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.


He doesn’t explain who he thought Jack was before he got a good look at him, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t expect sympathy from Jack, much less help. However, Jack of course insists on getting Lone Wolf to his feet and back to the temple where the Marshalls can lend him the materials he needs to heal himself.

At the temple, Lone Wolf reveals that he lives in 1877 and learned English under Chief Joseph. As the Marshalls (Will, especially) marvel over this, Cha-Ka rushes in. He’s been scared by a sound and when he describes it, the others realize that it must have been Lone Wolf’s horse. Lone Wolf becomes frantic about finding it. He has to get the medicine to his people. The Marshalls volunteer to help.

What’s weird about this is that everyone immediately takes for granted that all they have to do is find the horse to get Lone Wolf back home. Will even says, “All I need is a lariat and then it’s off to the Old West.” They seem to have conveniently forgotten that if it were that easy, this series would’ve only been one episode long, not three seasons.

Will finds the horse pretty quickly, or what he thinks is Lone Wolf's horse. It actually belongs to a US cavalryman who’s hiding in the bushes nearby. The soldier holds his rifle on Will and introduces himself as Captain Elmo Diggs. He’s been watching the horse, hoping that Lone Wolf would come try to take it so that Diggs could capture him. He tells Will that Lone Wolf has stolen government property and he wants Will to lead him to the Indian.

Before Diggs can get on the horse though, he collapses, sick with fever himself. Will takes compassion on him and offers to bring him back to the temple too. Naturally, when they arrive neither Diggs nor Lone Wolf are happy to see each other. Diggs continues to accuse Lone Wolf of theft while Lone Wolf insists that the medicine already belonged to his tribe. He explains that there were two consignments of medicine, one for the men in Diggs’ fort and one for Lone Wolf’s tribe. When the soldiers used up their own allotment, the Indian Agent in charge of the stores sold them Lone Wolf’s. Diggs claims to know nothing about this.

In spite of their differences, Lone Wolf allows the Marshalls to talk him into using his skills at natural medicine to heal Diggs the same way he’s healed himself. (There’s a brief conversation where he explains to Holly that he can’t use natural medicine quickly enough to heal his entire tribe. I thought that was kind of nice until I realized that the episode is full of this kind of thing: characters having side-conversations to explain plot holes. I appreciate the effort, but it became annoying after a while.) However, Lone Wolf insists on taking Diggs’ horse in return for helping the soldier. The Marshalls object at first that the horse isn’t theirs to give (Diggs is delirious with fever by this point and can’t speak for himself), but Lone Wolf convinces them that doing so is the only way they can save Diggs. They finally agree.

Once he has the horse, Lone Wolf explains that he needs to go into the jungle to look for ingredients for his cure. As he hurries off, Will wonders if he’ll come back. Diggs wakes up enough to participate in the discussion and says that they’ll never see Lone Wolf again. He insists that all Lone Wolf ever wanted was the horse because it’s the ticket home. Again, no one ever explains why this the horse is key, but everyone seems to believe it. With a horse, escaping the Land of the Lost is easy. On foot, it’s impossible.

After an hour, Jack goes looking for Lone Wolf. He catches up to the Indian and finds him hiding with the horse behind a rock, cornered by Grumpy the T-Rex. Jack tricks Grumpy into leaving and then confronts Lone Wolf who claims that Grumpy trapped him before he had a chance to gather what he needed. “Maybe we’ll have better luck together,” Jack says. Lone Wolf looks disappointed, but he has no choice but to stick with Jack and collect the plants..

Back at the temple, Diggs has second thoughts about allowing Lone Wolf to cure him. He thinks Lone Wolf may try to poison him instead. But the Marshall’s insist that it’s the only way possible to save Diggs’ life, so they all go through with it. Lone Wolf performs an all-night ceremony with lots of herbs and face paint and drumming and it seems to work. Near morning, Diggs’s fever breaks.

As the others rest from the long night, Diggs sneaks out to his horse and grabs some manacles to chain up the sleeping Lone Wolf. The sound wakes up the Marshalls who shame Diggs into releasing his prisoner. He also lets Lone Wolf take the horse as agreed, but then Lone Wolf selflessly invites Diggs to come along.

After they leave, Holly finally questions whether or not the two strangers will be able to get back to their time. To his credit and my surprise, Jack isn't taken aback by her doubt. Everyone seemed to take an easy escape for granted the entire episode, but Jack says that he’s not sure either. He also adds that it doesn’t really matter. “At least they’re trying together. In the long run, that’s really more important.”

And so the show ends with another nice lesson for the kids, which – like last time – I kind of dig. It’s a good message and it’s nicely presented without a lot of speeches. No more is said about the medicine or what the men will do with it if they find it though. Maybe that's too complicated a situation for a kids show. Whatever the reason, it's too bad. It's an important dramatic element that should have been resolved.

Another complaint is that there weren’t a lot Land of the Losty elements in this episode. For the series finale, it's very quiet. There are no Sleestaks, there's no plot to get home, and the dinosaurs – except for Grumpy – are mostly set dressing. Torchy and Lulu both make cameo appearances to growl at people, but they’re not part of the story. It’s a nice episode, but a downbeat one for the show to end on and that’s too bad. I wasn’t expecting them to make it home or anything, but it seems like the writers abandoned that part of the concept in the last few episodes.

But though we never see Jack and this reality’s Will and Holly make it home, we know that they did. After all, Jack and Will talked in a previous episode about how people would want to make a movie about their adventures when they got home to tell the tale. And that’s exactly what happened.

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.
Cha-Ka enters the Lost City, sneaks past the Sleestak guards, and goes to the Cave of the Pit where the Sleestaks' pit god lives. There’s a new obelisk at the edge of the pit just begging to be toppled into it, so Cha-Ka obliges. It disappears into the foggy hole where we can't see anything, but I like to imagine that it hits the pit god on the head, because the creature immediately begins to bellow. That brings the Sleestaks running, letting Cha-Ka put his real plan into action. He sneaks into the Library of Skulls and steals the Skull of Wisdom.

