Thursday, November 24, 2011

Land of the Lost Season 01

I was a little too young to see or enjoy this show during it's original run on NBC Saturday morning. But by the early 80's it was syndicated. Airing every Sunday morning on this great independent UHF channel. I would make it a point to get up at 5am just so I could watch it. Well then it stopped airing and I never got to learn if Marshall,Will and Holly ever escaped from the Land of the Lost. Sure CBS reran it for a short while in 1985,where it replaced the short lives but brilliant Pryor's Place. But it seemed like they only showed the first season that time. Well I had almost completely forgotten about the show,till the Sci Fi Channel did a marathon. I recorded about 4 hours of the marathon and had a blast watching the show for the first time in over 20 years. So when earlier this month I found the Universal first season release at a local Fred's store for $5 I couldn't pass it up.


During the opening credits we find out how our lead trio enter the Land of the Lost. And we get a super catchy theme song that will stick in your head for days. After 5 episodes introducing us to the land and some of it's perils,we get a great episode that helps add to the mythology of the show. We are introduced to Enik who is a non-savage version of the show's lead villains the Sleestaks. We learn that the various glowing crystals we have been seeing around the place have many different uses. One of which is opening portals to various dimensions and time frames. This is built on even more in episode 15. Holly meets an older woman that helps her save Marshall and Will. But it isn't until the end that we find out that the older lady is actually Holly from the future. Stuff like this wasn't very common on mid 70's Saturday morning TV shows. Then there is the final episode of season 1. Titled "Circle" it is a well done show,that easily could be the finale of the entire series. But we ended up getting two more seasons. I know I have seen most of season 2,but don't think I have seen more than 2 or 3 episodes of the last season.

This DVD set is bare bones. We get all 17 episodes,but no extras at all. But still the picture and sound look better than I have ever seen them. Land of the Lost Season 01 gets  B-.