Land of the Lost episode guide

Remember when I spent all that time talking about Land of the Lost episodes? Pop Apostle has spent even more time than that and the results are fantastic. Seriously, this is the user-friendly resource you've been waiting for.

Land of the Lost (2009)

My plan worked. Extremely low expectations married with a view of the movie as a film-within-the-show allowed me to make it all the way through without ripping out my eyes and ears. It would be an exaggeration to say that I enjoyed it, but I was at least able to enjoy parts of it without despairing over What Have They Done to the Show?

I knew I was going to have problems with Land of the Lost as soon as Will Ferrell was announced as the star. I don't much like Will Ferrell's work. Not even Anchorman, the movie everyone reminds me about as soon as I tell them I don't think Will Ferrell's funny. I tolerate him in Elf because I love Christmas movies, but I can't make myself watch it every holiday season. Haven't yet seen him in Stranger Than Fiction, though my resistance to it is weakening. At any rate, Land of the Lost did nothing to change my mind about Ferrell's style of comedy.

I did however like Danny McBride and Anna Friel. This is where it came in handy to see the movie as something that the Marshalls might have had to endure once they got home. Otherwise, I would've been extremely frustrated that Rick Marshall's kids have been transformed into a love interest and an idiotic guide.As it was, I laughed at McBride a lot and Friel was less annoying than she was in Pushing Daisies.

Yes, I know Pushing Daisies was a critical darling and I liked it for the most part, but not for the part where Ned and Chuck couldn't touch and it was Rogue all over again. Or the constant reminder that Ned was keeping a huge, horrible secret from her. Friel was fun and likable in the part, I just didn't dig the uglier side of the show that her character represented.

Holly of course has none of that. Instead, she has the unenviable job of having to admire and respect a character played by Will Ferrell. A character - I'm quick to add - that is designed specifically to be unworthy of admiration or respect. This isn't an Anna Friel flaw, it's a fundamentally ridiculous problem in the script. Nice job by Friel for making Holly attractive and charming in spite of that.

Cha-Ka was stupid though. The less said about him the better.

What I was most curious about - and the reason I wanted to see the movie at all - was what they did with the show's mythology. How much would they include? How much would they change? I like that Grumpy was there (and that Holly named him) and that Enik's an important part of the story (though his motivation has completely changed from the show). I was elated to hear someone mention the Zarn until I saw what they actually did with him. I liked that he had Leonard Nimoy's voice, but he's the Zarn in name only, having nothing in common with the inter-dimensional traveler from the show.

But you know, if I'm a person living in the world of the TV series and this movie is all I know about the Marshalls' adventures, I don't hate it. It's not Good in any sense of the word and parts of it are downright horrible, but other parts are enjoyable and even funny. As a whole, like so many other movies, it's mundane and ultimately forgettable, but that's a blessing and a vast improvement over what I expected going into it.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Series Finale: Medicine Man)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve..

Episode 13: “Medicine Man”

The last episode of the series starts off on the right foot with Holly and Cha-Ka’s cooking dinner for the family. In a reference to a first season episode, Cha-Ka observes, “Cha-Ka like stone soup more better.” We’ve established that these are an alternate reality’s version of the Season One characters, but it’s nice to be reminded that some things are the same.

There’s also some genuinely funny banter between the two of them, but while they’re inside the temple gathering vegetables, someone makes off with their pot of water. When Jack and Will return with firewood, Jack goes into the jungle to search for the thief and is attacked by an American Indian in traditional clothing. Jack beats the Indian easily and it’s only then that the Indian realizes that Jack isn’t who he thought he was.

The Indian explains that his name is Lone Wolf and that he was trying to get back to his tribe with some medicine for a fever epidemic that's killing them. He’d ridden into a dust storm, was thrown from his horse, knocked unconscious, and woke up in the Land of the Lost. He admits to stealing the water to make some traditional medicine for himself, because he also has the fever and the White Man’s medicine he was carrying is in his saddlebags with the horse, wherever that is.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Episode Twelve: Scarab)

Sorry I couldn't get this done yesterday. Spent the day rescuing people trapped by snow. I may have watched a Shirley Temple movie too, but it had a surly lighthouse keeper and Buddy Ebsen as a dancing sailor, so it was also a very manly activity.



Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, and Eleven.

Episode 12: “Scarab”

While collecting firewood with Holly, Cha-Ka discovers a huge, golden beetle. Rather than continue to help with chores, he ditches Holly to catch the insect.

Back at the temple, the Marshalls are patient about Cha-Ka's laziness. As Jack points out, Cha-Ka doesn’t understand what it means to be part of a family that helps each other. They don't point it out, but this makes sense considering his background with the abusive Ta and Sa. Cha-Ka's defense for wanting to take the day off is that he worked yesterday, but the Marshalls explain that they did too. There’s still work to be done and they all need to pitch in and do it. That’s a great lesson for the young kids presumably watching the show, but also an indication of where the series was headed: less continuity and world-building; more adventure stories with moral lessons.

Cha-Ka gets what Jack and the others are telling him and promises to help, but before he has a chance, he and Holly argue over whether or not he should be able to keep the beetle. Holly contends that it’s wrong and that the bug should be let go. Cha-Ka ignores her, but as he’s putting the beetle into a cage, the insect bites him and flies away. It’s a painful bite and Cha-Ka decides he can’t go hunting for firewood after all. The Marshalls let him stay, but as soon as they’re gone he grins malevolently and trashes the temple.

