‘Star Trek’s Surprising Connection to ‘Land of the ‘Lost’
When I was 10 years old, Land of the Lost debuted on NBC as a Saturday morning kids show produced by Sid Krofft and Marty Krofft Productions. It told the story of the Marshall family who, due to an unfortunate rafting mishap, were transported to another world, where prehistoric dangers lurked around every corner — naturally, as a kid, I ate this stuff up.
The show ran for three seasons and 43 episodes in all, which, if you’re familiar with any of the other Sid and Marty Krofft shows, is the equivalent of a show running for 10 years or more. Sid and Marty usually only had their shows run for a single season, or maybe two if it was super popular, and then they’d move on to the next project and find ways to repackage the old stuff over and over. But Land of the Lost definitely deserved a second and third season; it was just that popular. So, with all that said, here are five things that you may not know about the show.
1The Star Trek Connection
Paramount/Everett Collection
Although uncredited, Star Trek alumnus David Gerrold, writer of the classic episode “The Trouble with Tribbles,” was heavily involved in the creation of this show. As a season one story editor, Gerrold, along with Allan F. Balter, helped to flesh out the simple kids’ show concept that the Kroffts had come up with. In fact, a number of well-respected writers in the science fiction field contributed scripts to the series, including Larry Niven, Theodore Sturgeon, and Ben Bova. And along with Gerrold, a number of other Star Trek alums were involved, such as D.C. Fontana and Walter Koenig.
2Hey, That’s Not Rick Marshall!
Everett Collection
Yep, Uncle Jack ended up keeping an eye on Will and Holly during Season 3 due to a contract dispute with actor Spencer Milligan, who played Rick Marshall, the father on the show. Milligan not only wanted a raise — he also wanted to be compensated for the use of his image on the merchandise being sold to kids everywhere.
Instead of addressing Spencer’s concerns, the decision was made to send Rick back to Earth — and then, through a series of convoluted events, transport his brother Jack, who had been dutifully searching for the Marshall family, into their alternate reality. Veteran actor Ron Harper, who I remember from the TV version of Planet of the Apes, was brought on board to play Uncle Jack.
Despite Spencer’s departure after the second season of the show, he remained close with the two actors that played his children. After his passing in 2024, The Hollywood Reporter quoted Wesley Eure, who played Will Marshall, as saying “Sid and Marty Krofft didn’t just cast our TV family, they created, for the cast, a lifelong loving family in real life.”
3The Reimagined Holly Marshall
© ABC/courtesy Everett Collection
When ABC remade the series in 1991 with a different family, the Porters, the character of the beautiful jungle girl, Christa, was originally intended to be Holly Marshall. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the deal with Kathy Coleman, the actress who played Holly in the original series, never got made. As a result, the character was rewritten to be a girl from 1960s San Francisco that was transported into the Land of the Lost when she was very young.
4No One Seems to Like the Will Ferrell Movie
Ralph Nelson/©Universal/courtesy Everett Collection
Before its release in 2009, Will Ferrell told Empire magazine that his Land of the Lost movie was “not going to be a spoof. It’s going to be as real as possible and hopefully funny.”
Unfortunately, the movie was neither. It currently has a 26% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and earned $68.8 million at the box office — which would have been a great profit, if the film’s production budget hadn’t been $100 million. The Kroffts have repeatedly disowned the film — in a 2016 interview with Forbes, Sid said, “It didn’t have a heart … they changed all of the characters,” while Marty claimed that “at the time they were shooting it, I knew we were in trouble. This was not the movie I thought we were making.” But at a 2015 Comic-Con panel, the Kroffts went even farther, apologizing to the audience and fans for the film.
Most hard-core fans of the original series aren’t in love with it either. And, to nobody’s surprise at all, critics absolutely hated it, many of them citing it as a low point in Will Ferrell’s career.
5Is A New Version of the Show on the Horizon?
Prior to Marty Krofft’s passing in 2023, the brothers had been hard at work developing a new version of the show for television. And in June 2025, the Krofft’s production company signed a deal to revive the show.
While anything is possible, with each passing year, I think it’s fair to say that it gets more and more unlikely that we’re going to see a new version of this much beloved TV series.
Remind