Imagine the Emerald City teeming with hookers. If you think that sounds dreadful, you’re just scratching the surface of “Tin Man” (8 p.m., Sci Fi, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday).

The real tragedy of the three-part miniseries is not that it’s bad – and believe me, it’s hideous – it’s that it’s just not bad enough.

In this reimagined version of “The Wizard of Oz,” Zooey Deschanel plays the dreamy-but-edgy DG (Dorothy Gale, get it?). A twister blows her back to the O.Z. (the Outer Zone), where she’s captured by angry tree-dwelling munchkins. You’d be angry too if you were crushed under a dark dictatorship and hunted down by leather-clad bad guys sporting machine guns. These Nazi-ish “long coats” are after DG, too.

Soon, DG encounters Glitch (Alan Cumming), a lobotomized former courtier; Cain (Neal McDonough), a Tin Man, or Sheriff, out for revenge; and the lion-like Raw (Raoul Trujillo), who is some kind of mind reader. Together they set on the ruins of the yellow brick road, where they are attacked by monsters right out of “Jurassic Park.”

They arrive at a slummy Emerald City to find the wizard-like Mystic Man (Richard Dreyfuss) operating in some cheap floorshow in a sleazy theater, and he’s a drug addict to boot. And if that doesn’t bum you out, there are those hookers.

This preposterous story features appropriately wooden dialogue delivered without conviction from performers who seem hobbled by the production’s special-effects machinery. The shaky narrative is crudely fused, or perhaps spot-welded, by the Wagnerian bombast and derivative kitsch of a lame “Star Wars”-influenced soundtrack.

The campiest moments in “Tin Man” belong to Azkadellia (Kathleen Robertson), the evil sorceress and ruler of the kingdom. Imagine the wicked queen from “Snow White” raised on a diet of MTV’s “Laguna Beach.” She gets to utter such immortal lines as “Welcome to the O.Z.!” And, I kid you not, her flying-monkey fleet emanates from a tattoo located just above her ample decolletage.

Sadly, “Tin Man” is not all cleavage and monkeys. It’s a baffling, laborious and pretentious production that careens from one genre to another, leaving one slightly nauseated and hoping fervently that it will finally just become bad enough to be funny. But even in this, “Tin Man” disappoints.

¢ NBC’s “Today” show has long used its Rockefeller Center setting as part of its identity. The clever-if-low-rated “30 Rock” doesn’t have to leave the building to find a sit(uation) for its com(edy). The network has long broadcast the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, and now “Today” hosts Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer host the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular” (7 p.m., today), a first-time broadcast of the fabled stage show that has been a New York holiday tradition for decades.

Highlights include traditional favorites, including the “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” and performances by the Rockettes. And in the ecumenical spirit of the holidays, the show is produced by Don Hewitt, a name long associated with “60 Minutes” on rival CBS.

¢ A fetching widow (Gail O’Grady) finds her life complicated when her son creates a nationwide essay contest for bachelors to woo his single mom in the formulaic 2007 holiday movie “All I Want for Christmas” (8 p.m. today, Hallmark).

Tonight’s highlights

¢ Oklahoma plays Missouri in college football action (7 p.m., ABC).

Sunday’s highlights

¢ Scheduled on “60 Minutes” (6 p.m., CBS): the plight of Christians in Iraq; the one-laptop-per-child movement; and a profile of Will Smith.

¢ The Steelers host the Bengals on “Sunday Night Football” (7 p.m., NBC).