Cha-Ka’s gone beyond mischief-making now. In place of the skull he sticks Will’s knife. The Sleestak Leader jumps to exactly the conclusion Cha-Ka wants him to, ignoring the attempts of Enik – who saw Cha-Ka leave the Lost City with the skull – to relate what he observed. The Sleestaks capture Will when he comes looking for Cha-Ka, and take him to the pit.

Back at the temple, Jack and Holly are confused about why the place is a mess, but don’t suspect anything’s wrong until Jack notices Cha-Ka lurking outside. When Jack tries to find out what’s going on, Cha-Ka makes a run for it, kicking and biting Jack in the process. He’s no match for Jack though, who overpowers him and carries him back inside. Even then though, Jack and Holly only think Cha-Ka’s being uncharacteristically naughty, not actively evil.

In the Lost City, Enik’s still trying to explain about Cha-Ka and is still being shouted down by the Sleestak Leader. The Leader starts a primitive hour glass and tells Will that he’s going into the pit if he doesn’t reveal the skull’s location before time runs out. Enik tries one last time to intervene, but the Leader shuts him up again, saying that Enik should be spending his time praying that Will’s sacrifice appeases the pit god. If it doesn’t, Enik’s next. It’s surprising to see the Leader turn on Enik so quickly, but it’s not out of character. The Sleestaks have never appreciated Enik’s cooperation, which makes his dedication to helping them learn and improve as a race that much more noble.

Making no headway with the Sleestaks, Enik visits the Marshalls at the temple and confronts Cha-Ka about what he saw. Cha-Ka freaks out and confesses that he took the skull, but isn’t telling where it is even though it means Will’s life. “Cha-Ka not like Will! Cha-Ka not like Sister! Cha-Ka not like anybody!”

Holly realizes that something’s seriously wrong and wonders if the beetle that bit Cha-Ka was poisonous. That’s the piece of the puzzle that Enik needs. He questions them about the beetle and declares that it’s Tula, not Aquagirl, but the ancient scarab once worshipped by the Egyptians. When offended – as Cha-Ka did by trying to take it captive – it stings and releases the evil nature of its victims, sending them down a path of self-destruction.

How Enik knows about the Egyptians is a mystery, but we can speculate that all the testing and exploration he’s done with various time-portals may have allowed him some peeks at Earth’s history. At any rate, he says that the only way for Cha-Ka to be free of the curse is to atone for his misbehavior by finding the scarab and treating it with kindness.

The problem of course is that Cha-Ka refuses to cooperate. Holly knows that the scarab lives in the swamp and they find it quickly, but rather than feed it a delicious flower that Holly finds, Cha-Ka runs away…right towards Lulu, the two-headed monster that lives in the swamp.

Jack saves Cha-Ka and tries to explain that he’s going to kill himself if he doesn’t straighten out. That seems to sink in and Cha-Ka reluctantly offers the scarab a flower, but before the beetle can eat it, as if the pressure of doing good is too much for him, Cha-Ka runs off into the jungle. Jack and Holly leave the scarab to its meal and go after him.

Meanwhile, Will’s time has run out and the Sleestaks are about to push him into the pit. Cha-Ka narrowly saves the day by running in with the skull and threatening to toss it into the hole if the Sleestaks don’t release Will. The tactic works, but as soon as the Sleestaks get the skull they chase Will and Cha-Ka out of the Lost City and keep on chasing them. Fortunately, a thunderstorm is just getting started and the lightning sends the Sleestaks back into their caves.

Will and Cha-Ka meet up with Jack and Holly and the four return to the temple to hunker down for the storm. Cha-Ka’s learned his lesson about laziness and offers to keep the fire stoked since the others did all the collecting of the wood.

Though I miss the complexity of the first season, this episode shows that the new direction of the series could've been worthwhile. Having a main character temporarily turn evil was a staple of '70s adventure television, but even considering that lack of originality, this was a tense episode with a great lesson for kids that wasn't forced, but felt organic to the story.

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.


However, the Sleestaks visit the temple while the Marshalls are asleep and steal the statue back (it’s sitting outside because Cha-Ka freaked out and wouldn’t let the Marshalls keep it inside). As the humans mourn its loss the next morning, Enik arrives and learns that it’s already gone. He tries to explain why the Sleestaks are upset about it, but Holly and Will are determined to dismiss the lizard-men’s attachment to “that old statue.” Jack’s more sensitive though, or at least more curious. He wants to know how the Guardian prevents the Hairy Monster from the High Country from coming into the Valley. Unfortunately, Enik doesn’t know. All he knows is that it works. He gives them a stern warning never to disturb it again.

When Enik’s gone, Jack also dismisses the Sleestaks’ belief as superstition, but he seems content to abide by Enik’s wishes. Rather than study the statue at home, the Marshalls make plans to go back to the cliff and examine it there. When they do though, they find a pissed off Enik waiting for them. He knew they’d be back to mess with it some more.

They explain that they just want to look at it, but while they’re talking the monster emerges, even though the Guardian is in its proper place. The creature even knocks the statue over and breaks it. Enik rushes back to warn the Sleestaks and the Marshalls take the opportunity to steal the statue again, hoping that the Sleestaks won’t mind now that they know the statue doesn’t stop the monster.

Back at the temple, there’s kind of a cool moment when Holly points out that the Guardian must have been somehow effective since the monster’s never come down from the mountain before. “Not while we’ve been here,” Will agrees.

That makes Jack pause. “Yeah?” he asks. Apparently, he hadn’t considered that, but is willing to take the kids’ word for it since they’ve been there longer than he has. It’s a nice acknowledgment on his part and a small nod to continuity, which has become more and more rare as the season’s progressed.

As Jack examines the statue, he turns it around to get a look at the back and the eyes (made of glass or some kind of crystal) to start to glow. Almost immediately, they shoot beams of light and start a small fire on the other side of the temple courtyard. The Marshalls don’t realize what caused the blaze at first, but Holly takes another look at Jack’s notes and realizes that the Guardian’s markings are numbers, not letters. With that information, Jack’s able to piece together that the equations have something to do with optics and that the Guardian started the fire. In time, he figures out that the statue stores solar energy and uses it to generate a heat ray.