His mischief doesn’t end there. Next he goes out to find Grumpy, taunts the T-Rex into following him, and leads the theropod to where the Marshalls are gathering their firewood. They escape – barely – and as they rest from the chase, Will notices Cha-Ka running through the jungle in the direction of the Lost City. They decide that Cha-Ka must be looking for them, so Will goes to get him while Jack takes Holly (injured while running from Grumpy) and the firewood back to the temple.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Episode Eleven: Ancient Guardian)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten.

Episode 11: "Ancient Guardian"

On the run from a party of Sleestaks at night, the Marshalls enter a part of the Valley that they’ve never been to before. Near a cliff, they find a large, wooden statue carved to look like a Sleestak. There are strange symbols all over it and the Marshalls naturally assume that the statue’s purpose is to point the way out of the Land of the Lost. How could they not?

They don't want to decipher it in the middle of the night though with the Sleestaks and Grumpy the T-Rex on the hunt, so they decide instead to haul it back to the temple where they can study it at their leisure. They don’t spend much time with it before they realize that they’ll need Enik’s help. Will volunteers to ask the Altrusian come morning.

He and Jack spend the rest of the evening imagining what it would be like to finally get home. The only reason I mention this is that Jack speculates that most people won’t believe the Marshalls’ stories of the Land of the Lost. “On the other hand,” he notes, “somebody might want to write a book about it. Or a movie.” And just like that we have a way to make the Will Ferrell movie – however awful and unfaithful to the show – fit into official continuity. If it’s a movie within the show I feel like I can watch it and satisfy my curiosity without getting all ticked off at it. I’ll just imagine the Marshalls watching it too and rolling their eyes about how Hollywood got the details wrong.

Meanwhile, back at the cliff where the statue was, a large, shaggy creature emerges from a crevice and climbs over a pile of rubble to terrorize the Sleestaks in their caverns. Enik’s able to drive it away with a laser-shooting crystal before it reaches the hatching chambers, but the reptile-men are understandably distraught. Enik and the Sleestak Leader ask the Cave of Skulls why the Ancient Guardian has forsaken them and learn that the Marshalls have taken the Guardian. The Leader wants to kill the humans in retaliation, but Enik sees some benefit in talking to them first. He doesn’t believe that they know what the Guardian’s for.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Episode Ten: Timestop)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, and Nine.

Episode 10: “Timestop”

The earthquakes are continuing in the Land of the Lost and this time they’ve opened a new door in the Marshalls’ temple. Will and Holly are the only ones home when it happens, so they go inside to investigate and find a series of caves. Eventually, they discover a mysterious room containing a small crystal that's set into a metal plaque.

Getting out with it involves some complications, but the short version is that they escape and show the device to Jack and Cha-Ka who've returned home. Jack agrees that the object is worth investigating. Anything so elaborate had to have been created by intelligent life and therefore could be a device for escaping the Valley. They also agree that it looks Altrusian in design, so they decide to take it to Enik to see what he might know about it.

Enik does indeed know what it is: the Key to the Temporal Regulator. With it, he says, the operator can run time backwards and forwards as he chooses. Naturally, he and the Marshalls both want it. The Marshalls hope to rewind time to the moment they entered the Land of the Lost and then step back through the portal before it closes. This is an awful theory and doesn’t take into account that Jack came through separately from Will and Holly or that they all fell – not stepped – through the portal. Still, the Marshalls never have been ones to overthink things whenever a possible escape route presents itself.

After the break: the trouble with time travel.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Episode Nine: Abominable Snowman)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, and Eight.

Episode 9: “Abominable Snowman”

The Land of the Lost gets wackier and wackier. In this episode, Will and Jack find a unicorn in the jungle and bring it back to Holly as a pet. When Enik wanders by the temple and sees it though, he warns the Marshalls that its presence is bad news. He says that it comes from the Land of Snow and is game for a creature called Tapa. Enik speculates that the recent earthquakes have opened a passage between the Land of Snow and the rest of the Valley. He’s also quite sure that the Tapa will come searching for the unicorn, bringing devastation with him.

Jack and Will are oddly unconcerned. They’ve given the animal to Holly and aren’t interested in taking it back. They say that if Enik wants Holly to get rid of it, he can ask her himself. Enik angrily agrees, but by the time he finds Holly, the unicorn has already gone missing.

Holly and Cha-Ka are franticly looking for it and aren’t attracted to Enik’s offer of a jeweled toad if they’ll forget about the pet. “I’ve heard toads give you warts,” Holly says, “and I don’t care to find out for sure.” I suspect that’s Holly’s sense of humor talking and not genuine belief in the old wives’ tale, but it’s still a weird response.

Yeti unicorn-ranchers, after the break.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Episode Eight: Hot-Air Artist)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Seven. 

Episode 8: “Hot-Air Artist”

A hot-air balloon crashes in the Land of the Lost and Jack goes to investigate. He meets the pilot, an American from 1920 named Col. Roscoe T. Post. Post is a colorful character, too dumpy to be dashing, but certainly larger-than-life and flamboyant with his handlebar moustache, aviator’s helmet, piped pants, and white scarf.

As Jack leads Post back to the temple - talking mostly about Post, his favorite subject – they encounter Grumpy. Jack’s able to drive the T-Rex away by using a small tree as a catapult to launch a rock at Grumpy’s head. The only reason it’s worth mentioning is because Jack uses the technique again later in the season, so it was significant at least to the writers.

The discussion turns to Post’s plans to repair the balloon and leave the Land of the Lost. Jack convinces him to take the Marshalls with him, but it doesn’t take much persuasion. Post’s always after a headline and rescuing a family of strangers from a world of dinosaurs is a particularly nice one. He’s even more keen on the idea when he meets Cha-Ka, whom he plans to take on a world tour to exhibit as the Missing Link when he gets home.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Episode Seven: Flying Dutchman)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six.

