Land of the Lost and other old shows

Cafe Society
1

Apparently there was a Land of the Lost marathon on TV last weekend. A buddy of mine from back from home called me and told me how it was bringing back childhood memories. Today miy wife gave me the complete series on DVD.

While wathing it I wondered…did any of those old shows where people were lost somewhere EVER end with them finding a way home? I haven’t finished LotL in its entirety or seen the movie, but as far as I know they never got home. I don’t mean like in Gilligan’s Island, where the castaways eventually make it home in a movie made after the series ending. there are probably more but these shows come to mind. Am I wrong or did they end with no resolution?

Space 1999: The residents of Moonbase Alpha never found a home during the series.
The Lost Saucer: Another Sid and Marty Krofft show…and I don’t think tthey ever got back home either.
Lost in Space: I don’t think the Robinsons made it back to Earth or Alpha Centauri after the series ended at all.I guess the same can be said for Land of the Giants, though I have little knowledge of that show.

2

Generally not, as close-ended story arcs were not the norm in those days. Shows that actually come to a planned conclusion after a certain number of seasons seem to be a fairly recent innovation. Even these days they may try to keep things open-ended as they strive to figure out just how many seasons they’ll run - hence the padding and stretching of shows like BSG and Lost in their middle seasons.

Re:Land of the Lost I believe you will find a “conclusion” of sorts, but it is one of that might be a bit slightly frustrating for some ( if clever for a kiddy show ).

3

I grew up in the burbs of Chicago. For kids of my age, and younger, the reference begins with [something older than the “original.”](with Journey to the Beginning of Time - Wikipedia)

I hate Will Ferral (misspellings due to my NOT FUCKING CARING!). He has never been funny. The film’s supporting cast seems funny.

4

Among old series, the one notable exception was “The Fugitive”. Its final episode was then one of the most-watched programs of all time. However, conventional wisdom later arose stating that having such a big series-ending climax was a bad idea because it hurt efforts to sell reruns of “The Fugitive” in syndication. Supposedly, because everybody knew how the series turned out, the suspense would be gone and nobody would watch.

5

DZ, we agree on the Will Ferrell thing. He’s not funny. I kind of want to see the movie, but I probably won’t and its mostly because of Ferrell.

6

Space:1999 did have an ending, just not one in which they return to Earth.

They find a habitable planet, set up a quick colony there, & watch as the Moon leaves the system.

Of course, all of this happens in a voice-over, at the end of the final episode.

7

Not an old show, but the recent BSG had a similar plot. In the end, they:

Find a planet that is habitable and deem it “Earth” and live out their days there.

8

While a kids show I have a dim memory of the final episode of Far Out Space Nuts. Barney and Junior somehow get back to Earth, but in the end decide to return to space wandering. I’m not sure if that actually happened or not.

9

I remember that episode. They somehow return to earth before they accidently went to space. There sad and going through the motion when the one guy says, “lunch” and Bob Denver’s character hits the right button that time. After thinking about it, they agree to hit “launch” and return to space.

10

No, actually that happened in a fan-made film that was actually made in the year 1999.

11

One of the reasons I knew I was going to hate ST: Voyager was because it was going to be the ST version of ‘Gilligan’s Island’.

In other words, no matter what they did, it would not let them get home, so you knew how every episode was going to end up.

At least not until the series became unprofitable.

12

I finished watching the LotL series last night. It kind of made me sad, to not have a canon explanation to know what happened to the Marshalls.

I have never seen it, but in the 90’s remake I’ve read that the jungle girl character was originally planned to be Holly Marshall all grown up. Thats not what happened in the series, but I think it would have been a good idea. At least it would have been a bit of closure to the original series.

I mean, heck, what happened to Will Robinson in Lost in Space. (Yeah, I know Bill Mumy was in Babylon 5 so you don’t have to tell me he became a mindari priest). As the youngest of the family did he live out his days lost in space with only the Robot as company? Or did the Robinsons eventually find their way back to Earth or Alpha Centauri? We’ll never know canon wisw I guess.