Though the Sleestaks try to kill the Marshalls during the night, the family shows remarkable compassion for them once Enik explains that the monster has begun attacking the hatching chambers for eggs during its raids. They set out first thing in the morning to return the statue to its rightful place, this time making sure that it’s oriented correctly on its pedestal (something the Sleestaks hadn’t known to do when they put it back before). With the Guardian in place, it heats up the pile of rubble that the creature has to climb over to leave its crevice. That makes the rocks too hot for the creature to touch and prevents it from entering the Valley. The Sleestaks are saved.

Later, back at the temple, the family goes over Lessons Learned and decides not to mess with things they don’t understand. I wonder how well that message would’ve stuck had there been a fourth season. Unfortunately, we’ll never know.

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.


Enik also wants to use the Key to return to his own time and warn the Altrusians about the disaster that devolves them into the Sleestaks. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s the first time it’s mentioned that a specific event caused the creation of the Sleestaks. Up until now, I got the impression that they’d just slowly slid into brutality through their own pettiness, but that may have been an assumption on Enik’s part that he later tested and found to be false.

Enik’s technology allows him to trap Jack and Will in his cave until they agree to hand over the Key, though they rather stupidly stand still and give him plenty of time to operate his controls instead of just booking it home. Enik’s no smarter. Jack agrees to give him the Key and Enik releases them before actually getting his hands on it. Jack hands the metal base to Enik, but slips the crystal part out and runs away with Will. Sneak.

When they get home, they put it on a chain, but realize that they have no idea where the Temporal Regulator is. They assume it’s in a pylon, but lament that it’ll take forever to find it. While Will and Jack are discussing it, Holly’s holding the Key and realizes that a small knob on the side of the crystal always points in the same direction.

As Enik gathers the Sleestaks for an assault on the Marshalls, the family and Cha-Ka follow the Key to some geyser beds. They’ve been here before and Jack’s even timed the main geyser – which he’s imaginatively named Old Faithful – so that he knows when it erupts. As he explains this to the kids, we get what’s actually a cool geology lesson. I must not have been paying attention in science class or else I’d forgotten how geyser’s work, but I know now. It's the second science lesson of the episode since in an earlier conversation Jack explained how compasses work. I kind of like that and wonder if it would've continued had the show lasted another season. It's a cool way to learn science.

As the Marshalls are trying to figure out where to go next (the Key’s just spinning around in circles, so they know they’re close), Torchie suddenly attacks and scatters the family. Cha-Ka tries to escape by running towards the geyser across a thin layer of earth that covers the deep mud of the geyser field. The fire-breathing dimetrodon chases him though and falls through the crust, destroying it and stranding Cha-Ka right next to Old Faithful. Jack estimates that they have less than an hour to figure out how to rescue him before the geyser blows again and kills him.

As the Marshalls try to figure out what to do, there are a couple of sweet moments between them and Cha-Ka. They yell encouragement for him not to be afraid and Cha-Ka assures them that he’s not. He knows that they’ll save him. Philip Paley plays it scared though, so it’s not reckless bravado, but his faith in his friends feels very genuine.

Jack isn’t as positive. They’re running out of time and he’s got no ideas for getting Cha-Ka across the scalding mud. Holly offers the only possible solution: find the Time Regulator and use it to rewind to just before Cha-Ka ran out onto the geyser field.

They take another look at the Key, which is now pointing in one direction again. There’s also a steady hum that Jack tries to explain with some mumbo jumbo about a “time constant” and some presentation about black holes he once saw at a planetarium. It makes no sense, but it doesn’t really have to. He and Will follow the Key while Holly stays behind to keep Cha-Ka company.

They find the pylon disguised by branches and dirt, but when they go inside they realize that they can’t use the Key without the metal plaque that Enik has. Naturally Enik shows up right then, having left his Sleestak companions outside the pylon to keep the Marshalls from running away.

Jack offers to make another deal with Enik. If Enik loans him the plaque, he’ll give both it and the Key to Enik when he’s done rescuing Cha-Ka. Will volunteers to act as hostage and ensure Jack’s honesty, so Enik – not seeing the glaring hole in this deal – agrees. To be fair, I’m pretty sure that Jack and Will don’t see it either. They seem to really believe that once they turn back time, everyone will remember the pact. Like I said, the Marshalls aren’t exactly famous for thinking these things through.

And Enik? He’s just an idiot. After explaining that only those in the pylon will be shielded from the Regulator’s effects, he leaves Jack alone to carry out his plan.

But then again, nothing really makes sense from this point. Jack rewinds time to just before Torchie’s attack and Holly and Will – who haven’t been shielded from the Regulator and have no way of remembering a plan they haven’t made yet – yell for Cha-Ka to run towards them instead of into the field.

Jack watches this on a monitor in the pylon. Once he’s sure of Cha-Ka’s safety, he runs out to rejoin his family, succumbing to the Regulator's effects in the process. When Will asks him how he got the metal plaque, Jack has no idea. And sure enough, Enik and the Sleestaks realize that they don’t have the plaque anymore, but don’t know how it went missing. Enik decides he must have dropped it. Not exactly his finest hour.

The Marshalls find the Regulator Pylon again and get ready to go inside, but Torchie attacks again. The family hides behind the pylon and Torchie blasts it with his fiery breath, fusing the door shut forever. Not needing the Key anymore, they leave it outside the pylon and head back home to the temple.

And I really thought they were going to make it this time.

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.


Despite Holly’s uncooperativeness, Enik sticks around long enough to help figure out where the unicorn went. He finds giant footprints and tells Holly that they belong to Tapa, who has obviously caught the unicorn with the intention of eating it. Enik’s satisfied - now that Tapa’s left the Valley - and encourages Holly to feel the same way. But as soon as he leaves, Holly and Cha-Ka make plans to rescue "Cornie."

