Sean KleefeldIn memory of Sid Krofft, I'm going to present again my #LandOfTheLost / #DoctorWho crossover theory that posits that LOTL is just a DW spin-off. You'll be surprised how many connections the two shows have!
The basic premise of Land of the Lost is that the Marshall family slips through a crack in time and ends up in this mysterious land of dinosaurs. But beyond just dinosaurs, the place is populated with alien creatures like the Sleestak and the Zarn.
Further, the Land of the Lost is a "closed universe." If you walk to one end of the place, you wind up on the other side like in Pac-Man. Here's Holly looking around the entire Land with a pair of binoculars only to see herself!
The show is much more than just time travel. It's very much in a traditional science fiction wheelhouse of Doctor Who, and had some heavy sci-fi writers at its helm including David Gerrold, Larry Niven, DC Fontana, and Ben Bova among others.
But that's hardly proof it exists in the same timeline as Doctor Who, is it?
The first piece of evidence is that the Land of the Lost is filled with TARDISes. The Marshall family call them "pylons" but they're clearly TARDISes. They have the same basic exterior structure and are impervious to damage.
The "pylons" are bigger on the inside (in this shot, Jackson even literally says the Who classic line, "It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!") and change their appearance over the course of the show.
Each pylon has a central control console and while the Marshalls never really figure out how to use them, they do indeed show Holly getting stuck in one and stepping out onto different times/planets.
My working theory is that the Land of the Lost is actually a pocket universe that the Time Lords use to store severely malfunctioning TARDISes until they can be repaired/dismantled. The closed nature of the Land of the Lost might be to prevent unintentional access.
This idea is further underscored by the 'repairman' character, William Blandings. He's virtually omniscient and carries a dimensionally engineered valise that holds WAY more than it seems outwardly capable of, including a universal key for any of the pylons/TARDISes.
But the best is for last: the Land of the Lost features an actual Time Lord! The actress isn't one you'd recognize from Doctor Who, but you know how Time Lords regenerate and change their appearance. This woman tricked Holly into believing she was a future version of herself.
The character's name? The Rani! Even spelled the same as the Kate O'Mara / Anita Dobson / Archie Panjabi version!
She actually appeared several episodes earlier trying to pass herself off as Will & Holly's mother! You can't see her clearly in that episode but it's the same actress: Erica Hagen! So we've got a clearly duplicitous character called The Rani in both series!
(Recall when The Rani tried the same trick on the Doctor? Trying to pass herself off as Mel?)
My theory is that The Rani was unable to get a TARDIS after she was exiled from Gallifrey, and was trying to get to the Land of the Lost to steal one. We don't see her actually do that in the show but a later episode revolves around a missing pylon.
But the problem with stealing a TARDIS from a land full of dinosaurs is that you can pick up unintentional hitchhikers! Like the Tyrannosaurs Rex that we saw in "Mark of the Rani!"
So there you have it! Land of the Lost is actually a Doctor Who spin-off! Dinosaurs aren't exactly uncommon on Doctor Who and now you know why!
Solarbird 
@SKleefeld ...SOLD! I am now 40x more interested in Land of the Lost.
ChancerubbageCongratulations on enjoying a show I refused to acknowledge. You got the better side of the deal. You just made it seem interesting.
I saw as having the same production values as misterrogers land of make believe, without the charm or character. Down to the point of remembering the live action scenes as more like people talking to puppeteers behind a wall.
Where is my Jim Danforth level stop motion? Aargh!
@Chancerubbage I only watched an episode or three when it originally aired. I didn't really sit down and actually watch it until maybe five years ago to see if it was as bad as my vague memories recalled.
The effects are indeed atrocious, even by 1970s standards. And the acting is... unsubtle. But I was genuinely surprised that the scripts are good (not great, but good) and there are some really fantastic sci-fi concepts in there. That's one of the reasons I called out some of the writers -- they didn't slouch just because it was a kids' show. The show's biggest crime was just not having a budget.
Yes perhaps it is not bad after all. I missed all those show elements you mentioned.
But beyond my ‘oh noes! no stop motion?’ Kneejerk: The pacing of the action didn’t seem to catch me. Ever. And it looked like it was videotaped on an indoor set. A local tv show. (Although arguably, so did Doctor Who.) i felt cheated.
If I just stumbled upon it instead , maybe I would have got into it. It was usually easy to ‘embrace the cheese’ on a Kroft production.
UnlikelyLass@SKleefeld Alternate theory: The LotL is a middle-step between SIDRATs and TARDISes.
Either way, though, I wonder if/how Sleestaks, Silurians, and Sea Devils are connected...
@Unlikelylass Oh, now that could be interesting! The old school Silurians in particular are pretty close to Sleestaks design-wise! 🤔
Euan@SKleefeld Hey I just got that David Gerrold book the other day!
I never gave it a chance.
Why?
Well the promos, commercials, even the shows intro, promised something it couldn’t deliver:
Stop Motion Animation. What we got instead of stop motion dinosaurs were sandpipers not quite up to ‘Triumph the insult comic dog’ standards.
I refused to watch in protest.
Of course stop motion on a weekly show would have been harder to produce than 2d flat animated cartoons.
Medea Vanamonde 🏳️⚧️Your loss, Apple Sauce
I still knew what skeestaks were oddly enough
Are you sure? Can’t know what they are if you can’t spell it!
You may be confabulating them with Skeeks from Wall Of Voodoo
Maybe Autocorrect changed it I don’t know. Someone will figure it out.
Michael Gemar@SKleefeld @moira This is a delightful theory!