The Lost World (TV series)

Last updated

The Lost World
The Lost World tv series titlecard.jpg
Season one titlecard
Genre Action
Adventure
Science fantasy
Based on The Lost World
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Starring
Country of origin
  • Canada
  • Australia
  • United States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons3
No. of episodes66 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers
ProducerDarryl Sheen
Running time40–44 minutes
Production companies
  • Coote-Hayes Productions
  • Action Adventure Network (seasons 1–2)
  • Telescene (seasons 1–2)
  • St. Clare Entertainment (seasons 1–2)
  • The Over the Hill Gang Productions (season 3)
Original release
Network
Release2 October 1999 (1999-10-02) 
13 May 2002 (2002-05-13)

The Lost World (officially Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World) is a syndicated television series loosely based on the 1912 novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World . The show premiered in the United States in the fall of 1999 (after the TV-movie/pilot aired in February on DirecTV and then on the cable television channel TNT in April). [1] It ran for three seasons, the final two of which aired in syndication in the United States, before it was cancelled in 2002 after funding for a fourth season fell through. The final episode ended with an unresolved cliffhanger. All three seasons were released in DVD box sets in 2004.

Contents

Plot

"At the dawn of the 20th century" a band of British adventurers, led by adventurer and scholar Professor George Challenger, embark on an expedition to prove the existence of an isolated lost world. The group, some mismatched enthusiasts with less than selfless reasons for making the journey, consists of Challenger, Professor Arthur Summerlee, Marguerite Krux, Major Lord John Richard Roxton and Edward T. Malone.

Their hot air balloon crashes in the Amazon rainforest on an uncharted plateau where prehistoric creatures survive. The group is assisted by a young jungle-savvy woman named Veronica Layton, whose parents disappeared eleven years before. Her family was part of a research group known to have vanished under mysterious circumstances. Together, the group fights to survive against carnivorous dinosaurs, vicious Neanderthals, a race of lizard men, and other perils as they search for a way to escape. Each episode detailed two separate, simultaneous adventures.

The later series established that the party became stranded in 1919.

Episodes

SeasonEpisodesOriginally aired
First airedLast aired
1 22April 3, 1999 (1999-04-03)May 20, 2000 (2000-05-20)
2 22October 7, 2000 (2000-10-07)May 26, 2001 (2001-05-26)
3 22October 20, 2001 (2001-10-20)May 13, 2002 (2002-05-13)

Proposed season 4

The final episode of the third season ended with an unresolved cliffhanger.

The producers of the show have revealed some details of the proposed fourth and even fifth seasons from 2002. If the subsequent season had been produced, fans would have learned that Professor Arthur Summerlee was indeed alive, residing in Avalon. Avalon, near the border of the Plateau, is where Veronica's surviving mother Abigail Layton had become the Plateau's protector soon after her disappearance. She became the ruler of Avalon and had left behind a triangle artifact – the Trion, the Eye of Heaven – for her daughter Veronica to find. Veronica was to become the new Protector of the Plateau, standing in opposition to the line of Mordren, whose descendants intend to use the Plateau's power for evil. Her tree-house dwelling was apparently the epicenter of the entire Plateau.

The new season would have also revealed that Marguerite and Roxton were always meant to be together from the beginning. As Veronica is the new Protector of the Plateau, Marguerite is a descendant of Morrighan, a druid priestess who once served as "third power" within the Trion forces between the Protectors and the line of Mordren. As with her ancestor, Marguerite would have been a free will agent allowed to choose good or evil in the battle against power over the Plateau. Roxton, Marguerite's knight, protector, and future groom, would have been her personal guide so that Marguerite would ultimately choose "good". Because Morrighan's line descends from a child born to a Protector and the line of Mordren and Veronica's bloodline is of the Protectors, Veronica and Marguerite are cousins genetically, but spiritually are sisters. Roxton's role as Marguerite's modern day knight originates with his childhood and ancestral home having close proximity to Avebury, nearly twenty miles from Stonehenge. Finn would have been revealed to be Malone's great-great-granddaughter, her grandmother being the Amazon Phoebe (also played by Lara Cox) whom Malone had sex with in the episode "Amazons". [2] The series would have been resolved with Malone and Veronica together as a couple and staying in Avalon, while Challenger uses his teleportation invention from the episode "Finn" to send himself, Roxton, Marguerite, and Summerlee to London, but travels forward in time to the year 2005 where they are warmly greeted by the zoological society due to Malone having sent them a letter explaining when they would arrive.