Stupidly, they don’t go back to the temple to get Will and Jack, but decide to track Tapa by themselves. Enik’s the smart one and lets the older Marshalls know what he suspects Holly will do. He gets an earful for his trouble though, because Jack and Will lay into him for not stopping Holly.

Enik’s been a big jerk for most of the season, but he’s actually the sane, responsible one in this episode. He lets Jack and Will know it too; not that they listen. I’m reminded of some of the interactions Will and Enik had in Season One where Will selfishly thought only of himself and his family and accused Enik of being the bad guy for daring to want to escape the Land of the Lost himself instead of just helping them. It’s the same here, with Jack and Will’s being very nonchalant about Enik’s warnings until they come true and it’s suddenly all his fault.

Meanwhile, Holly and Cha-Ka have tracked Tapa high into the mountains where Holly’s getting cold. Cha-Ka, fortunately, has his fur for protection. As they continue following the monster, they cross a deep gorge spanned by a fallen tree. They disturb the log in the process though and after they’ve crossed, it falls.

As they keep going, the ground becomes frozen and it’s harder to track Tapa. They keep searching though and eventually find the unicorn, grazing peacefully on some trees with Tapa nowhere around. Tapa wasn’t that hungry apparently, just protective of his food supply. From Enik’s description, I would’ve expected Holly and Cha-Ka to find a mangled carcass, but Tapa’s actions make him seem more like he’s raising unicorns for food than hunting them like a vicious predator.

Not that Tapa’s harmless. He shows up as Holly and Cha-Ka are trying to rescue Cornie and threatens them with a big stick. Not with teeth and claws, notice. He’s dangerous, but he’s not as animalistic as he appears and sounds. As the episode title suggests, he looks like a Yeti, but he raises his own food and uses tools.

Holly finds more evidence of this when she and Cha-Ka escape through a small hole in an ice wall into what they hope will be a safe cave, too tiny for Tapa to follow them. But inside, the cave is huge and full of furs and other wooden tools that Tapa has made. Realizing they’re in his lair, they hide until Tapa comes in through another entrance. Holly then decides to try approaching him with some food Cha-Ka’s carrying in his pack. After all, Holly’s heard that they’re “supposed to be very childlike and gentle.” Perhaps from the same person who told her that toads give you warts. In spite of Tapa’s raging around the cave and smashing walls with his giant stick, she steps out of hiding and offers him something to eat. It works to calm him down, but he refuses to let them leave the cave, getting violent every time they try.

Meanwhile, Jack and Will have tracked Holly to the gorge and figure out that she and Cha-Ka crossed it. Jack gets across with a rope and keeps going to rescue Holly while Will chops down another tree to use as a getaway bridge.

Holly’s finally able to calm Tapa down by building a fire. The monster’s afraid of it at first, but becomes mesmerized enough that Holly and Cha-Ka are able to slip out of the cave. Tapa’s not that dumb though and notices as soon as they’ve left. Furious, he chases after them, but all his wall-smashing has weakened the cave and the entrance collapses in front of him just after Holly makes her escape.

The monster’s able to smash his way free, but Holly, Cha-Ka, and Cornie already have a good head-start. They meet up with Jack who leads them back to the gorge with Tapa following close behind. It's no surprise that Will fells his tree just in time to let the Marshalls cross with their pet, but Tapa does something strange when he gets there. Instead of chasing them across, he roars and shakes his fists at them, then pushes the tree into the gorge. Jack – probably correctly – interprets the roars as a warning to stay out of Tapa’s territory, but it’s interesting that Tapa’s lost interest in the unicorn. I’m assuming he has others, so maybe he thinks it’s worth losing one to keep these troublesome, confusing humans out of his life.

Before they go home, Holly pauses to wonder what Enik would think about their actions. It’s a weird thing to ask under the circumstances, but it’s just set up for Jack’s response that Enik wouldn’t get it because he doesn’t understand what it means to love someone. As awkwardly introduced as it is, it’s actually a very sweet line that explains Holly’s actions and why Jack is so quick to forgive her for running off to save her pet. It also bookends nicely with something that Holly told Cha-Ka at the beginning of the episode when he was acting selfishly: “Other people come first.” Which of course is the definition of love. The Marshalls may not follow their own advice - particularly where Enik is concerned - but it's a good lesson from a Saturday morning adventure show.

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.


As Post and the Marshalls work to repair the balloon, Jack and Will have an interesting conversation. Will verbalizes that if they go back with Post, they’ll be in a time when none of them have even been born yet. The reason this is interesting is that it’s a complication that the Marshalls have run into before, but haven’t openly discussed. Many of their plans to go home (in this reality as well as the one from the first two seasons) involve hitching rides with people from various time-periods. They’ve consistently acted as if getting back to Earth was always preferable to staying in the Land of the Lost, regardless of what time they ended up in. As Jack says this episode, “Whichever time, it’s got to be better than this” and “We’ll worry about that once we get out of here.”

That seems awfully short-sighted to me. The Land of the Lost has the advantage of being a sort of hub for inter-dimensional and time travel. Surely it would be better to stay there until they could find the way back to their time and place, instead of just taking the first train that comes along.

Meanwhile, the Sleestaks are disturbed that yet another human has arrived to threaten their supremacy in the Valley. Following the advice of the Voice of Wisdom (the only skull in the Library of Skulls who talks to them in this reality), the Sleestaks destroy the balloon, seeing it as Post’s source of power. Ironically, this works against their own interests by preventing the humans from leaving. Voice of Wisdom indeed.

Of course, the real purpose of the Sleestaks’ vandalism is to pad the episode and drag out the tension about Post’s plans for Cha-Ka. He and the Marshalls rebuild the balloon, but Holly begins to notice and distrust Post’s special interest in the pakuni. She shares her concerns with Jack, who decides he needs to have a talk with Post.

Before Jack has a chance to do that, Will reports that he’s discovered pakuni prints. They don’t appear to be Cha-Ka’s, so the Marshalls grow hopeful that their problem may be solved. If there are still pakuni in the Valley, they can leave Cha-Ka there in good conscience while they take off with Post. Unfortunately, Jack and Will are unable to track the monkey-people down. They follow the tracks, but the trail ends at a cliff-face, as if the pakuni disappeared into the wall. The mystery isn’t solved this episode – or even in the rest of the series – so I wonder if it’s something the writers intended to revisit later on and never got to. At any rate, it ends up being another tactic to extend the plot and delay the ultimate conflict between the Marshalls and Post.