Episode 7: “Flying Dutchman”

Malak (Richard Kiel) is back in this episode; humbler, but no less mean. He has to get out his cave these days to survive since the Sleestaks no longer pay him tribute, but his chosen method of survival is marauding and stealing. Cha-Ka (playing a homemade recorder reminiscent of Season Two’s “The Musician”) crosses paths with him one day and discovers something that Malak has dropped, a telescope. Malak tries to get it back from him, but Cha-Ka runs away and escapes back to the temple.

When he shows it to the Marshalls, they recognize it as a nautical instrument. They wonder how it got there and speculate that the ship that carried it to the Valley may still be there, able to carry them out again. As they walk to where Cha-Ka found the spyglass, they see Torchie at a distance. None of them seem surprised that he’s escaped from the canyon from last episode, so apparently they’ve run across him already since then.

They arrive at the dry riverbed where Cha-Ka was earlier and Holly spots a sextant lying in the mud as well. Not far from there, they spot an old galleon (though Jack calls it a barque) beached on the riverbed and hear voices shouting orders. They can’t see anyone on deck though, so they go closer to check it out.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Episode Six: Cornered)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One, Two, Three, Four, and Five.

Episode 6: “Cornered”

A fire-breathing dimetrodon terrorizes the Lost City, including the Sleestaks and Big Alice the allosaurus. Jack and Will worry that he’ll drive the City’s residents into the rest of the Valley where they would presumably cause a lot of trouble. So, the Marshalls decide that they need to get rid of the big bully.

Meanwhile, the Sleestaks – guided by the Library of Skulls – have reached the same conclusion: the Marshalls should really get rid of that dimetrodon. Their hope is that in doing so, the Marshalls will themselves be killed as well. Stupid Sleestaks. That plan never works.

Jack and Will’s resolve to drive the monster away is weakened when the beast swipes Will with its tail. Apparently it has poisonous spikes, because Will goes down and falls ill quickly. The Library of Skulls knows this and tells the Sleestaks, who come up with a plan to fool the Marshalls. Enik visits the family and tells them that he can cure Will, but only if the Marshalls get rid of the fire-breather by nightfall.

The rest of the episode is Will’s trying to stay awake back at the temple while Jack, Holly, and Cha-Ka figure out how to trap Torchie (as they’re now calling him) in a box canyon. Jack lures the monster there with its favorite meal, coal, while Holly and Cha-Ka build a giant mirror at the canyon’s entrance. When Torchie arrives, he attacks his own reflection and enters the canyon. The Marshalls cause a landslide that seals the entrance and traps the beast.

When they return to the temple, Enik’s waiting for them. The cure, he says, is to lie still and let the poison work its way back out of the body; exactly what Will’s already been doing. It’s a funny scene actually. Jack mocks Enik’s accent at one point and when he gets annoyed about being tricked, Enik just shrugs and leaves. He can’t smile with his mouth, but it’s in his body language. He’s enjoying having fooled the Marshalls into taking care of the menace.

The episode ends with Will’s recovering and singing a song for his family as Torchie escapes the box canyon.

Land of the Lost Bad News/Good News

I'm working on this week's Land of the Lost post, but wanted to share a couple of pieces of news first that were passed along to me by Friend of the Blog, Wings from Caffeinated Joe.

The bad part is that Van Charles Snowden, who played the Zarn on Land of the Lost, passed away last month at the age of 71. Snowden was a puppeteer who worked on several Sid and Marty Kroft shows, including HR Pufnstuff (in fact, he was HR Pufnstuf), Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, and The Bugaloos. He also did the puppetry work for Chuckie in the Child's Play movies, the Crypt Keeper in Tales from the Crypt, and was the lead puppeteer on Pee Wee's Playhouse. 

If there's a silver lining to that, it's that Wings found the obituary on Wesley Eure's blog. You probably know that Eure played Will Marshall, but I bet you didn't know he had a blog and you may not know that he's still very active in Hollywood, producing and creating a ton of stuff including PBS' Dragon Tales series. He's also an humanitarian, organizing fund raisers and doing what he can to raise awareness for all sorts of charities and issues. I'm sad to hear about Snowden's death, but it's great to hear that Eure is doing so well for himself and - more importantly - for others.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Episode Five: Medusa)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One, Two, Three, and Four.

Episode 5: “Medusa”

This episode provides more evidence for the Alternate Reality Theory, while also letting us know that some things are still the same between the two versions of the Land of the Lost. Holly and Will have built an outrigger to take them and Cha-Ka down the river, hoping it will help them find a way home. Obviously, the first season episode “Downstream” never occurred for them. At least, not in the way it happened for the other Marshalls, but more on that later. On the other hand, Will plans to do some fishing on the trip and recalls his unpleasant experience fishing with Cha-Ka in Season Two’s “Nice Day."

While Will and Cha-Ka cut fishing poles, Holly sits in the boat and is accidentally carried downstream by a sudden increase in the current. The reason for the change is that a green-skinned, snake-haired Gorgon in a toga has opened a hole in a small dam downriver. We don’t yet know why, but we do get a demonstration of her powers when she turns a praying mantis to stone for “daring to offend Medusa” by crawling over her foot.

Will and Cha-Ka hear Holly’s distress cries, but choose to run and get Jack instead of immediately helping her. It's a stupid, disappointing choice meant simply to keep the plot moving.

After the break: Holly meets Medusa and sees an old friend from Season One.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Episode Four: Repairman)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One, Two, and Three. 

Episode 4: “Repairman”

The Sleestaks are still trying to figure out how to get rid of the Marshalls and come up with another plan, thanks again to the Library of Skulls. The Skulls tell them how to manipulate the Sun Pylon so that it creates solar flares and threatens to wipe out all life in the Valley.