The fourth season would have featured guest appearances of two other Arthur Conan Doyle characters, Sherlock Holmes and Professor James Moriarty.

Characters

Overview

ActorCharacterSeasons
Pilot 1 2 3
Peter McCauley Professor George Edward Challenger Main
Rachel Blakely Marguerite KruxMain
William Snow Lord John Richard Roxton Main
David Orth Edward 'Ned' T. MaloneDoes not appearMain [lower-alpha 1] Special guest star [lower-alpha 2]
Jennifer O'Dell Veronica LaytonMain
Michael Sinelnikoff Professor Arthur SummerleeMain Guest Does not appear
William deVry Ned MaloneMain [lower-alpha 3] Does not appear
Lara Cox FinnDoes not appear Special guest star [lower-alpha 4]
Notes
  1. Orth did not appear in the original two-hour pilot television film, but he does appear in the television series, starting with the first two episodes.
  2. While Orth appears with the other main cast in the show's opening title sequence in season 3, he is listed as a "Special guest star". Orth is last credited in the tenth episode of season 3, "Brothers In Arms". His third-season appearances were curtailed due to Australian tax laws. [3]
  3. William deVry and his character only appear in the original two-hour pilot television film. He does not appear in the television series.
  4. Cox does not appear with the main cast in the show's opening, but is credited as a "Special guest star" after the show's opening title sequence. Cox's first crediting on the show is for the fifteenth episode of season 3, "Finn".

Main

Supporting

Guests

Plateau animals

There are various prehistoric animals and other species of creatures that live on the plateau, including:

Broadcast

The first part of the series originally aired on Pay-per-view via DirecTV in the summer of 1999 before it aired in syndication. The original airing was uncensored, containing nudity and extended scenes. The syndicated version on TV and DVD releases are edited. [4] [5] [6] [ unreliable source? ] [7] [ unreliable source? ] [8] [ unreliable source? ]

Following the limited run on PPV, the first broadcast TV run of the series ran weekly in syndication on hundreds of stations in the United States, [9] including the WB 100+ group stations, a joint Time Warner and Tribune Broadcasting entity. Because of syndex rules each episode aired one week later on WGN America, [10] [11] and on the Space TV network in Canada. [12] [13] The series continued to be rerun in daily strip form in the United States on the Time Warner owned TNT in the early morning hours Monday through Friday. [14]

International

In addition to the English language broadcasts in North America and Europe, the series has aired around the globe in other languages. The series aired in Europe on the SciFi Channel Europe. [15] The series was also dubbed in Bengali in Bangladesh and was subsequently aired on ATN Bangla in 2009. [16]

During the original run the weekly syndicated primary and backup satellite wildfeed for the series utilized the Galaxy 26 satellite located at 93° West longitude. [17] [18] As of 2022 the series is airing on South African channel SABC 3 on weekdays at around 01:00 in the early hours of the morning.

DVD releases

The series was removed from the schedule after the DVD release in the United States after a third Time Warner company, New Line Television, sold the DVD region 1 distribution rights to Image Entertainment. The DVD region 2 distribution rights were sold to Liberation Entertainment.

Image Entertainment released all three seasons of The Lost World on DVD in Region 1 in NTSC. Liberation Entertainment released all three seasons on DVD in Region 2 in PAL.

The original 93 minute version pilot movie was released on DVD in 4:3 PAL under the title, The Lost World The Beginning by ILC Prime licensed by Fremantle Corporation. [19] [20]

Note: The pilot television movie was edited down into episodes 1 "The Journey Begins" & episode 2 "Stranded" for the TV series.

SeasonEp # Aspect Ratio R1 Release DateR2 Release Date
Pilot1–24:329 July 2002
1224:327 January 200415 October 2007
2224:320 April 200419 November 2007
32216:916 November 20043 March 2008

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