A Place Called Earth

Before anyone praises Richard LaSalle's score for this episode too much, let it be said that the opening segment -- especially over the flight of the "space pod" or whatever it is called here, quotes quite liberally and directly from Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Sinfonia Antartica" (Symphony No. 7), composed in the late 1940s and still very much under copyright, then and now. As to the episode itself, the plot is loonier and loopier than the worst ideas that Irwin Allen permitted to be foisted on VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, with time travel and alien omniscience making most of what's gone on not much more comprehensible to us than it is -- which is not at all -- to the stranded Earth travelers. It's stories and episodes like this that helped bring LOST IN SPACE (which had worse, I agree) to a premature end, and killed this series after only two seasons (well, LAND OF THE GIANTS did have higher production costs, too . . . .)

Very arrogant criminal time travellers from the future (one is Warren Stevens) wish to "rule the universe" but first seek out material from the land of the giants...and will kill giants to get it!

Everything described above happens in the short teaser at the start of the episode! The totally cool Richard LaSalle scored teaser, which also contains the Lost In Space space pod, is one of the finest and most memorable moments in the history of Irwin Allen TV. If only things happened this fast in other episodes of Land Of The Giants. I loved watching it in my 1970s childhood and it still looks cool in this century!

Another poster has noted that this hour contains memorable lines and I very much agree. I might add that one line - "You'd better surrender...unless you want to see this young lady blown to bits" - was actually cut from G-Rated Australian prints but was finally heard in the 1990s re-runs when the world was more ready for it.

The pilot, The Crash, is without question the best directed and best made Land Of The Giants episode, but A Place Called Earth contains the most memorable lines of any episode in the series. Granted, the story is partly taken from a 1967 Time Tunnel episode called - Chase Through Time - but Valerie and the gang give the hour a unique identity that you will long remember.

It is more about "the little people" or more about the time travellers than the giants but the giants play a role in the hour and are not just thrown in to stick with the premise of the series (as was the case with time travelling hours Home Sweet Home and Wild Journey).

Great stuff!

The writer William Welch is back at early premise on Land of the Giants of the first season in this resourceful episode where two earthlings from the fairaway future have a mission to going back two centuries before, instead the leader Olds (Warren Stevens) induces his partner Fielder (Jerry Douglas) to joint forces to imply his bold plan to rule the Earth, they must looking for a place on Giant planet to bring around a hundred ones from Earth, meantime they will spread on Earth in 5.477 a deadly bacteria to kill all civilization, hoping returns after hundred years when the planet recovers itself and hereinafter becomes the life enduring to they living safe, also both travellers have a communication power by telepathy to hide their intentions and have a powerful and lethal device at their medallions, ours friends at first sight stay exited to finally return to Earth, mainly the foolish Fitzhugh, due by the Earthlings appear on US Navy's outfits, Steve suspicious that the story didn't match, actually has loose ends, but later appears a messenger (Scott Thomas) with a task to find out why they backward in time three thousand years, hitherto a rare episode at second season, a true enlightened plot and screenplay, delivering the proposal whom the series was draw up, plus for the first time directed by Harmon Jones!!

Resume:

First watch: 1971 / How many: 4 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.75