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Land of the Lost
"Circle"
Written by Larry Niven and David Gerrold
Directed by Dennis Steinmetz
Original airdate: December
28, 1974 |
Enik
discovers a time-loop in the time doorway caused by the
Marshalls'
presence in the Land of the Lost.
Read the complete story summary by Nels Olsen
Notes from the
Marshall Timeline
I've placed
"Circle" significantly out of its airdate order. In "Circle" the
Marshalls are depicted as discovering, for the first time, the
Sleestak in their dormant season, hence it seems only logical
that it should take place sometime before
"Follow That Dinosaur"
in which the Marshalls are already aware of the Sleestaks'
hibernation status and actually witness the end of
their dormancy when the lava rises in the Devil's Cauldron.
Didja Notice?
Rick swims with a t-shirt on. Maybe Spencer Milligan didn't want
to show off his gut?
After Will discovers an underwater cavern at the water hole,
Rick remarks the whole area is honeycombed with caverns and
tunnels just like in the Lost City. This makes them worried that
the Sleestak could come up in their region at any time. The
tunnels would have to go pretty far down and then come back up
to get past the deep crevasse the Marshalls have had to cross to
reach the Lost City in the past. And why haven't the Sleestak
used the tunnels to reach this region before? In
"The Hole", S'latch said that any
Sleestak who have crossed the crevasse have never returned. That
said, the Marshalls do enter the underwater cavern and
eventually wind up in Enik's cave with the time doorway, so the
tunnels on this side of the crevasse do go all the way
to the Lost City.
After emerging from the water in the underground cavern and
putting their regular clothes back on, the Marshalls appear to
be completely dry as they investigate the tunnels...even their
hair!
The Sleestak emerging from the lagoon when he's chasing Holly
may have been inspired by the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
It's a great, creepy shot. If you freeze-frame it, you can see
lots of water rushing out of the mask's nostrils and mouth. It
must have been an uncomfortable situation for the actor!
There are Sleestak scenes in several of the episodes, including
this one, in which there appears to be a problem with the
Sleestak eyes; there seems to be a partial covering or something
showing through the plastic lenses of the mask, possibly the
shiny, patterned stickers that David Gerrold says were placed
inside the sockets to create a multi-faceted impression to the
eyes. To me the No-Prize answer to this inconsistency to the
Sleestak eyes is that they have a nictitating membrane that
occasionally covers the eye.
In fear from the Sleestak that follows her to the surface of the
water hole, Holly pulls a pair of blue and yellow crystals out
of a backpack and tosses it towards to the water to produce a
blinding flash that forces the Sleestak back underwater. Blue
and yellow crystals are not a combination seen before; in the
past it has been green and red that produced a brief light. And
besides this error, how could the two crystals Holly tossed
through the air, into the water, stay in contact long enough to
produce a light long enough to frighten off a Sleestak? It would
have been more logical to have her throw a red and yellow,
which, when in contact with each other, produce an explosive
effect.
At 6:38 on the DVD, Holly is suddenly completely dry again,
despite having swum up to the water hole in her clothes just
minutes before.
Why do the Triceratops, Coelophysis and Brontosaurus all rush to
drink from the lagoon at the same time? And leave at the same
time? Are they a gang?
At 7:53 on the DVD, Enik says, "They cannot harm you, Will
Human." Will Human?
Listen:
Will human.wav
Enik tells Will about the law of conservation of temporal
momentum and ultradimensional matrices, explaining that nothing
can leave through the time doorway unless something of equal
mass and temporal energy enters.
Enik shows Will an aerial view of a canyon through the
time doorway at 10:21 on the DVD and Will immediately declares
that it's Earth. For the TV viewer, we know it is the same
introductory scene from the open titles each week, but how does
Will know it's on Earth and not somewhere in the Land of the
Lost or another world?
At 10:45 on the DVD, Will states there was a mist he and
his family fell through as the passed through the time doorway
after their raft went over the waterfall (in
"Arrival").
Enik instructs Rick to pull a white crystal from the wall
and place it on the matrix table to open the time doorway. As
far as is known, this step was not required in order for Rick to
(accidentally) pass through a time doorway at the beginning of
season three in "After-Shock".
At 20:51 on the DVD, Enik touches his pendant. Is this
what causes the scene in the time doorway to change from that of
Earth to the Marshalls' arrival in the Land of the Lost?
After the Marshalls step through the time doorway and
Enik watches their arrival in the Land, we are shown the scene
of them taking refuge in the cave at High Bluff and we see
Grumpy start to walk away. And though we don't see it, we get to
hear the roar he makes as he "looks into the camera" from the
last shot of the weekly opening credits.
The cave at High Bluff is much more cluttered
with rocks and dirt as seen here; the Marshalls cleaned it up
quite a bit before the beginning of "Cha-Ka".
Something must happen to undue/prevent the events
of "Circle" since the Marshalls continue to exist in the Land of
the Lost and never mention the events in any subsequent episode
this season or the next two seasons.
Notes from the audio commentary by David Gerrold and Larry
Niven
Gerrold reveals that the
idea for the crystals found in the Land of the Lost were inspired by
Harlan Ellison's original script for the Star Trek episode
"The City on the Edge of Forever".
Gerrold says the idea behind the Land of the Lost
is that it is a staging area for travelling between worlds.
Rick Marshall was written as Gerrold's idea of a
role-model father.
Gerrold remarks that whenever fire is used on the
show they always had one of the characters telling the others to be
careful. He didn't want kids watching the show to be inspired to
play with fire. (In my case the "carefuls" didn't make much of an
impression...my friend Casey and I used to run around with makeshift
torches inside an old mine tunnel near my house as if it were the
Lost City!)
Memorable Dialog
Will human.wav
ultradimensional matrices.wav
equal mass and temporal energy.wav
we can't leave here either.wav
the puzzling
part.wav
Daddy do
something.wav
if we didn't fall through the time doorway.wav
the balance of the doorways.wav
again and
again.wav
until the paradox is resolved.wav
tentative
solution.wav
a nightmare within a nightmare.wav
I could
save you.wav
against the
code.wav
the raft
will fall.wav
you must
go through.wav
Mister Enik.wav
farewell.wav
safe place.wav
we'll
get back home.wav
g'nactic.wav
People, Places and Things
(Provided by Michael Taylor)
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