Land of the Giants deserved a longer run and one episode I recall was when Stefan Arngrim's character was saved from being spider food by an l guy who became the sacrificial lamb. This series, along with The Time Tunnel, were excellent 60s series and perhaps really deserves a reboot.I wonder how the family managed to eat and find miniature toilets and so on. Makes you wonder.

Having watched the whole run, it strikes me that Land of the Giants is really an elaborate Cold War metaphor. The giants themselves are like the old Soviet Empire during its heyday. At first blush they seem imposing, intimidating, seemingly impossible to overcome. Yet the giants are also clumsy and slow. Their society is like an old Marxist republic: dull, repressed, technologically backward; its denizens sullen if not malevolent. The giants are unwieldy and inefficient, like the bureaucracy of the state itself. The American "little people," thwart them time and again with Yankee ingenuity, creativity, and teamwork.The passengers and crew of the Spindrift are a disparate group with characteristics of "western decadence," (e.g., a rich, arrogant capitalist, a spoiled, shallow socialite, an opportunistic con artist.) Yet reflecting the ideal of American democracy, everyone pulls together when it counts, though perhaps after heated--and sometimes violent--debate.On the downside, the show often seems to be "Land of the Giant Plot-holes." At a twelfth size, the little people often seem to traverse the city impossibly fast. The Spindrift lights flash day and night, inviting investigation from any passerby. The idea of camouflage doesn't seem to occur to the little people. Maybe a canary yellow blouse and a fire engine red jumpsuit aren't the best fashion choices for avoiding notice. They're constantly hunting for food because grocery stores are hard to break into, yet they have little trouble in pharmacies when there's a need for medicine.I'll pass no judgment on the special effects; they were the best that TV could produce at the time, and many times hold up pretty well. However, the novelty of giant props like pencils and telephones wears off after a bit. The little people are forever climbing up and down the same table legs, ducking under the same doors, hiding against the same street curbs. It seems in retrospect that whole episodes could have been devoted to the problems of basic survival at a small size. How do they cross a small stream that to little people appears a mighty river? How do they deal with a nearby ant-hill? Instead, the plots are often fantastical and surreal, stretching the belief factor in a show that is pushing that envelope in the premise already.On the upside, the cast is a pretty good set of actors. Kurt Kaszner seems to have the most fun, and his brilliant panache at playing Fitzhugh is the only thing that makes that character tolerable. Don Matheson gets to have the next most fun as hot-headed Mark Wilson. Matheson shows great aplomb at spewing the techno-babble required of the character. It's also good to see an engineer who isn't portrayed as an awkward nerd. Kudos also to Gary Conaway for his understated hand with Captain Burton. Conaway looks like he came out of the same TV leading man factory that produced Robert Conrad and Christopher George. But I think Conaway was the better actor and it's a wonder he didn't have a more notable career.The women are good but horribly underwritten. Heather Young as Betty does get to show off her dancing and singing talents in the marionette episode. Otherwise, the character seems a template for a bland future soccer mom. One gets the impression that being a stewardess was just a prelude to catching a handsome pilot and having babies. The writers should have written her as a trained nurse, so at least they could involve her more for medical necessity. Deanna Lund gets to hint at Valerie's inner vixen, but never fully show it. This is a shame; they should have played it up, making her a foil for the dominant Burton and Wilson.This show is ripe for a reboot/revival. It would be cool to see the Sci-Fi Channel tackle Land of the Giants in the same way they did Battlestar: Galactica.

After "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," along with "Lost in Space" had made their four-year and three-year runs, respectively, Irwin Allen returned to television with this ambitious show about seven travelers (eight, if you count the dog) lost on a world wherein they are "six inch oddities" amongst giant EVERYTHING. The pilot episode, appropriately entitled "The Crash" was, by far, the best of the entire two-year life of the show. Featuring spectacular set pieces, a brilliant John Williams' score, and good (for the budget and the era) special optical effects, though the giant spider didn't work so well.It's a shame, however, that the show didn't live up to the promise of weekly adventure as exhibited in the pilot. It's obvious that Allen was looking for another Will Robinson/Dr. Smith pairing with the characters of Barry and Commander Fitzhugh. Though actors Stefan Arngrim and Kurt Kaszner did their best, the scripts and the interplay between the two was not convincing.As far as the other characters, they fit the typical stereotypes: the spoiled rich girl (Deanna Lund), the self-centered businessman (Don Matheson), the brave captain (Gary Conway), the dependable stewardess (Heather Young) and the "token" co-captain (Don Marshall). The latter has the distinction of being the sole African-American to star in an Irwin Allen television production; obviously, the producer was buckling, deservedly so, to have a better representation of the real look of America, as well as the world.Of the four shows produced by Allen during the 60's, "Land of the Giants" possibly is the most difficult to categorize or even to recommend. It's not campy enough to be remembered as fondly as "Lost in Space"; it's not as adventurous as the underwater adventures of the submarine Seaview in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"; and neither is it as innovative as the time travelers in the shorter-lived "The Time Tunnel" It's just a nice trip down memory lane for those of us that happened to have been around when Sunday nights meant "Lassie," "The Ed Sullivan Show," "Bonanza," and, of course, for two years, "Land of The Giants".

Clearly someone knew what they were doing with this thing, but when it messes up, it really messes up.But I think the pros greatly outweigh the cons. Problems consist of the attempt to get Lost In Space's success with Jonathan Harris and Billy Mumy with Kurt Kaznar and Stefan Arngrim. That was a miss. Arngrim looks unhappy the entire time he was on this show. And Kaznar was too hammy.It seems at one time the realization was that Deanna Lund was more appealing visually, so there would be attempts to make a trio of troublemakers, but that seemed to be the wrong direction as well. I think Valerie could have done it but with one of the other characters, acting wise. She just wasn't clicking with Kaznar or Arngrim.The second glitch seems to be was it earth or not Earth, if not Earth then why did so much of it look like Earth. This led to much confusion as well. Problem 3 was unavoidable. Our flight attendant Betty became pregnant in real life. By the time she returned to the show and was able to go with the plots rather than being hindered by her pregnancy, it seems it was too late and the show was tanking. Betty actually worked better with Kaznar than Valerie did.The truly amazing thing about seeing this show for the first time just a few years ago is that none of the main cast went on to do anything, so they were all brand new for me. Oh, there are recognizable guest stars like Jack Albertson, Jesse White, John Carradine, Susan Howard, Bruce Dern and Yvonne Craig, but none of the regulars ever did anything else. Stefan Arngrim's sister, Allison, went on to portray Nellie Oleson on Little House and she had much more life than her older brother did here.The saving grace for this show is plots. Some of these plots here are worthy of the original Star Trek. Off the top of my head, standouts are the clone episode with much greater comprehension of how to do twin portayals and the final episode with Dern and Craig is phenomenal to watch. These shows are hardly an insult to the intelligence. It seems Land of the Giants aired in the UK and outside of America more than it did within the states after it had been cancelled, as I never saw this show before or even heard of it. It is deep, that's for sure. Pity there couldn't have been a conclusion episode where the passengers and crew returned to 1983 (!) but the final episode is an intriguing finale in and of itself.