Eventually though, the conversation has to be had and Jack sends Cha-Ka and the kids into the temple to make one last meal before they leave. Cha-Ka gets very excited, saying he wants to make stone soup. That’s of course a reference to the Season One episode “Stone Soup” where Rick uses the stone soup trick from the old story to fool the pakuni into cooperating with him; another example of the two realities' closely paralleling each other. It’s not the last time Cha-Ka will mention stone soup this season either.

Jack threatens Post, saying that he intends to protect Cha-Ka should Post have any hidden motives for taking him along. Post denies that he does and claims that he’s simply fond of Cha-Ka and likes having him around. The conversation ends uncomfortably, but with the two men’s understanding each other.

There’s yet another delaying tactic by the writers when Torchie shows up and nearly blows up the balloon’s hydrogen tanks. Jack’s able to drive him off though by sacrificing enough hydrogen to blow up in Torchie’s face. And because of all the trouble they’ve been having, Jack decides that the men should take shifts guarding the balloon during their last night so that they can leave first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, he unwisely gives Post the final shift, giving the airman plenty of time to work unhindered at getting himself and Cha-Ka away while the others sleep. Or that’s Post’s plan anyway.

Cha-Ka wakes up before the others and helps Post get the balloon filled, but when Post tries to leave without the Marshalls, Cha-Ka fights him and creates enough noise to wake the others. The Marshalls hold on to a dangling mooring line and keep the balloon from floating away long enough for Cha-Ka to slide down the rope. Then the Marshalls let go and allow Post to fly away, presumably to escape the Valley.

It’s getting a bit frustrating that visitors keep popping into the Land of the Lost and escaping again regularly, conveniently leaving the Marshalls behind like a fantastic version of Gilligan’s Island. It opens up the series to a lot of fun ideas, but it does get ridiculous. This won’t be the last time the show follows that formula either.

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.


Jack and Will go first, leaving Holly and Cha-Ka hiding out in the fog. Almost as soon as they set foot on deck though, they’re caught in a net that drops from the rigging. A Dutch officer (Rex Holman, who also played the ugly, bald guy who joins Spock’s brother in Star Trek V: “What do you know of my pain?”) then steps out from a door and accuses them of trying to stow away. It’s a ridiculous allegation, but then most of his early dialogue is just stereotypical seacaptainspeak: “Rigging mumbo jumbo throw you in irons blabbedy blabbedy.” He eventually starts sounding sane and changes the accusation. He now believes they’re in league with Malak (and even calls the giant caveman by name), returning to steal more stuff. When Holly and Cha-Ka show up and corroborate the guys’ story though, the Dutchman believes them.

He introduces himself as Captain Ruben Vandermeer and invites them to dinner. He’s especially smitten with Holly who bears a resemblance to his daughter. When the Marshalls ask him about the voices and other sounds they heard before boarding, he says that he’s alone on the ship and claims that there are trees near the riverbed “whose blossoms smell of the Narcissus.” They have hallucinogenic properties “like an Oriental incense” (guess they couldn’t say “opium” on Saturday morning TV) and must have made the Marshalls imagine things. Will’s not buying it, but Vandermeer changes the subject.

Jack asks how the ship arrived in the Valley and Vandermeer says that it was sucked into a maelstrom off the coast of Bermuda. Everyone else abandoned ship, but – as the captain – he stayed aboard and wound up in the Land of the Lost. The Marshalls volunteer to help repair the ship if they can leave with it when it goes. Vandermeer agrees, but before they sail he needs other supplies and charts that Malak has stolen. Jack and Will then make plans to steal the stuff back from Malak while Holly and Cha-Ka stay aboard to mend sails, repair ropes and whatnot.

Getting the stuff back turns into an ordeal involving Sleestaks, a cannon, and some bolas that Jack made earlier in the episode, but the short version is that they get everything and make it back to the ship okay. Then there’s some brief tension (and unintentional creepiness) as Vandermeer considers taking off with just Holly and leaving the others behind. He sends Jack, Will, and Cha-Ka off to gather citrus fruit (protection against scurvy, you know), but Jack and Will finally realize something’s up when they peek in Vandermeer’s diary, part of the stuff they recovered from Malak.

The captain’s original story was a lie; he was actually cursed by The Royal Naval Board for dereliction of duty to serve alone on The Flying Dutchman until “the end of time.” The Dutch Royal Naval Board was really powerful, apparently. They obviously knew some wizards anyway. At any rate, Will and Jack know the legend of the famous cursed ship and realize that their leaving with him isn’t an option. Even if they make it back to their world, they’ll be doomed to travel the seas with him forever.

Back on the ship, Vandermeer has started to put his plan into action. He drugs Holly and starts ordering his ghost crew to get ready to leave. On shore, Jack and Will hear this and realize that the ship doesn’t have to wait for rain to flood the riverbed and sail it out of there. After all, it is the FLYING Dutchman. Jack leaves Will and Cha-Ka and races to rescue Holly.

Vandermeer still isn’t completely sold on his plan to abduct Holly and gives her up without a fight. Jack takes her back to the others and they all watch as the ship lifts from the ground and flies into the night.

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.

Downriver, Medusa – in harmless, human form now – rescues Holly. She gently instructs Holly to be more careful in the future, saying that King Neptune is very strict with those who use his waters. She introduces herself as Meddie and insists that Holly come home with her. It’s going to be dark soon and she refuses to let Holly wander alone through the jungle at night. She’s very nice about it and explains that if they leave the boat on the bank, then Holly’s family can track her to Meddie’s home from there when they come looking for her. That makes sense to Holly and she agrees.