Not realizing that the flares aren’t natural, the Marshalls hole up inside the temple and hope that they’ll soon pass. But when they run out of water, Jack has to go find some and discovers an odd, bow-tied English gentleman sitting in the jungle. He introduces himself as William Blandings and says that he’s been waiting for Jack. He evades Jack’s questions about where he comes from, but he’s able to find water in the ground with a crude divining rod he pulls from his valise.

Back at the temple, Blandings explains that he only has six hours to help fix the sun. He continues ignoring the Marshalls’ questions, explaining that “everyone has to answer to someone” and that he’s only permitted to reveal so much. He promises them however to be truthful, trustworthy, and as forthcoming as he’s allowed. As a show of good faith, he offers to get more refreshment for them and when Holly fantasizes about a chocolate malt, Blandings produces some from his bag.

Next, Blandings announces that he has to visit the Sleestaks as part of whatever protocol he’s supposed to follow. Jack refuses to let Blandings go alone and Blandings says that he’s grateful for the company. Blandings is able to protect them both from the flares with an air-conditioned umbrella and he’s also got an amulet that creates a protective force field and keeps them safe from Big Alice and the Sleestaks.

In the Lost City, Blandings goes straight to the Library of Skulls and finds the crystal the Sleestaks removed from the Sun Pylon to create the flares. Unfortunately, he accidentally drops and smashes his protective amulet and the Sleestaks capture him and throw him into the Pit. Jack’s able to escape, but he soon returns with Will and some homemade bombs made from swamp gas and water bags.

They rescue Blandings – who’s no worse for wear from spending time with the God of the Pit – and the three of them get away, repair the Sun Pylon, and close it off so that the Sleestaks can’t get in again. Then, exactly six hours after he first appeared, Blandings disappears.

It’s hard to know what to make of this episode. Does the reality of the first two seasons also have a repairman? If so, why didn’t he appear when Will and Holly screwed up the weather or when the Sun Pylon broke before and stopped the sun? He seems to serve a similar function to the Skylons, so is he just this reality’s version of them? If so, that’s a huge difference in the way this reality’s Valley operates. What else is different? Is there a Builder in this reality? Is that who Blandings answers to? Lots of questions; I don't expect we'll ever get answers to any of them.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Episode Three: The Orb)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One and Two.  

Episode 3: “The Orb”

The Sleestak Leader has run out of patience with the Marshalls. Thinking that they’re the only obstacle between the Sleestaks and Valley Domination (the Land of the Lost is mostly referred to as the Valley this season), he asks the Library of Skulls how to get rid of them. The skulls instruct the Leader to find an artifact called the Sacred Orb. When placed on the surface, it will absorb all light and allow the Sleestaks to rule in darkness. Unfortunately for the Sleestaks, the Orb is located in the hole where the God of the Pit from Season One lives.

Meanwhile, Will and Cha-Ka are hanging out with Enik and talking about morality. I mentioned last week that this reality’s Enik is extremely focused on logic. This is the episode I was thinking of. In “Survival Kit,” the Marshalls were only able to convince him to help them by pointing out that doing so was in his best interest. That may have sparked the conversation they’re having here.

Their conversation is interrupted when they discover a pylon that neither Will nor Enik has ever seen before. They both know the area well, so Will postulates that perhaps the pylon was invisible before. That doesn’t sound “logical” to Enik, but he’s willing to concede that the Valley is a strange place. Will goes inside to check out the pylon and finds that it’s empty. While he’s inside though, Sleestaks jump out and capture Enik and Cha-Ka, dragging them off to the Lost City. Will emerges from the pylon and thinks that his friends have bailed on him, so he goes off to find them, not realizing that he’s turned invisible himself. It’s never explained why there’s an Invisibility Pylon and I can’t figure it out myself. As much as I enjoy finding plausible excuses to tighten up someone else’s sloppy writing, I’m stumped on this one.

After the break: more nonsensical writing, Morality vs Logic, and the God in the Pit.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Part Two: Survival Kit)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.
Season Three: Part One.

Episode 2: “Survival Kit”

Richard Kiel (Jaws from the James Bond films) plays a caveman in this one. We’re not told how he got here, but he’s apparently been here a long time. Jack calls him a Cro-Magnon, but since he didn’t know what an allosaurus was in the previous episode, we probably shouldn’t trust his expertise. Kiel’s Malak isn’t much like a Cro-Magnon, but he’s not really a Neanderthal either, so let’s just go with the generic “caveman” and move on.

We know that Malak’s been here a long time because he’s set up a system under which he bullies the Sleestaks into paying him tribute. In return, he doesn’t release the floodgates in his cave that keep an underground river from flooding the Sleestaks’ home. He’s become dissatisfied with the Sleestak’s usual offerings of produce though. He wants meat and gold and jewels now and releases the floodwaters until the Sleestaks can get him what he wants.

The Sleestak leader consults with the Library of Skulls and Enik to determine that only the Marshalls have what Malak wants. Meanwhile, Holly’s sick with a nasty cold and a bad fever. Jack and Will are worried about her and Jack thinks that antibiotics are her only hope for getting better. Will explains that there were antibiotics in the survival kit that they brought to the Land of the Lost with them, but that he and his dad were never able to salvage it from the swamp. Knowing that the kit is waterproof, Jack proposes that they look for it again. They leave Cha-Ka behind to stay with Holly.

After the break: swamp-diving, godhood, and conclusive evidence of the alternate reality.

