Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Land of the Lost: "Kevin vs. The Volcano" (October 26, 1991)

In “Kevin vs. the Volcano,” the Porters watch in horror as a volcano in the distance erupts and begins to send green (!) lava in the direction of their tree house.  

Mr. Porter (Timothy Bottoms) and Christa (Shannon Day) attempt to divert the lava flow by moving a huge boulder into its path through a narrow valley, but the lava seems unstoppable.

When Kevin (Robert Gavin) falls into a hole while battling Scarface, however, he finds what could be the answer.  

In an ancient subterranean cave, he finds forgotten Sleestak technology: a glowing crystal structure that can reverse the lava flow, and undo the eruption entirely!

Last week, I wrote a bit about how the 1990s version of Land of the Lost was taking the old story concepts of the original series, and updating them for the new series.  Last week’s episode “Day for Knight,” was a “guest-star in the land of the lost” story.  

This week, we get a re-boot of another original series staple: the "regulating of the environment" story.

In the original series, the Marshalls had to prove themselves careful and good shepherds of Altrusia, and they did so in stories such as “One of Our Pylons is Missing,” “The Longest Day,” “Black Out” and “The Orb.”  

In basically all those tales, some force (either the Sleestaks or a malfunctioning pylon) managed to get the environment out-of-whack, causing a cascade of danger in the land.  The instability threatened everyone. Thus the Marshalls had to repair the damage and regulate the environment to so.  They had their pylons, crystals, and matrix tables to help them do so.

“Kevin vs. the Volcano” sees Kevin finding a similar mechanism: an ancient crystal device in a cave.  

The mechanism is Sleestak technology, and Mr. Porter speculates that it is an energy generator, perhaps one in a network of such devices.  How precisely, this crystal device regulates the volcano is not made entirely clear, but that’s okay.  If the Sleestak were sufficiently advanced once, perhaps they placed these devices as volcano guards to keep them from erupting.  

On some vague level, it makes at least a modicum of sense.

What differs now is that the Porters solve the problem almost entirely by accident, and don’t show much interest in pursuing their discovery of ancient Sleestak technology though, conceivably, it could provide a way for them to return home.  

Where Rick Marshall mapped the Pylons, learned their functions, and felt a responsibility to shepherd the environment, the approach by the Porters is much more scatter-shot.  Thus, one of the key thematic aspects of the original series -- responsibility to nature -- is relatively absent here.

Still, “Kevin vs. the Volcano” is an exciting episode of Land of the Lost for a few reasons. It not only introduces the ancient Sleestak technology, it features some very strong special effects moments involving Scarface, the resident T-Rex.  My favorite such moment shows the imposing dinosaur in front of Vasquez Rocks – the very place where Captain Kirk battled the Gorn on the original Star Trek.

Next week: “Mind Games.”