Meddie’s place is a fenced garden in the middle of the jungle. It's filled with statues and sentient plants. Meddie tells Holly that she can explore all she likes, but should stay on the paths to avoid being attacked by the vegetation. She then excuses herself to freshen up, which she does in a weird way. She has a little vanity table in another part of the garden and talks to herself in the mirror as she puts on perfume and has a glass of wine. We learn that her motivation for destroying the dam was to bring Holly downstream for the specific purpose of turning her to stone and adding her to the garden. She’s delighted though that she’ll also get to add Jack, Will, and Cha-Ka when they arrive.

Which raises the question of who Medusa really is and what she’s doing here. Is her reference to Neptune a religious belief or does he really exist? Medusa was Neptune’s lover in Greek mythology, so it seems more than coincidental that she brings him up. He’s never mentioned again in the episode though, so we can’t know for sure. The most reasonable explanation is that she and the other Greek gods exist, but that she was pulled alone into the Land of the Lost. That leaves a big question about what really happened between her and Perseus in our world, but figuring that out is an exercise for another day.

More interesting is the matter of all those statues, most of which are human-shaped. With all the random time portals opening in the Valley, you’d think that there’d be more captives here. Some of them, like the Revolutionary War soldier from Season One’s “Follow That Dinosaur,” probably died through lack of survival skills, but Medusa’s a good explanation for the rest. Especially since she actively seeks out people to trap. It’s curious why she’s just now attacking the Marshalls, but maybe she’s had her eye on them for a while and finally saw her chance when they built the outrigger.

Holly enjoys Meddie’s hospitality at first, but starts to suspect something’s wrong when she sees the stone form of a triceratops in the same spot where she was frightened by a live one earlier. She explores some more and finds a statue of a Civil War soldier with a cannon.

When Meddie finds her looking at it, Holly explains that it reminds her of another soldier she used to know who was always making noise, “shooting off cannons and shouting orders.” That sounds like Jefferson Davis Collie from “Downstream,” but that’s impossible because if “Downstream” happened in this reality, why don’t the Marshalls already know that the river loops around on itself? The only explanation is that Collie did exist in this reality, but the Marshalls met him in a different way. And obviously, Medusa eventually met him as well.

After the Collie statue, Holly suspects enough to know that she needs to leave. She tries to excuse herself just as Jack, Will, and Cha-Ka show up, having tracked her there as Medusa planned. Before they can announce themselves to Holly though, Medusa’s plants attack them. They escape, but not before Meddie spots them and ushers Holly to another part of the garden, saying that her family is likely already on its way to come get her. Free of the attack plants, Cha-Ka scouts ahead of Jack and Will to find out where Meddie and Holly went.

Meddie leaves Holly alone long enough for her and Cha-Ka to have a conversation when he finds her. Holly tells him her suspicion about Meddie’s powers and Cha-Ka returns to warn Jack and Will. Holly, Cha-Ka later explains to the others, is afraid to move or Meddie will turn her to stone.

Jack puts Meddie’s name with the description of her powers to figure out who she really is. He also realizes that they have to destroy her or risk her coming after them later. He volunteers to distract Medusa while Will and Cha-Ka rescue Holly, but Will and Cha-Ka jump the gun and Medusa traps them and Holly before Jack can get into place. While she’s threatening them, Jack discovers the vanity table and steals the mirror. He knocks over a glass jar in the process and reveals himself, so while Medusa goes to investigate, the kids escape.

Unfortunately, Jack doesn’t do the full Perseus and cut off Medusa’s head. Instead – probably to avoid scarring Holly for life – he uses the mirror to reflect Medusa’s power back at her, turning her to stone. On their way home, Holly pauses to make a lame, non sequitur observation about the perils of vanity.

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.


The Sleestaks keep Enik captive, but let Cha-Ka go to deliver a message to the Marshalls. Either the humans go into the Pit to retrieve the Orb or Enik will have to. Meanwhile, Will’s returned to the temple and learned that he’s invisible (he can see himself, but no one else can). He leads Jack and Holly back to the pylon – hoping to use it to become visible again – but it’s no longer there.

When they return home, Cha-Ka’s there to tell them about Enik. They discuss helping him, but realize that he’d never do the same for them. Unlike Spock’s “good of the many” reasoning, Enik’s logic is completely self-serving. Regardless, the Marshalls’ morality dictates that they have to help their jerk friend. And since Will just so happens to be invisible, he’s in a great position to do it. Jack loans him a knife and gives him three hours to rescue Enik before Jack comes looking for him.

Will sneaks into the Lost City, but he doesn’t know that the pylon’s effect is starting to wear off and he’s sporadically becoming visible again. He’s still invisible though when he arrives at the Pit and talks to Enik, who’s not being all that closely guarded at the moment. Enik protests that the rescue isn’t logical, but Will brushes that aside and tries to free the Altrusian anyway. Enik objects again, but this time on the grounds that the Sleestaks whole plan needs to be stopped, not just the part where Enik’s a captive. The Orb needs to be found and… well, he never gets around to revealing the final part of his plan. Does he want to destroy it? Hide it somewhere else? He doesn’t say. At least, not where we can hear. We do cut back to Jack, Holly, and Cha-Ka a few times as they wait for Will and mount their own rescue attempt, so Enik and Will could very well have finalized their plans during that.

There’s a nice moment when Will observes that if the Orb absorbs all light, it will eventually destroy the Sleestaks as well and Enik agrees. The Sleestaks, he says, are too stupid to realize that though and he feels responsible for protecting them from their own foolishness. It’s nice because it shows that while usually a selfish prick, Enik does feel compassion for his de-evolved kin.

Enik calls for the Sleestak Leader and tells him that the humans aren’t coming, but that he knows another way to retrieve the Orb. He claims that he’s got some Mystic Altrusian Rope in his chambers that will do the trick. The Leader sends someone to get it and Enik orders one end tied to a rock at the edge of the Pit. Then Will, still invisible, climbs down. Enik explains that the rope has gone taut because it’s searching for the Orb.

Will finds the Orb easily, but he disturbs the pit god by removing it from its place. Up top, the Sleestak Leader declares that since Enik’s rope has angered the god, Enik needs to be sacrificed to appease it. But it’s just at that moment that Will starts up the rope again, halting the offering.