Land of the Lost: Season Three (Part One: After-Shock)

Judging just from how much I ended up saying about the first episode, we're going to have to divide Season Three into smaller chunks than just two posts. So just Episode 1 today. If you need to catch up on previous seasons before we get started, here are the links:

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One and Two.

Episode 1: “After-Shock”

The season opens with Will and Holly’s exiting a pylon. Just inside, we can see Rick’s back as he works. Will’s got a new shirt for the season, as usual, but that’s not the only thing immediately different from the previous seasons. The kids are growing up.

Will’s hair is shorter and he looks more like a young man than a teenaged boy. Holly’s also maturing; she’s taller and her face has more definition. That’s normally not worth mentioning in a show with child actors – of course they’re going to grow up – but it is with this show because the only timeline that makes any sense has them escaping the Land of the Lost while looking younger than this. Intentional or not, it’s our first hint that this is an alternate reality from the one in the first two seasons.

As Will and Holly take a break, they wonder whether “that new pylon” is going to help them get out of the Land of the Lost. Since the pylons were presumably all mapped in Season Two, the existence of a new one is another clue that this isn’t the same reality we’re used to.

Yet more clues and a Bold New Direction, after the break.

Land of the Lost: Season Two (Part Two)

Season One: Part One, Two, and Three.
Season Two: Part One.

Episode 8: “The Pylon Express”



I don’t recall seeing this in earlier episodes, but apparently the smallest of the Land of the Lost’s three moons moves faster than the others. It’s possible that this is a new phenomenon, because at one point Rick notes that he’s been watching the moons “for the last week,” but he doesn’t clarify if he’s talking about the fast one in particular or just that all three are coming into alignment. He says that he’s been “wondering when that little one was going to be able to line up with the other two.”

Whatever he means, tonight’s the night that it happens. Rick and Will are having this conversation because some chanting by the Paku has woken them up. Figuring that a jog before breakfast would be nice anyway, they go to investigate, leaving Holly asleep in the cave. They discover Cha-Ka and his family dancing around one of the pylons. Just before sunrise, the littlest moon lines up with the other two (though it’s already passed between them several times that night) and stops. The sun rises quickly (abnormally so for our world, but then we know that it’s not a real sun from “One of Our Pylons is Missing”) and when it does, the pylon opens. Ta tosses a butternut squash into it and is rewarded with a shopping cart full of groceries in return.

Even though the sun’s up, the little moon continues to move, going in and out of alignment and making it difficult to figure out exactly what affect it has on the pylon. Figuring that the pylon must contain a time portal to their world, Rick and Will go into it to investigate, and the pylon closes behind them.

After the break: Lots more about this and other episodes, and we finish the season with a bunch more knowledge about the Land of the Lost and a solid theory for fitting Season Three into continuity.

Land of the Lost: Season Two (Part One)

As I said when I got to the end of the first season of Land of the Lost, I wasn't all that excited about digging into the second one. Not because I didn't enjoy Season One (I did: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three), but because I'd heard that Season Two largely abandoned the interconnected, world-building structure I liked so much for simpler, dumbed down stories.

I've finally gotten around to the first half of Season Two though and here's what I thought:

Episode 1: “The Tar Pit”



When Spot the coelophysis gets stuck in a tar pit, Dopey the baby apatosaurus tries to help, but gets stuck himself. Cha-Ka, who’s painting a portrait of Ta on a big rock nearby, wants to help, but Ta insists he stays to finish the painting.

Cha-Ka intentionally spills his paint either as a pretense to go get more or an excuse to quit altogether. They’re all speaking Paku, so it’s not real clear. Either way, Cha-Ka leaves Ta and Sa and heads to the tar pit, sees that he can't handle it alone, and runs for help. While he’s gone, Spot escapes and in a jerkwad move, leaves Dopey behind.

Cha-Ka gets Rick, Will (who’s got a new shirt and vest this season), and Holly and explains the situation. For continuity’s sake, I've decided to think of this season as a collection of previously unseen adventures that took place during Season One; certainly before that season’s finale when the Marshalls all escape the Land of the Lost. That’s my operating theory anyway. I don’t expect that it’ll explain Season Three, but I’m glad to have a way to make Season Two “count” in continuity at least.

The rest of the episode is just the Marshalls and Cha-Ka’s trying to rescue Dopey while hindered by various obstacles, including Dopey’s own inability to cooperate. It doesn’t add anything to the world-building, but shows us a lot of the Marshalls’ ingenuity, even going into great detail about their engineering a pulley system to pull Dopey out. I’m not saying that the lack of world-building is bad necessarily (especially since it's only the first episode of the season). It's entertaining enough on its own and I actually felt sorry for Dopey; it’s just - as I was warned - considerably less complex than most of the first season episodes.

Eventually, the Marshalls are able to get Dopey out with the help of his mom and they congratulate themselves for their teamwork, which ties up the story with a nice, kid-friendly moral.

Episodes 2-7 after the break.

Land of the Lost: Part Three

Part One: Episodes 1-6

Part Two: Episodes 7-12

Finishing up the first season with this post.

Episode 13: Follow That Dinosaur



The Marshalls are woken up by the sound of Grumpy the T-Rex attacking the entrance to their cave. He's torn down their curtain of cloth and vegetation and Holly figures out why. The leaves are from a plant that Holly's named Dinosaur Nip. All the dinosaurs love it and are attracted to by it, even carnivores. That's dumb, but there you go.

Apparently, there's Dino Nip all over the place near the cave, which deserves some small credit for trying to explain why Grumpy's always hanging around there. But I always figured that was because he knew the Marshalls were there and wanted to eat them. And it doesn't explain why there aren't always a ton of other dinosaurs there for Grumpy to eat instead. Or why the Marshalls have never noticed the effects of Dino Nip before. This obviously hasn't been fully thought out by the writers.

