Land of the Giants

As a child growing up in England in the late 60s, my favourite TV show was "Lost in Space", but "Land of the Giants", which replaced it from time to time in the schedules, was only slightly less intriguing. It didn't boast a character quite so camply magnificent as Dr Zachary Smith (my lifelong hero!), but its parallel-world scenario struck me as deeply haunting and thought-provoking. All of the reviewers who berate LIS and LOTG for their creaky plots and primitive special effects are missing the point; these shows relied on a willing suspension of disbelief, and the imaginative collaboration of their audience (for the most part, children). I pity rather than envy the present generation of children, whose dreams are delivered to them ready made.

Let me tell you for all the people out there who think the props on LAND OF THE GIANTS was cheap, it coast IRWIN ALLEN 100,0000 an episode, AN EPISODE! So think about it,back then that was not cheap that was a lot of money and the props were pretty good for the 60s.I do however agree about the part about the hand,you can see how fake it was.Also,this was after all a kids television show.I know this for a fact because i met DEANNA LUND and we talked about that very same isue.So don't go selling this series so short,it was a fun and exciting series at the time, and a fun filled show you can watch even today.

Clearly someone knew what they were doing with this thing, but when it messes up, it really messes up.

But I think the pros greatly outweigh the cons.

Problems consist of the attempt to get Lost In Space's success with Jonathan Harris and Billy Mumy with Kurt Kaznar and Stefan Arngrim. That was a miss. Arngrim looks unhappy the entire time he was on this show. And Kaznar was too hammy.

It seems at one time the realization was that Deanna Lund was more appealing visually, so there would be attempts to make a trio of troublemakers, but that seemed to be the wrong direction as well. I think Valerie could have done it but with one of the other characters, acting wise. She just wasn't clicking with Kaznar or Arngrim.

The second glitch seems to be was it earth or not Earth, if not Earth then why did so much of it look like Earth. This led to much confusion as well.

Problem 3 was unavoidable. Our flight attendant Betty became pregnant in real life. By the time she returned to the show and was able to go with the plots rather than being hindered by her pregnancy, it seems it was too late and the show was tanking.

Betty actually worked better with Kaznar than Valerie did.

The truly amazing thing about seeing this show for the first time just a few years ago is that none of the main cast went on to do anything, so they were all brand new for me.

Oh, there are recognizable guest stars like Jack Albertson, Jesse White, John Carradine, Susan Howard, Bruce Dern and Yvonne Craig, but none of the regulars ever did anything else.

Stefan Arngrim's sister, Allison, went on to portray Nellie Oleson on Little House and she had much more life than her older brother did here.

The saving grace for this show is plots. Some of these plots here are worthy of the original Star Trek. Off the top of my head, standouts are the clone episode with much greater comprehension of how to do twin portayals and the final episode with Dern and Craig is phenomenal to watch.

These shows are hardly an insult to the intelligence.

It seems Land of the Giants aired in the UK and outside of America more than it did within the states after it had been cancelled, as I never saw this show before or even heard of it.

It is deep, that's for sure. Pity there couldn't have been a conclusion episode where the passengers and crew returned to 1983 (!) but the final episode is an intriguing finale in and of itself.

If there was a happy-ending episode to conclude the series, it may have been like this: The seven people on the Spindrift didn't travel through time or distant space but were shrunk like the movie "Fantastic Voyage" and landed on Earth in an English speaking place at the present time. That's a similar concept as the movie "Planet of the Apes". That's why we see the same cultures, fashions and technology as Earth of the late '60s. Some familiar products and objects appear but are just twelve times in larger scale except the audio level. The Captain insists he saw Earth in "On a Clear Night You Can See Earth" but it was his wishful thinking or mental distortion.

Having just read all the comments I had an idea of why this show made such a strong impression on so many.

It seems many of the people that were fans were kids when this first aired (I was six, probably became truly imprinted on my neural circuits in early syndication). I believe this show connected so much with its audience because as young children we all felt in some way that we were living in a Land of the Giants and so we identified very much with all the characters.

Anyway, sorry for the cheesy pop psychiatry, but that's my theory and I'm sticking with it.

Now if I can only figure out why I loved so many other 60's/70's TV sci-fi (Star Trek, Lost In Space, UFO, Space 1999, etc)