (It is not. It is Passable.) I reviewed it over at Tor.com.

Here, I want to break some things down, to make sure there is no confusion. The plot here is not good. The plot is stupid. The plot involves stealing people and sucking their emotions out, and weird tattoos and a big conspiracy and a magic ring and it’s just a mess. But, just like with Beyond Sherwood Forest, it’s like the producers sat down and were like, “Here are some likable characters. They’ll just run around in the woods while all the rest of it is going on. Also, we’ll reference Alice in Wonderland a lot. It should be fine!”

And so they did! (Except that dead guy. The dead guy is not likable. That dude was a jerk.)

“I’m glad that skeleton is dead, and other things that might be spoilers!”

P.S. Alice is wearing Fluevog boots in that production still. I know because I wanted them for myself. Good choice, costume person. In fact, nice colorway all over, with the robin’s-egg-blue dress and the rusty tights and the oxblood boots and the purple coat. Too bad the Mad Hatter looks like a guy who went to my college and dressed like that because he was a drama major.

In fact, let’s just make some lists here.

Things I Liked:

- Alice. One of the things I hated most about DG in Tin Man was her inability to absorb anything that was happening, ever. Alice is the opposite. She has a series of quiet freak-outs sometimes, you can see them crossing her face, but it’s more like she panics for a few seconds and then chooses the answer she hopes will give away the least about her helpless position. And sometimes it works! Also, the obviousness of the martial-arts-automatically-equals-independent thing I hate is ameliorated by the fact that she accepts, even solicits, help from the right people when she’s in over her head, which is just good sense. Team Alice.

- Jack. Her boyfriend at the beginning, and more than he seems by the end of Part One, he’s Crusoe from that other show that got cancelled ten minutes into the pilot. Nice to see him! He is tall. (I’m trying to avoid spoilers.)

- Hatter. ADORABLE. He’s boybandified, and I know it, but I can acknowledge it and still enjoy that he’s a nerdy little freedom fighter who helps Alice because he has a huge crush on her.

(Problem: Alice and Jack start out the miniseries together and then hit a rough patch, and even though it looks like he likes her as much as ever when they meet up again, dude disappears for AN HOUR AND A HALF while Hatter helps Alice and they sit by fires staring meaningfully at each other and having loaded conversations. That’s not a triangle. That’s a relationship that happens without you, and also, elsewhere, you.)

- Tim Curry. God, where do you GO when you’re not on my screen, and can you leave there more often? Everything you say is all caps, and it’s amazing EVERY TIME.

- Kathy Bates. Everything I said about Tim Curry, with the added bonus that he mostly excels at being hilarious, and you can be hilarious or creepy, and often both in the same sentence. You are the shit, is what I’m saying here. (You are too good for this miniseries, is what I am also saying.)

- Some of the callbacks are nicely done. Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum are perfectly weird, and the Dinah shout-out was great.

- By the end of Part 1, everyone was in an interesting situation, and I am looking forward to seeing how it all works out.

Things I Did Not Like:

- I get that it’s hard to make Vancouver look like a crazy magical land of huge mushrooms, and you really only have the budget for one Jabberwocky and some pine trees. I get it. But the palace looks like a rejected Austin Powers set. Yes, I see that it’s supposed to be motifs on playing cards. This is no excuse for what it actually looks like, which is a fancy boutique in an episode of Law and Order: SVU when they only have two hours to set up the shot.

- I’m sorry, there’s a casino that drains people of emotions so you can bottle it up and sell it to people with no emotions of their own? What is this, Equilibrium?

- No seriously, that’s the A-plot. It makes NO SENSE. People in Wonderland have emotions! No one ever even says that don’t! It’s the CGI Dragon of this miniseries, that’s all, and it doesn’t work and it makes no sense.

- I have not even GOTTEN to the magical ring.

Then there are things I both like and dislike, such as the costumes. I just don’t understand how wildly different the production values are from one scene to another.

White Knight costume:

Vaguely knight-appropriate! Many layers that he can remove like real armor and not just a big jumpsuit! It’s MOLDING!

Queen of Hearts:

*clunk*

Dude. You are SHITTING ME.

First of all, Kathy Bates is no skinnypants, and I get that, but I saw her in Cheri this year and that lady laces into a corset just like anyone else, and she’s playing a QUEEN, for fucks’ sake, what is this J Peterman caftan bullshit?

Tomorrow, I wrap this thing up.

Terrifyingly, I will admit I am looking forward watching to the conclusion of this miniseries. I DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHO I AM ANY MORE.