The family decides to clear all the Dino Nip out of their area by picking it and dumping it in the nearby crevice (the one you have to cross to get to the Lost City). While disposing of it, Will and Holly find a dummy stuffed with the Nip. The dummy's dressed in eighteenth century clothing and has a notebook in the pocket, but before Will and Holly have a chance to read it, Grumpy and Alice both show up at the crevice, attracted by the Nip at the bottom. Grumpy and Alice distract each other from opposite sides of the crevice while Will and Holly escape.

Back at the cave, they show the notebook to Rick. It’s a journal, written in English and referring to various creatures that the Marshalls have already met. The writer claims to have taught the paku the “Christian language” as well as named the Sleestak after a nasty fellow named Major Joshua Sleestak back home. The family figures out that the journal-writer must have been the same person who wrote the "Beware of Sleestak" message they discovered back in the second episode.

The writer also mentions a friend named Harry Potts who's gone missing in the Lost City. The writer used the Nip-stuffed dummy as a decoy to distract the dinosaurs so he could escape to the Lost City and find Potts. Unfortunately for the Marshalls, half the journal is missing.

The family decides to go to the Lost City to see if the journal's writer and Potts escaped. They think it should be safe because it’s the Sleestak’s dormant season. On the way there, they notice that Grumpy's following them, even going so far as to cross the crevice. They mention that that's unusual behavior, but no explanation is given as to why he's doing it. The Dino Nip concept is discarded from here out.

While following the clues in the journal, the Marshalls discuss the three entrances to the Lost City. There's the main entrance in the center that leads to Enik’s place and the pit where the Sleestaks' god lives. The second entrance, where the family is now, is the one that the journal refers to as having “fallen pillars.” The third entrance is on the far side of the city. I got a little confused by this conversation because Rick seems to think that the journal wants them to go to the third entrance, even though it clearly mentions the fallen pillars. And when Grumpy shows up and Alice attacks him, the family escapes into the entrance where they are and soon figure out that they're on the right track. I can't figure out why Rick wanted to go to the far entrance.

Inside the City, the Marshalls find another one of the “Beware of Sleestak” messages. They follow the tunnel to a chamber where they find another part of the journal. This part refers to a “hole” through which the writer believes Potts has returned to New England. There’s also a map leading to the hole.

The Marshalls follow the map past dormant Sleestaks (creepily covered in cobwebs). I like the idea of the reptilian Sleestaks going dormant in colder seasons. That makes sense. Eventually, the Marshalls reach a small chamber with a lava pit, but in the chamber are two skeletons and the rest of the diary. The lava’s beginning to rise, making the chamber warmer and - Rick realizes - threatening to waken the Sleestaks. The family escapes, narrowly avoiding the Sleestaks as they sluggishly wake up.

Grumpy and Alice are still fighting outside, but the family escapes by using some explosive crystals to distract the dinosaurs. Back at the cave, they read the last of the journal. It reveals that it was written by Peter Koenig (a tribute to earlier Land of the Lost writer Walter Koenig?), a private in Washington’s revolutionary army.

I have mixed feelings about this episode. It answers some important questions, but too much of it (including the title) doesn't make any sense.

Episode 14: Stone Soup



Not a lot of world-building in this episode, but it does refer back to some of the things the Marshalls learned in previous ones.

Will and Holly argue over whose turn it is to make dinner. Rick, frustrated at their constant bickering, pretends to start making dinner himself, but really he's playing the old “stone soup” trick to get them to help out. The kids humor him and go out foraging for vegetables and things to add to the meal, thinking that their arguing has stressed out their dad and that he's possibly snapped.

As Will and Holly search for food, they talk about how fluky the weather's been lately. There's lots of thunder and lightning, but no rain, so the dinosaurs are all nervous and the drought is making it hard for them and the pakuni to survive. One of the skittish dinosaurs, an apatosaurus, chases Will and Holly into an empty pylon. The kids notice that it’s dark inside, with no crystals to power it. When the dinosaur loses interest, the kids escape back to the cave.

That night, after dinner and while the kids are asleep, Rick sees some pakuni running through the jungle with glowing crystals. The next morning, the kids take Rick to the “dead” pylon. Rick doesn't mention it yet, but he thinks that the pakuni’s stealing the crystals has affected the weather patterns and caused the draught.

On the way home, they meet the pakunis Ta and Sa (Cha-Ka's friends/relatives) who bully the Marshalls into giving up some food they found. Rick decides to trick Ta and Sa into trading their crystals for some stone soup. Bringing some vegetables of their own, the Marshalls have the pakuni help them make the soup, but the pakuni don’t want to trade crystals for the finished product. They will trade for the magic “soup stone” though.

The Marshalls return the crystals to the pylon and it starts to rain. Rick closes the pylon to keep the pakuni from coming back. Later, because the writers had some more time to fill, Cha-Ka shows up at the cave, chased by Dopey the baby apatosaurus. They invite Cha-Ka for dinner, but he thinks it’s gross until he adds a stone to the soup pot.

Episode 15: Elsewhen



This is a fun episode by Star Trek writer DC Fontana. It feels like a Star Trek episode too in its message, but Fontana has to play pretty loose with story logic to get there.

It opens with the family’s going to Enik’s cave in the Lost City. They're surprised to find no Sleestaks. Even the Pit God is quiet. Once the family gets to Enik’s cave, Rick reveals - to us; I imagine the kids already know - the reason for the trip. He says that he thinks he’s figured out how to work the time portal if only he can discover the right combination for manipulating the colored crystals. That seems like a huge "if" to me and sort of a "no duh." Obviously the crystals need manipulating; that's how everything works in the Land of the Lost. Obviously you have to know the right order. And obviously Rick doesn't yet or else they'd already be home. A better explanation is that Rick's figured out part of the sequence to open their time portal, but still has some testing to do. That's not what he says though.

