One of Irvin Allen's sci- fi/fantasy TV Series, Land of the Giants
was his fourth and last produced sci-fi show (others are Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Time Tunnel), which was marked as high budget episodes record for the series (about $ 250,000) and highest rated show.
The Land of the Giants' story was started when the Spindrift spaceship take the commercial sub-orbital flight in 1983 from New York City to London, boarding three crews and four passengers. Accidentally, Spindrift crash when they hit a strange turbulence and enter a mystical cloud space warp (later learned as "dimensional lock") and land into a Earth like planet, inhabited with very large creatures compare to than the Earth's normal size. The never named planet is evolved in different turn, humans are about 12 times the natural size of Spindrift's passengers, the animals huge like cats that roars and as large as a lion. The castaways' missions are: to survive and hunt for their food, to escape from totalitarian government who rules the planet, to run from animals hunting them for meal & giant children wanted them as toys, and opportunist & giant scientist hunting them to use their advance technology. The castaways managed to survive with the help of good giants but find hard to repair the damaged Spindrift with about 50 years less technology of giants.
was his fourth and last produced sci-fi show (others are Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Time Tunnel), which was marked as high budget episodes record for the series (about $ 250,000) and highest rated show.The Land of the Giants' story was started when the Spindrift spaceship take the commercial sub-orbital flight in 1983 from New York City to London, boarding three crews and four passengers. Accidentally, Spindrift crash when they hit a strange turbulence and enter a mystical cloud space warp (later learned as "dimensional lock") and land into a Earth like planet, inhabited with very large creatures compare to than the Earth's normal size. The never named planet is evolved in different turn, humans are about 12 times the natural size of Spindrift's passengers, the animals huge like cats that roars and as large as a lion. The castaways' missions are: to survive and hunt for their food, to escape from totalitarian government who rules the planet, to run from animals hunting them for meal & giant children wanted them as toys, and opportunist & giant scientist hunting them to use their advance technology. The castaways managed to survive with the help of good giants but find hard to repair the damaged Spindrift with about 50 years less technology of giants.
Established method to reach the planet in Land of the Giants are:
- can be reached by some high altitude spacecrafts interact with low-defined "time warp"
- some postulate that the planet is in the same orbit with the Earth in either 6 months forward or backward
In the final episodes, they manage to return to the time during the Spindrift flight using an alien device "space time manipulator" and relive the original trip again. The interesting classic sci-fi story of "Land of the Giants" by Irvin Allen, the series completed 2 seasons with 51 episodes, aired from 1968 to 1970, now available on DVD.
The Land of Giants Characters:
The Crew
- Steve Burton (played by Gary Conway) was the captain of the ship; he was your rugged all-American do-gooder type.
- Dan Erickson (played by Don Marshall) was the trusty co-pilot and flight engineer.
- Betty Hamilton (played by Heather Young) completed the crew as stewardess; she always wore very short skirts and bizarrely coloured outfits.
The Passengers
- Mark Wilson (played by Don Matheson) was an expert and arrogant engineer, who just happened to have had a major hand in the development of the Spindrift.
- Valerie Scott (played by Deanna Lund) the sexy jet-setter and the spoilt rich actress of the group.
- Barry Lockridge (played by Stefan Arngrim) a young boy, accompanied by his loveable mutt Chipper.
- Alexander Fitzhugh (played by Kurt Kaznar) completed the passenger roster; the mysterious rogue known as Commander Fitzhugh.