Will’s smart enough though not to give the Orb to the Leader right away. Without talking, he holds it out over the pit so that none of the Sleestaks can reach it. Enik explains that they have to let him go before the Orb will be delivered to them. The Sleestaks let him go and – for some reason – Will puts the Orb in the Sleestak Leader’s hands. Since we still don’t know what Enik plans to do with the Orb, this could either be really stupid or just part of the scheme.

As it turns out, it’s both. Will suddenly turns visible, so we don’t know exactly how Enik’s plan was supposed to have played out, but just before the Sleestaks see Will, the Leader declares that he now has the power to destroy the Marshalls. The now-visible Will accuses Enik of tricking him into betraying his family, which is where I get lost on what Will thought he was doing. Enik clearly said earlier that the Orb had the power to absorb all light and destroy all life in the Valley. How did Will not understand that that included the Marshalls? What did Enik tell him that made giving the Orb to the Sleestak Leader seem like a good idea?

Enik doesn’t deny Will’s accusation, by the way. He just spouts more crap about his “best interest” and “logic,” etc. But even looking at this from Enik's point of view, giving the Orb to the Sleestak Leader is still a sucky plan. Like with the Invisibility Pylon, it defies explanation. I hate being stuck with the explanation that the writers just blew it, but that's the only one I have.

Will’s still fading in and out of visibility, so he takes advantage of an invisible period to snatch the Orb from the Leader’s hands and hurl it into the pit, smashing it. It sounds like a Christmas ornament breaking, but that’s fair since it looks like a Christmas ornament too. Will becomes visible again right after that and is captured. The Sleestaks are about to toss him into the pit, but Jack and the others show up and there’s about to be a fight when Enik puts a stop to it. He declares that since the Orb is destroyed, no good can come from the Marshalls and Sleestaks destroying each other.

This is interesting and exciting because it highlights another difference between Rick and Jack. When Rick was around, he was never a threat to the Sleestaks. It was always taken for granted that the Sleestaks would win in any confrontation. Jack leads Holly and Cha-Ka into the pit cavern like they’re going to war and Enik’s reaction acknowledges the possibility of their doing a lot of damage if not actually winning. Whatever the usual value of Enik’s logic, he’s right this time and everyone agrees to go their separate ways.

Will’s still got hurt feelings about being tricked though and grumbles that Enik will never understand human morality. Enik disagrees, saying that he saw it in action when Will risked his life to save the Altrusian. But his understanding it doesn’t mean that he agrees with it.

As the Marshalls debrief later over breakfast, Holly asks Will what the pit monster looks like. Yet more proof that this is an alternate reality since the real Holly came face-to-face with the creature in Season One’s “Elsewhen.”

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.


Jack’s apparently a much better diver than Rick and Will, because he finds the gear in no time while Will keeps the two-headed monster Lulu at bay with a bamboo spear. Back at the temple though, Enik is helping the Sleestaks raid the Marshalls home. Holly and Cha-Ka are helpless to prevent it, but Cha-Ka gets off a warning to Jack and Will with a horn trumpet.

Jack and Will return in time to drive the Sleestaks away, but they can’t save their stuff. The Sleestaks even take the survival kit with the medicine. Enik stays behind though and tries to explain that the Sleestaks’ actions are for the good of everyone. He tells the Marshalls about Malak and how the tribute is due whenever the Land of the Lost’s three moons are aligned as they are now. This is the best evidence yet for my alternate reality theory. In Season Two, Will and Holly learned of a pylon that opened a portal home when the moons lined up. They don’t know anything about it now, so these can’t be the same Marshalls from the first two seasons.

Also, this Enik is much too willing to buy into Malak’s claims of godhood. In fact, this reality’s Enik isn’t nearly as intelligent as the one from Seasons One and Two. The Sleestaks treat him like an unwelcome relative and he just lets them. He also seems very concerned about logic and comes across more like a selfish, two-dimensional Spock than the complicated and conflicted character from earlier.

Enik goes on to explain that the flooding of the Lost City caves also threatens the temple that the Marshalls live in. If the river isn’t contained again, their home will be undermined and sink into the swamp. Jack is able to convince Enik though that if Malak can turn the river on, then Jack and Will can turn it off again. Enik agrees to stay and protect Holly while the others (including Cha-Ka) go try.

When the Sleestaks return to Malak’s cave with the Mashalls stuff, Malak is pleased, but he demands one final offering: a slave to attend him. And not some lowly Sleestak slave either. He wants someone who can serve him both day and night; the Sleestaks can only operate at night. The Sleestaks depart, promising to find someone more worthy.

Thanks to Cha-Ka’s tracking skills, the Marshalls have trailed the Sleestak thieves to Malak’s cave. As soon as the Sleestaks leave, the Marshalls enter and confront Malak. While Malak is clearly more physically powerful than the Marshalls and can prevent them from taking their stuff back or closing the floodgates, Jack is unafraid. He notices that Malak has a toothache and observes that Malak can’t be a god if he feels physical pain. Jack claims that on the contrary, he’s the one who’s a god.

He gives Malak a pain pill from the survival kit, but that’s not enough to convince Malak of Jack’s deity. Malak wants to see more, so Jack uses matches and a flashlight to prove it. He promises to bestow the power of the flashlight to Malak in return for Malak’s permanently shutting off the underground river and returning the Marshall’s equipment. Malak agrees.

Back at the temple, the Sleestak leader tries to take Enik captive so that Enik can be Malak’s slave. Enik says that the Marshalls would make far better slaves though – leaving Enik to continue serving the Sleestaks during the day – and if the Sleestak leader hurries to Malak’s cave, he can broker the deal and save the Lost City.

The Sleestak’s arrive after Malak and Jack have permanently shut the floodgate and just as the Marshalls are getting ready to leave. Malak has the flashlight now and it’s made him cocky enough that he doesn’t light the torches he usually has to keep the Sleestaks under control. He’s able to hold them off temporarily until the battery goes out and the lizard-men attack. Jack, Will, and Cha-Ka escape with their stuff in the confusion.

