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"Dreammaker"
Written by Len Janson and Chuck Menville
Directed by Frank DePalma
Original airdate:
September 19, 1992 |
When the Porters
start receiving Earth T.V. broadcasts, they suspect a portal has
opened…but they instead find their old
San Francisco
neighborhood in the middle of the jungle.
Didja Know?
Many fans (by many, I mean me) consider this to be the best
episode of LOTL90. It's a lot of fun and even has a bit of an
homage to LOTL70 in the form of the pylon shape and crystal
table comprising the ancient dreammaker device left behind by
the Sleestak civilization.
Didja Notice?
As Tom lays sleeping in bed, he starts to hear the sounds of
Earth civilization in the night: a jet airplane flying overhead,
traffic with car horns, a siren; all caused by the dreammaker
device. Was Tom already dreaming these things and his brain
waves were picked up by the dreammaker? At 0:34 in the episode,
we hear a police siren and see flashing red light reflecting
over Tom, then we hear a car door open and close. Tom gets up to
investigate, but the sounds and lights have vanished. In the
morning, Tom finds a parking ticket on the Jeep; why would a cop
have his siren and police lights on just so he could drive up
and write a parking ticket? In a real world scenario that
wouldn't make sense, but in a person's dream it might happen.
At 2:21 in the episode, a tremor strikes and Tom comments "it's
just an aftershock from yesterday's quake." Then the family
simply continues about their chores. Given the events of past
episodes (see
"Day for Knight" and
"Flight to
Freedom"), wouldn't the Porters, whenever a quake is felt,
immediately check their portable TV for interference, indicating
a portal has opened nearby?
The parking ticket the Porters find on the Jeep is a lot of fun
for sharp-eyed fans.
- It has the correct date of
the day this episode was first aired on ABC,
9/19/1992. The prop master must have known when the
new season was starting and the airing order of the
episodes they were shooting. While reading the
ticket, Tom calls it the "correct date", so the
Porters must be diligently marking the number of days they've been
lost in this world. (The time the ticket was written
shows as 1:26 a.m., which Tom comments is about the
time he heard the noises in the middle of the
night.)
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The ticket also has the correct license plate number
of the Porter's Jeep, as shown in the first season
episode "Flight to Freedom", 1MQH238.
- The address on the ticket shows as 25261
Morningside. Is this the Porter's home address in
San Francisco? (By the way, I tried to look up the
SF address on Google Maps. That particular address
does not exist, but there is a Morningside Dr. in
the city. The street level view does not look like
the neighborhood seen in this episode.)
- The signature of the issuing officer reads R.
Wright. Richard Wright was the prop master on the
show!
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Kevin's portable TV starts to pick up an Earth broadcast of
Kevin's favorite show, The Turbo Twins. At 5:13, we can
clearly see that the scenes shown are actually from the Krofft's
own 1976
Electra-Woman and Dyna-Girl show!
When the Porters decide to search for a possible open portal to
Earth, they worry about Christa's whereabouts. Tom says "Don't
worry, we won't leave without her." Did they forget that Christa
had already stated in "Flight to Freedom"
that the Land is her home and she will stay?
Stink says that Christa has gone hunting and will be gone for
two days. Is this why she has also been MIA in the recent
previous episodes, i.e. she has a habit of going hunting over a
period of several days?
At 7:10 in the episode, the Porters see a Parasaurolophus and
Annie states, "It's Mama Two-Legs." Kind of a strange name to
drop in without explanation for a dinosaur individual we've
never seen before. Is she called Mama because they know she has
babies somewhere? And why add Two-Legs to the name?
Paleontologists have determined that the species spent part of
the time walking on all four legs, so perhaps the Porters have
noticed that this particular individual prefers to move around
on two most of the time.
After they've discovered their Earth neighborhood in the
middle of the jungle and decide to
enter their house, they apparently find the door unlocked. Later
in the evening, after returning to the tree-house, Kevin
comments that everything in the Earth house was just like they
left it. So, are they in the habit of leaving on vacation
without locking the front door? That should have been the first
tip-off to them that all wasn't as it seemed.
At 9:39 in the episode, Kevin and Tom look at a family portrait
that was sitting on a shelf in the home's living room. The three
family members "coincidentally" all have their second season hair
styles in it!
What is the Porters' favorite cereal? Well, when Kevin goes into
the kitchen, a box of Honey Bunches of Oats can be seen on top
of the refrigerator. Kevin also seems to be partial to the ice
cream snack called a Drumstick; he pulls one out of the freezer
and feeds it to Tasha, which she seems to swallow whole. Ice
cream headache, anyone?
As far as other recognizable food brands in the kitchen, there
appears to be a can of Reddi-Whip and a jar of Grey Poupon in
the refrigerator door. Other brands are not identifiable.