Through trial and error he’s able to produce some time doors, but they don’t seem to lead anywhere. While he and Will are experimenting, Holly wanders off and finds another cave with a descending staircase and stones embedded in the wall. The same kinds of pyramidal stones that open the pylons. She runs back to get Rick and Will and while they're all off looking, a young woman emerges from the last time portal Rick opened.

The Marshalls go all the way down the steps and find another pylon key in a cave. There’s a hole in one of the walls and it leads to another chamber with a bottomless pit. Rick and Will prepare to explore the pit, but won’t let Holly help, Rick explaining that it’s dangerous and that he and Will want to protect her. Holly's not buying it though. She sulks and wanders off again as a Sleestak watches Rick and Will from the shadows.

Holly goes back to Enik’s cave and complains to herself about the lack of trust Rick and Will are showing. The young woman is still there and introduces herself as "Ronnie." She consoles Holly, telling her to be patient. Trust will come. She seems to know a lot about the Marshalls and Holly grows suspicious, but Ronnie's sweet demeanor helps to lower Holly's guard.

Holly notices a scar on Ronnie’s arm that Ronnie says she got a long time ago getting her brother out of a “difficult situation.” She chastises Holly for running off and leaving Rick and Will. If Holly really wants to be trusted with responsibility, she needs to earn it. But before sending Holly back to her family, Ronnie gives Holly some necklaces that she says will help the Marshalls communicate with each other over long distances.

She also tells Holly that she needs to get over her fear of heights. This is the first we're hearing about that, which is odd considering that Holly lives in a cave on the side of a cliff and has spent all that time crossing the crevice between home and the Lost City. But whatever. Ronnie tells Holly that she can overcome her fear by looking at the earth, which Holly thinks is weird. Rick’s always told Holly not to look down when she's afraid of heights. Before Holly can ask any more questions though, Ronnie disappears back into the portal.

Holly returns to Rick and Will who haven’t been able to get through the small hole. Holly volunteers to go down and Rick - thinking that there could be a time portal at the bottom of the pit and they have to find out - reluctantly agrees. Holly gives the men Ronnie's necklaces before she goes down.

While Rick and Will are lowering Holly into the hole, the Sleestaks attack. Rick and Will let go of the rope and Holly falls, but fortunately the rope’s been tied off. Holly stops when it plays all the way out, but now she's stuck dangling in the pit. She remembers Ronnie’s encouragement about heights though and begins climbing the rope. On her way up, the lights come on in the pit and reveal that Holly’s in an upside-down world. Remembering to “look at the earth,” Holly focuses on going up and getting out of the pit.

Since Rick and Will have been taken as sacrifices to the Sleestak god, Holly returns to Enik’s cave to ask Ronnie for help. Ronnie refuses for cryptic reasons and sends Holly off to fight the Sleestaks alone, saying that Rick and Will need her help to survive. Holly grabs some rope and Ronnie disappears again.

Holly uses explosive crystals to knock out the Sleestaks, but the explosion also blows Rick and Will into the god’s pit. At the bottom, Will is knocked unconscious, but Rick gets free of his bonds just as Holly drops her rope from up top and climbs down. Holly’s plan is to rig a sling for Will and for Rick to get out of the pit and pull Will up. Rick does, but Holly has to fight off the pit god by herself while waiting for the rope to come back down. She injures herself in the process by cutting her wrist. She beats the god though and gets back to the top. The family escapes just as the Sleestaks begin to revive.

Holly tells the others that she left something in Enik’s cave, so she leaves them to go talk to Ronnie. She tells Ronnie that she knows who she is now. Apparently “Ronnie” is Holly’s “secret name,” something else we've never learned before, and Holly now realizes that Ronnie is her future self. Ronnie says that she can’t show Holly the way home, but encourages her that it can be found. She also tells Holly to cherish her father and brother because they won’t always be there. She's just full of mysterious half-information. Does something happen to Rick and Will in the future? Ronnie's not telling.

Episode 16: Hurricane



This episode was written by Larry Niven and references his previous episode, "Downstream." Particularly the idea that the Land of the Lost is a closed system in a very finite space. It's also the only episode that I vividly remember watching as a kid. I recall bits and pieces from others, but this one stuck with me.

After being chased by a couple of dinosaurs, Will and Holly decide to get away for a bit and explore a “gleam” on a cliff that Will spotted a while ago. They climb to the top (Holly commenting that she’s conquering her fear of heights) and find a pylon.

Will opens it and goes inside. He finds a “matrix” like the one in Enik’s cave that controls the time doorways. Fiddling with it, Will creates thunder, but a yellow light also appears in the sky and shoots out a red light that makes a circle around the peak and returns to the yellow light. Will comments, “It’s just like the river. It came all the way around.”

A parachute drops out of the yellow light and the kids realize that they’ve created a portal in the sky. They run off to find the parachutist who’s stuck in a tree and being menaced by a coelophysis. Will chases the dinosaur off and the kids meet Beauregard Jackson from Fort Worth, Texas (played by Ron Masak who guest-starred in pretty much every TV show that aired in the '70s and '80s). The kids take him to the cave to meet Rick.

Jackson reveals that he's an astronaut from the future who flies a “hypersonic glider” between Phoenix Port (if I heard that right) and Space Station Five. As the Marshalls explains the Land of the Lost to Jackson, Rick mentions Enik and reveals to us in the audience that the Marshalls don’t know if he ever got home or not. That night, the wind begins to pick up.

