Planet der Giganten

In 1968, when Land of the Giants first aired, I was a 9 year old kid back home in the Philippines. I do not remember much of the episodes by story, only bits and pieces of it. Like the giant gun the little guys used to shoot the giant that was after them. The ax they used made of a match stick and half a razor blade. Air ducts to escape and of course, my personal favorite... the Spindrift! I was most fascinated by the realistic props that were created than the plot of the whole thing. I focused on the small items that we normally see around the house and outside our backyards, transformed into colossal objects that can hardly be moved 5 feet without the help of your friends and a serious workout.

The Spindrift is the reason I became a model maker. I do not know how many times I've made the Spindrift out of cardboard. This was because, in my country at the time, there were no merchandising of any kind for any TV series or movie. And now, thanks to the internet, I just purchased a model of the Spindrift and the entire 51 episodes of the series (as I type this comment out, I'm still waiting for my order to get here). This time I can focus more on the storyline. Of course the impact will not be as great considering there have been tons of Sci-fi movies with way more advanced FX since then like Star Wars. But the memories live on and to me, Land of the Giants will always be the best Sci-fi TV series ever made! I don't care what other people say!

Scientists may not approve ( I don't think it was aimed at them anyway! ) but in the U.K. in 1969 'Land Of The Giants' was a smash hit. At school on Monday mornings, the number one talking point in the playground was the latest episode of 'Land'. I would try to steer the conversation towards the ongoing saga of 'Dr.Who' in 'The War Games', but it was no use. 'Land' had Britain's children ensnared in its grip. It was kind of like 'Planet Of The Apes' in that it too featured a group of humans who, after passing through a 'space warp', find themselves marooned on a strange world where evolution has taken a different turn. As you'd expect from an Irwin Allen series, characterisation was barely in evidence, but the show boasted some amazing S.F.X. sequences, intriguing story lines such as 'Ghost Town', and the excellent Kevin Hagen as the sinister Inspector Kobick of the S.I.D. As was the case with a lot of U.S. sci-fi shows, the novelty soon wore off - 'Land' was cancelled after two seasons.

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.

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.

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.