Land Of The Lost S1 Ep2: The Sleestak God

Land Of The Lost was particularly noteworthy and special for establishing a real sense of place. Nearly every location shot in its pocket universe is so well designed and storyboarded the series created one of the most memorable worlds ever committed to television. Further, they did it on a shoestring.
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The continuing adventures of Marshal, Will and Holly pick right up where they left off. Writer David Gerrold returns for his second scripted installment and brings a bit of continuity to the proceedings with the return of a splinted Cha-Ka. Gerrold properly sets the tone in the series by really establishing a mythology and a sense of place right from the start. He would return later in Season One for three more scripts.

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Land Of The Lost, Season One, Episode 2, The Sleestak God really builds upon the universe first established in the opener. The images included really speak to some of those classic sites from the series often revisited.

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Apart from Cha-Ka's ongoing fascination with water, we are introduced to Allosaurus Big Alice, a Triceratops, the Sleestak temple and other dry ice-laden props and goodies. Honestly, how Cha-Ka knows "ota!" [fire], but appears intrigued by water seems a bit incongruous. After all, there does appear to be running water in this world for sustenance. Truthfully, I don't expect Land Of The Lost to get it right every time. It was hardly intended for ruthless dissection by the adult mind to be fair. But, Land Of The Lost establishes its own rules and its own special guidelines and is fairly consistent in playing within its framework. Moments like this have The One To Be Pitied wishing I was taking on something a little more challenging like Daniel Defoe's A Journal Of The Plague Year [1722].

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Land Of The Lost is a fully immersive experience because of the "bottom-up" storytelling established in the first two episodes by Gerrold. The adventure begins and sets the tone of the lost Marshall family as they are clearly making the best of a clearly very bad situation and wisely making that little cave their home away from home in the meantime.

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Siblings Will and Holly are sent on the daily water run and Will eludes to getting to the water hole via a shortcut. It's just like kids to find the quickest route in their neighborhood or surroundings to get home and these folks are getting to know their terrain well. The creators are also establishing this lost pocket world and its dangers very quickly, but it's never rushed.

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Will and Holly stumble upon our first real look at the lost city and Sleestak temple and their first run-in with Big Alice on their trek for water. Cha-Ka shadows the siblings. Cleverly adapting, Will and Holly communicate in code, via mirror and light refraction, to their father informing him they have found a lost city and are okay.

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The one flaw in the writing early on by Gerrold is making Will dumber than he appears. Given his age he should be a little sharper as tools go. Some of his retorts to Holly are just plain stupid. Holly deserves better intel, but he's a great big brother.

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So, walking in circles Holly continues to sound smarter than her elder brother. This may have contributed to my belief that girls were smarter than boys growing up, well, that, and a girl from my elementary school. Anyway, both surprise Cha-Ka who has been following them. Cha-Ka runs and Will gives chase smack dab into the loving arms of Spike, the resident, friendly, neighborhood Triceratops. The cheesy effects are amazingly believable. Even today I still enjoy what they were able to pull off once upon a time despite the horribly low budget.

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It's also worth noting that whoever mixed the audio track on these video to DVD transfers did a horrendous job as sound effects and music, including a moment in the initial theme song all slow down and speed back. That's unforgivable. You'll laugh out loud. It's audibly clear to the human ear and is simply unconscionable in this day and age.

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Will, Holly and Cha-Ka duck off behind a rock and evade the pursuing dinosaur. Will removes Cha-Ka's splint established in Episode 1, Cha-Ka.

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Will and Holly stumble upon some spray-painted writing on a rock, "BEWARE OF SLEESTAK." Who could have written those words in this crazy world? Of course, someday we'll find out more. Until then, suddenly, the bug-eyed Sleestaks swarm upon the kids with their scary hissing sound and abduct them. Cha-Ka runs off to find Rick Marshall to inform him of their abduction with his crazy Pakuni speak. Saturday morning adventure just got a whole lot more exciting with the arrival of one of the 1970s scariest creations. This was the stuff of nightmares for children the world over. NO BLOODY QUESTION ABOUT IT!

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Genuine Alien abduction!

Cha-Ka expresses with great fear and excitement that Will and Holly have been abducted. "Sareesa tacca! Sareesa tacca! Two sassa!" [translated as "Sleestaks! Sleestaks! Two children"- that's my take]. It's something to that effect, but see for yourself as Rick himself finally gets the hint that he needs to drop the conversation with monkey boy and move along from this first of many wildly frantic Cha-Ka pleas to come his way.

