Elsewhere and elsewhen : parallel universes and the dangers of interdimensional travel in Land of the Lost

Abstract

While the 1974-76 American television series Land of the Lost is often derided in popular culture circles as having been nothing more than an example of the poorly acted and executed children’s television series of its time, a closer reading demonstrates that there is far more of substance to the show than its legendarily campy stop-motion dinosaurs would suggest. Guest writers for the series included such well-known science and science fiction authors as Ben Bova, Larry Niven, Walter Koenig, and Theodore Sturgeon, who penned hard science fiction plotlines that dealt with cutting-edge topics such as the paradoxes of time travel, antimatter, parallel universes, and the geometry of space-time. This essay investigates numerous instances in which Land of the Lost both accurately portrays the scientific knowledge of its day, and presages more recent developments in the field of time travel. It is argued that Land of the Lost therefore deserves to be reconsidered by academics and science educators interested in popular culture depictions of time travel and related fields of theoretical physics, alongside more often explored works such as Lost and Doctor Who.