The original 1970s Land of the Lost seems to be a very special memory for the great majority of those who were pre-schoolers/grade schoolers in the 1970-1980 period, despite a few annoying downbeat reviews. In my own case, I recall LoL being one of my favorite memories of Saturday mornings in the '70s, one of the best "live action cartoons". Others of that sort were Shazam, Isis, Ark II, etc., but LoL outdid them all, and yes, I have seen the DVD releases as an adult - the defects are obvious, true. The acting could have been better(although I always found Kathy Coleman very good as Holly - were there any of us guys who didn't have a crush on her?) No doubt the dinosaurs were a big part of the attraction for many(I assume the creators of the land of lost brought them there at some point before their civilization fell), the Sleestak, and so on. Enik was often a fun character as well(played by late Walker Edmiston), who was from the period when the "Altrusians" were civilized, and built the land - sort of a traveling dimensional-door repairman, I guess, who became stranded in the land's future himself. The episode with the remains of the Revolutionary War soldiers stuck in the memory, esp. when the Sleestak revive near the climax, the Pylon Express was another good one. For the record, the Krofts were noted for being penny pincher's when it came to just about everything, special effects included. Then, any 1970s-era live action sci-fi Saturday morning series has cheesy effects by todays standards, for crying out loud, people! True enough, the 3rd season wasn't as good when Ron harper replaced Spencer Millgan - Rick Marshall(Milligan) fell through a pylon-dimension dorr during an earthquake) and Uncle Jack(Harper) came in to replace him while searching for the family. Harper was a good actor, but let down by lower-quality scripts('though I did enjoy some of the mythological aspects like bringing in Medusa). The songs Will sung that final season were indeed awful, though...
The mid-2000's DVD release in 3 volumes has a number of interviews, and commentaries which are missing on the later single-set re-issue, so try to get those, if possible. The 1992 TV remake despite great effects is a quite bad series, one which didn't last a full two seasons - not issued on disc, but I would say avoid it in any case.
The mid-2000's DVD release in 3 volumes has a number of interviews, and commentaries which are missing on the later single-set re-issue, so try to get those, if possible. The 1992 TV remake despite great effects is a quite bad series, one which didn't last a full two seasons - not issued on disc, but I would say avoid it in any case.