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The creepy accompanying score provides a good bit of mood to the series. The soundtrack is a wonderful accompaniment throughout the series, which is why it's so maddening to see the DVD producers paid little mind to getting it right. Truth be told, it doesn't appear much care was given to the video or audio mastering and was more or less a one shot deal at getting the series onto DVD with no budget. Adherence to a standard appears to have been a non-option.

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Will and Holly are ensnared in a net and hanging over a smoking pit where far below a great beast bellows a frightening, grumbling growl. It is none other than the Sleestak god. As a child the Sleestak god was more frightening than the dinosaurs. It was even more frightening than those horrifying Sleestaks. As kids we were scared of the Sleestaks to be sure, but here they were worshiping a faceless creature dubbed the Sleestak god. It had to be monstrous! It had to be uglier and worse than those green humanoid bugs if they were attempting to satiate its anger with the promise of human meat. Our youthful imagination ran wild over the potential that lived inside that smoking pit. We kept imagining a great beastly hand rising from the dry ice smoke below the net. But as Holly put it best, there was a "what's his name down there" and that was enough for us.

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Will finally proves to have some wit about him as a daring escape is made, but foiled by the nasty old Sleestaks.

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Against some extremely convincing mattes of this lost world and mysterious forgotten city, Rick Marshall and Cha-Ka band together complete with "torcha!," as Cha-Ka knows it, to ward off the incoming Sleestak and save the kids. Inside the creepy city's dark passageways and seemingly deep into the catacombs, Will and Holly are once again strung up netted and hanging over that pit of smoke in dire straits. Admittedly, quiet moments like this, in any great series, where the characters offer a bit of themselves, are the ones that lure us in with our affection for them.

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As Rick and Cha-Ka proceeded into the dark catacombs those bright, cheery, Captain Crunch-infested Saturday mornings quickly became a terrifying place. No amount of Franken-berry or Boo-Berry could lighten the mood from those few terrifying moments until you knew the Marshalls were safe in that cave once again.

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One thing is certain Sleestaks do not like fire or bright light, thus I'm not exactly sure why they were prowling about in the middle of the day abducting Will and Holly. Perhaps it is the heat and not the light, which makes them recoil. Fortunately, Sleestak, as frightening as they are, are hardly fleet of foot. As a kid, I remember thinking the Sleestaks were so freakishly scary it appeared the sheer touch by one of them might very well melt your skin. I was terrified. Part of me secretly hoped and prayed they would rear their ugly heads on Saturday mornings, while part of me hoped for the sweet serenity of dinosaurs. Sleestaks were just off the scare charts! But again, they weren't fast, otherwise why Rick didn't just grab them and throw them to their deaths into the great void of their own Sleestak god comes as a surprise now. Yes, those Sleestaks were so scary the sheer sight of them could have you paralyzed in fear. Yes, Rick we forgive you.

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I was completely digging this Cha-Ka cam!

The sound of a great, roaring beast envelopes the cavernous city underground as the Sleestaks close-in on Rick Marshall and Cha-Ka. The torcha is knocked into the pit and into the horror below. The room is alight with anger and bright orange red light. The diversion lasts long enough for a rescue as the Sleestaks flee and the kids are saved. All escape in a nick of time. Even Cha-Ka is safe, who, funny enough, sat happily playing with Marshall's Zippo lighter in the bowels of the cavern pre-escape unwittingly awaiting the Sleestak's return before being pulled along to safety by the Marshalls. I wonder if Rick has a Zippo from Japan Zippo Station. I doubt it.

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In the end, the siblings still haven't filled those water jugs, but efforts to gather water have never been more fun or scary. These were short adventures on Saturday mornings and thank the Sleestak god, because my heart couldn't take much more. It was another childhood adventure from the imagination of Gerrold and the Krofft brothers. They brought to life the insanely well-crafted world of Altrusia in exciting and amazingly informative 22 minute Land Of The Lost classics. Series have done far less in 50 minutes. Though the video quality is near video transfer, getting lost inside this old land's charms may be worth the fun.

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The Sleestak God: B+

Writer: David Gerrold

Director: Dennis Steinmetz

Land Of The Lost S1 Ep1: Cha-Ka

The lasting legacy and magic of Star Trek: The Original Series' lived on in an odd way. It was unexpectedly channeled through some of its original writers into a Saturday morning feast. That quality television fare began with Star Trek: The Animated Series [1973-1974] followed by the extraordinary Land Of The Lost [1974-1976]. This iconic image says it all.
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My God, or more appropriately my Sleestak god, if there was ever a series that yearned for a little bit of fun-poking Mystery Science Theatre-style, it was Land Of The Lost [1974-1976], at least as evidenced in the pilot. That's not to say Land Of The Lost didn't have a whole lot of wonderfully sincere factors going for it, but a little unintentional humor now and again was certainly one of them. That aside, I remember Land Of The Lost for much more than its unintended humor. Land Of The Lost, as it does for many, holds a special place in the old heart chambers.