On the first day, the refrigerator light appears to be out. It
doesn't come on when Kevin opens the refrigerator door. But the
next day as Tasha is raiding the fridge, there appears to be
a light on inside. I think the real answer is that the
refrigerator was a non-working one brought in for the shoot. On the
"second day" of the Porters' visit, as the house turns against
them, vegetables and containers start flying out from the
fridge, so there is probably a false back to it that was removed
for the flying vegetables scene and it is light from the other
side that we are seeing.
At 12:07 in the episode, Tasha appears to be drinking a bottle
of ketchup!
Although the events are different, when the house turns against
the Porters, I am reminded of the
Poltergeist house.
At 14:47 in the episode, Kevin and Annie receive a phone call
from their dead mother! Although uncredited in this episode, the
voice does sound like the same actress, Marta DuBois, who plays
Natasha Porter's
doppelganger in the later episode "Siren's Song".
Back at the tree-house, after a bad experience with plastic
fruit at the Porter home, Stink squeezes a grape to ensure its
authenticity. Satisfied the grapes are real, he throws the
squeezed grape on the floor and plucks a fresh one from the
bunch. Considering he is willing to eat bugs he picks off of
himself, couldn't he have eaten the crushed grape instead of
wasting it?
And speaking of Stink in the tree-house, didn't Tom decree (in
"The Thief") that the Paku should only enter when someone was
home? Yes, it turned out that the thief in that episode was a
pterodactyl and not Stink, but it still seems like a generally
good idea to not have your friends in the house without
permission when you're not there!
As Stink sits in the tree-house eating grapes, he turns on the
portable TV and sees the events now occurring at the house as
the house attacks and traps the Porters. Why would the
dreammaker show this to him? I guess it was reading Stink's
thoughts just as it was the humans' and Stink must have been
wondering what the Porters were up to.
At 17:48 in the episode, the furniture menacing Kevin, Annie, and
Tasha appears to be making monstrous noises during the attack.
Listen:
furniture
Seeing the Porters in trouble on the TV, Stink races to help
them. The neighborhood must not be very far from the tree-house
because he arrives very quickly while the human family is still
fighting off the same menaces of furniture and, in Tom's case,
the garage door.
The scene from 18:55-19:22 is the coolest in the history of
LOTL90. Pre-dating the second Jurassic Park film by 5
years, Scarface comes stomping and roaring through the
residential neighborhood, tipping over a parked sports car and
ripping off the passenger door with his teeth before flinging it
away.
When our heroes run into the dreammaker cave, the humans all
start to get splitting headaches due to the proximity of the
device. It doesn't seem to affect Stink, which is odd since the
dreammaker seemed to "interact" with him by showing him the
images of the Porters on the TV earlier.
At 20:35 in the episode, Tom comments that the Sleestak were on
the surface "centuries ago." How does he know it's been
centuries?
Pakuni translations |
Time in
episode |
Pakuni |
English |
7:43 |
Stink says,
"Malu!" |
"Bad!" |
12:19 |
Stink says
"nabuca" |
banana |
12:27 |
Stink says,
"Malu nabuca. Lazonga." |
"Bad banana.
Apple." |
17:20 |
Stink says,
"Malu." |
"Bad." |
20:18 |
Stink says,
"Malu. Malu." |
"Bad. Bad." |
20:30 |
Stink says,
"Malu." |
"Bad." |
Unanswered Questions
Obviously designed by the Sleestak long ago, Tom
speculates that the dreammaker was meant to trap intelligent
beings. But is that correct? How was it intended to trap? Once
it had lured them in would the Sleestak be waiting to capture
them?
Why does the illusion turn against the Porters at the end? Is it
because the dreammaker was running beyond its programming in
which the entrapped sentients should have been captured by the
Sleestak by now?
Might the dreammaker not be a trap, but a sort of recreational
device for the Sleestak, like the holodeck of Star Trek: The
Next Generation? The turning of the illusion against the
Porters may have just been a malfunction (again like the
holodeck!).
The conversation the Porters have after escaping
may even lend credence to this theory of the dreammaker as a
recreational device; Kevin comments, "No
wonder 3D movies never caught on!" to which Tom replies "Yeah,
too much of a good thing!"
When our heroes enter the dreammaker cave, Stink indicates he is
not familiar with it. The cave does not appear to be hidden at
all, so how could he and Christa have missed it after living in
the area most (or all) of their lives? Possibly the dreammaker
was dormant but with some kind of projection of camouflage over
the mouth of the cave and when the earlier quake reawakened it,
the illusion was dispelled and the dreammaker began it's
"normal" functioning again.
Memorable Dialog
dino disposal.wav
strange sounds.wav
parking ticket.wav
funny hoo-ha.wav
Turbo Twins.wav
nerdy hoo-ha.wav
it's our house.wav
probably Scarface.wav
it's
Mom.wav
too much of a good thing.wav
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