The next day, the group sees that the portal Will created is still open. If they can figure out how to get up to it, they can get “home,” though Jackson says it’ll be 20 years in the future, making him (and Space Station Five) from the mid-'90s. Rick says he doesn’t mind as long as they can escape the Land of the Lost. The problem is that the portal leads to open air on the other side too. If they go through it, they'll fall to their deaths. However, if they can get the portal to come near a high cliff so Jackson can jump through it with his parachute, he promises to come back and get them in his glider.

Back on the cliff with the pylon, they use Jackson’s binoculars to look at the other clifftops and see if the portal goes near any of them. They're stunned though to see the backs of themselves. Again, “It’s like the river." Space loops back on itself and Rick realizes just how small the Land of the Lost is. He gets worried that the wind pouring through the portal (or maybe it's the wind being generated by the rotating of the portal in the Land of the Lost's small atmosphere. I got confused) is going to keep circulating until it creates a hurricane that Jackson won’t be able to get back through.

The Skylons then show up to communicate a sequence of colors to the group, but inputting their signals into the crystal console only makes the wind worse. Rick realizes that it’s because the Skylons only know how to control the weather pylons. This pylon isn't associated with the weather, it controls the portal, so messing with it makes the portal opens up more. Wide enough that it sucks the Skylons into it.

By experimenting with the crystals on his own, Rick’s able to move the portal and eventually brings it to the cliff where it not only sucks in Jackson, but also destroys the pylon (after the Marshalls get clear, of course). Will suggests they look for another pylon to experiment with, but Rick chews him out. He calms down quickly, but it's one of the few times we see Rick lose his temper with his kids. There's a lot of emotion in this episode, which is probably the reason it made such an impression on me as a kid.

Episode 17: Circle



Another Larry Niven episode and a real game-changer for the show. Or it should have been.

While swimming one day, Will discovers that the water hole connects through an underwater cave to a system of caverns. He leads Rick and Holly there and the three decide to explore. They discover some dormant Sleestaks, which raises the question of just how far after "Follow That Dinosaur" this episode is. Has a year passed that it's already the dormant season again? Or do they have several dormant seasons through the course of a year? Or do concepts like "years" or even "time" not have any meaning in the Land of the Lost?

Another question comes up as Rick hypothesizes about the sleeping creatures. The way he talks, it sounds like the Marshalls have never encountered Sleestak dormancy before now. I suppose it could just be a way of introducing the concept to viewers who didn't see the other episode, but it's sloppy if that's what's going on. The other episode didn't try to hold our hands when it introduced the idea. No real reason for this one to do it either.

The Sleestaks wake up right away this time and the Marshalls are separated as they’re chased through the tunnels. Holly makes it back to the underground pool and dives in, escaping to the watering hole. She's followed there by a Sleestak, but she drives him off with those handy exploding crystals. She tries to dive back in and check on her dad and brother, but dinosaurs show up at the hole to drink and she has to wait for them to leave first.

Meanwhile, Rick loses his pursuers and begins to search for the kids. He leaves marks on the walls to keep track of his path, but still finds himself going in circles. You might think that's where the episode gets its name, but you'd be wrong.

Elsewhere, Will makes it to Enik’s cave and is surprised to find Enik there. Enik is able to keep the Sleestaks out of his cave with some kind of energy barrier. He then explains that he’s been unable to return to his own time. Quoting “The Law of Conservation of Temporal Momentum,” he explains that he’s been able to open the door he needs, but something’s keeping him from leaving unless something else of equal mass and “temporal energy” enters the Land of the Lost first.

Will deduces that he and his family can’t leave either until three more people arrive and Enik agrees. But Enik also hypothesizes that the Marshalls shouldn’t even be there at all. Using the time portal, he shows Will the moment that the Marshalls fell over the waterfall and into the Land of the Lost. Will immediately gets it. There’s no misty time door opening for them in the past, so the Marshalls should have died on the rocks below. Enik believes that their living and being present in the Land of the Lost is what’s gone wrong with the portals and is preventing him from getting home.

Rick and Holly find each other again and make it to Enik’s chamber where Will and Enik explain the situation. Rick figures out that if they can make the past versions of themselves enter a portal – thus saving their lives – that will bring in enough mass to allow the present versions of themselves to leave. Which should also resolve the time paradox and allow Enik to leave as well. Apparently Enik won't need someone else coming in if they can fix the paradox. That doesn't make complete sense, but it's all made up science anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Rick opens a portal for the past Marshalls to fall through and that opens the door for the present Marshalls to go home. After saying their goodbyes to Enik, they leave. Enik watches through the portal as the past Marshalls arrive and are chased by Grumpy to their cave. As they get settled in, Enik declares that he’s going home too.

This was the first season finale, but it should have been the series finale. Not every mystery has been solved, but enough of them have to be satisfying. We know where the Lost City comes from, the Sleestak warning, even the Land of the Lost itself can be explained as some kind of experiment by Enik's people that went wrong. And the Marshalls go home. They're free. The past versions of themselves will relive the season until they become the present versions and get to go home, bringing in the past versions again and on and on. It's perfect.

Unfortunately, there's another season (two, actually). I'm nervous about watching more, but it's like a scab that needs picking. I don't want to replace this perfectly good ending with a less satisfactory one, but I kind of need to know what happened and where the show went. Even if it's nowhere good. I'm taking a little break before I dive into Season Two, but I'll let you know what I find when I do.

Land of the Lost Game

I'm not sure where else to put this so it gets its own post. Sleestak has a very cool post about some great Christmas swag he got: a couple of vintage Land of the Lost games. He's got great scans of everything, including the board game's rules and gameboard.