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As a kiddo, I loved Land Of The Lost and seeing it again it still has amazing charms and story and character elements that continue to elevate the childhood series into the classic science fiction arena. Land Of The Lost certainly ranks as one of those terrifically entertaining and influential series on this particular Sci-Fi Fanatic. A little Captain Crunch cereal, maybe Boo-Berry or Franken-berry, and some cozy, comfy feet pajamas and Saturday mornings were complete back in the day. My mom even threw in dough boys from time to time.

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That reminds me, remember when your fix for cartoons were locked into Saturday mornings? By God, 7:00 am until roughly noon were the golden hours. And boy when high noon rolled around it all came to a near screeching halt. What a shame! It was sheer torture for kids to get a cartoon fix back in the day. We were like addicts without the fix too. It wasn't pretty. We were high on Hawaiian punch and candy and without cartoons we brought our childhood adventures to life. It gave way to cowboy hats, plastic belts complete with six shooter cap guns loaded with red paper reels of explosive magic for pure, unbridled imaginative entertainment. All of this coupled with ray guns and even homemade weaponry and it was cowboys and aliens indeed.

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Land Of The Lost was chief among the classics of the day. It's no surprise then the series benefited from a host of science fiction writers many of whom brought their talents to Star Trek: The Original Series. David Gerrold [The Trouble With Tribbles], Norman Spinrad [The Doomsday Machine], Theodore Sturgeon [Amok Time & Shore Leave], Walter Koenig [obviously lived ST:TOS], D.C. Fontana [The Enterprise Incident among others] and science fiction author Larry Niven [who penned The Slaver Weapon for Star Trek: The Animated Series]. These writers and creators set the tone for a series with a developing mythology. Sound familiar? It should. Yes, when talented, smart writers are involved on a series, smart things happen and Land Of The Lost, while a children's program, was no exception. Writers weren't writing strictly for kids, but rather the bigger picture.

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Theme composer Linda Laurie recalls the Krofft mantra: "Don't patronize children. - take them on a ride, but never talk down to them." These creative people drove the engines of these inventions so that a quality end product resulted rather than the drivel of studio formula. Executive producer Albert Tenzer recognize times were good then. "Today, there are layers of bureaucracy." The visionary Sid and Marty Krofft managed to skirt those issues. They executed some wonderful programming like Far Out Space Nuts [1975], The Lost Saucer [1975], Sigmund And The Sea Monsters [1973] and H.R. Pufnstuf [1969], but Land Of The Lost is arguably one of their smartest and most enduring thanks to its bevy of fine writers and creative contributors. Series co-creator Allan Foshko, who worked for the Kroffts said it best, it was like "Alice In Wonderland or Journey to The Center Of The Earth with these people falling into another world. We had... magic."

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Writer David Gerrold, Season One story editor and mythology director, set the tone by writing Land Of The Lost, Season One, Episode 1, Cha-Ka. It's surprising Gerrold doesn't receive proper recognition in his career for his involvement in this series. I must tell you that I had no delusions that this nostalgic return to the Saturday morning serial from Sid & Marty Krofft was going to unveil a special effects masterpiece. Heck, I vividly remember that little raft projected onto some very bad blue screen [chroma key compositing] rapids to this day. Still, some of the special effects, created on a shoestring budget, do their job. I'm torn between the stop motion animation [Gene Warren & Wah Chang] or the dinosaur hand puppet, but both had me running for that cave as a child. An illusion is created right from the very outset of a fantastical, prehistoric, seemingly alternate reality or universe. Those superficial, artificial, early blue screen effects transport us into something truly bizarre and give Land Of The Lost its own unique feel and reality. And while Land Of The Lost certainly couldn't rival the production design of Space:1999, for a kid's program it was easily as good as Doctor Who.

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Magnificent set pieces were also filled with rich detail and make for an extraordinary, immersive experience. These sets, thanks to production designer Herman Zimmerman, on low grade home video filming were a Sid and Marty Krofft trademark. Zimmerman is known for his important contributions to Star Trek. He received four Emmy nominations for art direction on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Are you seeing a trend in quality here? Point to Sigmund and The Sea Monsters or any other and you'll see these painstakingly imaginative designs in all their splendor. The world known as Altrusia, as Land Of The Lost's lost world would come to be known, was certainly at the mercy of a children's budget, averaging 400 to 500 thousand dollars an episode.