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.

Right about then, an earthquake hits. It’s giving the writers a lot of credit, but could this be a reminder of the quake from “Split Personality,” the episode that introduced the concept of alternate realities to the show? That would be cool. Regardless, the quake opens a time portal in the pylon and Rick – we only see him from the back since it’s not actually Spencer Milligan playing him – goes tumbling through. The quake also destroys the matrix table that controls the portal, preventing Will and Holly from following him. Will and Holly assume that their dad’s made it back to their proper time, but that’s never proven.

The earthquake is massive. It destroys the Marshalls’ cliff cave, opens huge cracks in the earth, and threatens to cave in the Sleestaks’ homes in the Lost City. There’s some nice acting by Kathy Coleman as Holly mourns the loss of her dad. Wesley Eure is less comfortable with emotions, but his role is more complicated, having to simultaneously grieve and be strong for his sister.

As the kids explore the damage, they meet Cha-Ka and we get another clue that this is a new reality. Cha-Ka looks different this season. His costume appears to have been simplified and the result is that he now has a cool mane. More important than that though, he speaks English. It’s a sort of Johnny-Weissmuller-as-Tarzan English, but there’s no more pantomiming or awkward repeating of Pakuni phrases in English and vice versa so that the audience can understand him. For Cha-Ka alone, I’m already excited about the new reality.

Ta and Sa aren’t mentioned by name (maybe they don’t exist in this reality?), but Cha-Ka explains that the other pakuni ran off during the earthquake and that he was left behind when he got hurt. He seems to think that the others have left the Land of the Lost, but everything we know about it says that it’s not that easy. If we don’t see them again this season, my guess is that they were killed and swallowed up by the quake.

As the kids are talking to Cha-Ka, another new element pops up in the nearby swamp: a two-headed, dinosaur-like monster. Will and Holly speculate that the earthquake may have stirred it up – that perhaps it’s been there all along – so this isn’t really more evidence of an alternate reality, but it’s worth pointing out. Especially since it reappears in future episodes. Fortunately it doesn’t see very well above water and they escape. Holly nicknames it Lulu. “One ‘Lu’ for each head.”

Since their cliff cave has been destroyed, the trio starts looking for another place to live. But their search is interrupted when Holly sees something fall from the sky and land near the lagoon. Thinking that it might be Rick returned to save them, they investigate and find a raft like the one they arrived in. But it’s not Rick whose unconscious body they find nearby, it’s their Uncle Jack.

When they revive him, he explains that he’s been trying to find them for six months. Since he knew the route they’d taken, he’d been following it and searching for them. The recent earthquake in the Land of the Lost had also been felt in the real world, creating a second “greatest earthquake ever known” and repeating the circumstances that had transported Rick, Will, and Holly.

I miss Spencer Milligan’s Rick. Though I’ve read comments that he always acted like he was slumming by being on the show, I never saw that and liked his relationships with the kids. He was a strong, confident dad who inspired confidence in his children as well and helped them learn to survive. If Uncle Jack hadn’t come along, I have no doubt that Will and Holly could’ve made it on their own.

But I also like Uncle Jack. He’s better looking than Rick – more rugged – and also more adventurous. Rick was always looking out for his kids first and trying to keep them safe, as he should have been. Like any uncle, Jack allows Will and Holly to take more risks (especially considering that they’re the experts on surviving the Land of the Lost) and that gives Season Three a different feel. I’m not far into it as I write this, but it feels less like a mystery about uncovering the secrets of a strange land and more like an adventure tale in a place where anything can happen. After two seasons of mystery, I’m willing to let things become more fun. I hope that the Marshalls will continue to learn about the Land of the Lost, but I’m okay with that not being the focus anymore.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. Once they’ve gotten Jack on his feet, Holly wonders if the Lost City might make a good place to live. Will offers the alternate suggestion of the old temple right next to it. So much for what I read about the temple’s not coming up again. It's true though that the version in this reality is very different from the one in Season Two’s “The Test” and “The Musician.” It looks completely different and Will tells Jack that they’ve tried to open it before, but that the door is jammed. There’s no mention of the Builder or any of the other events from “The Musician.”

So we have two options. 1) This is a completely different temple that also just happens to be right near the Lost City and is only now being mentioned for the first time. 2) It’s an alternate reality version of the same temple. You know what my choice is.

Another bit of evidence that this is a new reality: Will and Jack spot Big Alice, but there’s no sight or mention of her son Junior.

At the temple, Jack discovers that the jammed door has been shaken loose by the earthquake, so he and Will go inside. (Holly and Cha-Ka are gathering water and food and are due at the temple later). There’s a nice moment when Jack notices the time and observes that the sun should be going down soon. “The sun does go down around here, doesn’t it?” Will chuckles and answers, “Most of the time.” I like it because it reminds us that things aren’t completely different in this reality. We don’t know that Will’s thinking of the exact events of the second season episode “The Longest Day,” but obviously something similar happened in his reality.

Will and Jack repair the temple door and build a fire while they’re waiting for Holly and Cha-Ka to show up. The pair does shortly after dark; chased by Sleestaks. Will and Jack fight the lizard-men off while Holly and Cha-Ka run into the temple, but the Sleestak leader commands the Marshalls to abandon their new home. After the earthquake, the Sleestaks are afraid to live below ground and want the temple for themselves.

The Sleestak leader’s ability to talk is yet another difference between this reality and the original. We’ve heard him talk before, but only in the Library of Skulls were it was made clear that the mystical smoke there could allow humans to hear his thoughts. In Season Three, he can communicate as easily and clearly as Enik, though he’s not as smart as the Altrusian.

Since the Marshalls refuse to give up their new home, there’s a battle. The Marshalls manage to drive back the Sleestaks though and their newly functioning door will ensure that the Sleestaks can’t sneak in to take over when they’re asleep. It’s a dangerous place to live, but as Will observes, it’ll be “home sweet home” for a while.

One final thing I noticed in the closing credits. For those who like to compare this show to Lost: the Sleestak Leader is played by a man named Jon Locke.