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We must find a stick and thrust it into that terrifying hand puppet!

John Kenneth Muir said it best in his own Sci-Tech #2: Altrusian Edition entry. "Despite the grievously low budget, there remains great visual consistency to the world of Altrusia. From the miniatures to the live action sets, from matte painting to the props, Altrusia seemed like a real living place...a place you could reach out to touch and explore. It's amazing how far that "tin foil" goes when creative minds are at work; creative minds determined not to talk down to children." Muir goes on to discuss the concept of balance or ying yang on Land Of The Lost and makes a very strong case for its importance on the show and its applicability in our own lives. There's loads more Land Of The Lost over at John Kenneth Muir's Reflections On Film/TV. Surprisingly, finding historical reference material on the series is limited and John Kenneth Muir's site has a good deal of it thanks to extensive interviews that can be found there.

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Thanks to the wonderful imaginations of those involved on Land Of The Lost, a great deal of information is delivered in these wonderful little 22 minutes installments and Cha-Ka is a reasonably sharp, if clunkily overacted, tablesetter. Let's kick things off with that unforgettable classic river song composed by Linda Laurie. A lot of information can be gleaned from the images of the Grand Canyon and our Ranger father Rick Marshall.

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When that theme ends, the Boy Wonder logically asked, "How come they wake up in their raft underneath Grumpy? Where is the water?" Good question Boy Wonder! I don't know. But I do know one thing, every Saturday I woke up in that raft with the family and every Saturday I ran up into that cave from the jaws of dinosaur death. So, yes, I'm not sure how they got there, but I never really cared and I went over those falls every week plunging into pure action adventure bliss.

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From the opening credits of that insanely catchy theme song we are hurled into another place and time and transported into a reality of fake prehistoric vegetation, palm trees and hairy monkey men called Pakuni. Land Of The Lost was special because it was more than than a mere pre-historic Earth, but rather a peculiar, strange, science fiction mix of the tribal and modern. Questions surrounding strange technologies and unique creatures populated the show's mythology coupled with that of the dinosaur-era, which kids love, and it was sign us up! Dinosaurs and aliens! Was there ever a more perfect combination? Can you imagine what could have been achieved with a budget? Oh, that's right, the 2009 Will Ferrell movie. Oh well. While the Land Of The Lost series is far from perfect, the results were amazing considering what the series had working against it. Limitations aside, it will keep you thoroughly engaged, amused and lost in its world long after the close of that insanely catchy and memorable closing theme track.

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I was totally crushing on Holly.

Land Of The Lost may have had little going for it financially, but the care from its creators, actors, writers and other team members saw it achieve lofty aspirations and spring its way onto a list of certified sci-fi cult classics. It's not done too badly for a kid's show thanks to the talent that showed up in spades.

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You can look past the imperfect effects limitations, because they do sufficiently transport the viewer into the alternate universe that is Land Of The Lost and that's half the challenge. The fun begins there, but ends with a charming cast of enthusiastic actors with loads of heart and some wonderfully delicious little tales.

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Land Of The Lost does very well out of the gate establishing the seedlings of an ongoing mythology that becomes more densely woven as it proceeds along. Land Of The Lost wasn't your ordinary children's program on Saturday mornings. As I explained to the Boy Wonder, Land Of The Lost was superior entertainment back in my day. He scoffs choking at the notion as he watches with amusement by what he sees. He's partially appalled and partially intrigued by the experience. Land Of The Lost does have that effect on a contemporary child beyond a certain age. No longer do the eyes deceive or generate the magic they once spawned. Nevertheless, even still, it captures his attention, because the show drives along at a nice pace with some interesting plot points. Cha-Ka gets busy right away with establishing the mythology of its world and the rules by which its three primary characters, Rick Marshall, Will and Holly, will live. I'm sad to say, but my son was bored to tears by my recent attempt to indoctrinate him with Ray Harryhausen's The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad. He laughed at the once, state-of-the-art animation sequences. It was an amusing experience. With Land Of The Lost he sticks around, because it is fun. It's certainly not my intention to compare Sid & Marty Krofft's Land Of The Lost to Harryhausen's work by any stretch. But the fact of the matter is, the Krofft's knew how to deliver adventure and Land Of The Lost was indeed a cut above in scope to their other works.

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A pylon is introduced, Grumpy the dinosaur, the Pakuni tribe and Rick Marshall alludes to those three moons. It's all eerie good fun in the land of the lost. Our heroes are also thrust from their Earthbound camping adventure to one in which they are forced to literally live off the land and off human ingenuity. Modern convenience is gone and its back to the stone age of a sort for this crew. We share in their plight, their adventure and root for their survival and that is why we are attached to the series from the very moment they run from their raft into the safe confines of that unforgettable cave dwelling that becomes their cozy, little safety net and home away from the jaws of the dinosaurs. Now I'm not sure whose brain is smaller Will or Grumpy? But seriously Will, would you keep your squash down, that's a T-Rex brother. In fact, when Holly mocks Grumpy's brain is only the size of a walnut, you half-wonder if she isn't talking about her brother.

Will Marshall clearly the walnut of the family based on this move.

It was all about discovery for them and for the viewers and in the capable hands of Gerrold, there was much to discover indeed. As a child, anytime you're attempting to survive being chased by dinosaurs and then up the ante with a race of green-skinned, bug-eyed Sleestak creatures you've got our attention. Things certainly weren't normal here and we were completely captured by the imagination of those who designed this place.

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Some of the clunky dialogue or simplistic lessons for which Rick Marshall shares with Will and Holly are cute and funny, because they are child-like in their nature, but beyond those lessons there was much more. There's a greater plan at work and those elements do materialize even here in the series Pilot. Still, comical moments like Holly asking if she can keep Cha-Ka like the family pet after her father mends his leg are pretty damn classic. Her Dad deadpans a retort of "No Holly, people don't own other people." Sure, the delivery is a little stiff, but the cast is just getting comfortable.

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The continuity is strong here as well, because Cha-Ka will retain that splint into Episode 2, The Sleestak God. Other gems include Rick's facts of life advice to Holly following Cha-Ka's departure, "It takes a lot of trust to make a friend Holly, maybe next time." Thanks Marshall for the Land Of The Lost life lessons. You can't tell me that isn't amusing, but there's much sincerity here even if the cast is just warming up.

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Friends, I have to give credit where credit is due. Land Of The Lost even lured The One To Be Pitied into this flashback viewing. She noticed this classic moment of Thespian timing. It is a pure classic funny. The Boy Wonder had me rewind the scene five times. Despite the wonderful drama and excitement, you can't help but find humor in it. Kathy Coleman may well be the second finest of the three actors here behind the wonderful Spencer Milligan. Seriously, Coleman as Holly is very good. Note the arm bump as Coleman nudges Wesley Eure to speak his line here. She completely schools her older counterpart.

Thanks for the big ass fruit Chaka! The family will be having apple for dinner.

Sure, it has its hokey moments, but it's good, clean hokey fun. The actors all play the excitement and adventure for real and for keeps, which is why we buy into the story. There are times when they ham it up to the point of overboard, but this improves in future entries. If I recall, the actors do calm down, the writing strengthens and their performances tend to smooth out and become more natural as the series progresses. Those introductory episodes can be rough going for any show, especially for a Saturday morning program clearly filming with one take. Still, Land Of The Lost, despite its weaknesses [essentially video and audio quality], which are few, is a refreshing original. It manages to capture the imagination and allow viewers to fill in the world outside of the camera frame thanks to some wonderfully simple, panoramic shots that bridge the action sequences throughout the series.

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It's unlikely to win new fans over, like ST:TOS, but in its time it was a monster hit with this generation. Those kids have now grown up and those that have taken the time to reinvestigate have discovered there was something special indeed about Land Of The Lost. Like any good show seen through the eyes of a child there had to be more than nostalgia that appealed to us. There had to be something more for a classic to be remembered, something greater creatively, and Land Of The Lost has all of those hallmarks in spades. The Incredible Hulk TV series was more than just an angry, green monster. There was something deeply psychological that probed that series for its five season run. Space:1999 was far more complex than the Eagle landing. A great many questions about humanity were explored in its two seasons. The Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman dealt with humanity, survival, acceptance and a whole gamut of issues and emotions under the surface glare of bionic action. Land Of The Lost, too, required intelligence and imagination to decipher complex, adult themes [like time paradoxes] realized within a lost pocket world of something refreshingly new and different beyond the employment of mere rubber dinosaurs. It was a series of lost survivors making their way into uncharted space and brought the viewers on a journey of discovery with them into a place like nothing we had ever seen. It was a series that embraced a strong idea and had fun doing it. It just happened to be on Saturday mornings. But it was science fiction with ultimately bigger ambitions than its budget might suggest. It's cult status looms large today and if it hadn't been more than just a children's show it surely would have been lost long ago.

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Cha-Ka: B

Writer: David Gerrold

Director: Dennis Steinmetz

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Cast:

Spencer Milligan [Rick Marshall]

Wesley Eure [1951-present] [Will Marshall] [credited simply as Wesley]

Kathy Coleman [1962-present] [Holly Marshall]