The Lost World (TV series)

The Lost World
Season one titlecard
Genre	Action Adventure Science fantasy
Starring	Peter McCauley Rachel Blakely William Snow David Orth Jennifer O'Dell
Country of origin	Canada Australia United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	66 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Greg Coote Jeffery Hayes Guy Mullally John Landis Leslie Belzberg
Running time	60 minutes (approx.)
Production company(s)	The Over the Hill Gang (2001-2002) Action Adventure Network (1999-2001) Telescene (1999-2001) St. Clare Entertainment (1999-2001) Coote-Hayes Entertainment New Line Television
Release
Original network	PPV/DirecTV (1999) TNT (1999) (pilot/TV-movie only) syndicated (1999–2002)
Picture format	Season 1 & 2 4:3 Season 3 16:9
Original release	October 2, 1999 – May 13, 2002

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 before it was cancelled on a cliffhanger in 2002 after funding for a fourth season fell through. To this day, the cliffhanger remains unresolved. All three seasons were released in DVD box sets in 2004.

The first part of the series originally aired on Pay-per-view via DirecTV in the summer of 1999 before it aired in syndication. Pay-per-view aired the show uncensored, containing nudity and extended scenes. The syndicated version on TV and DVD releases are edited.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} 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,^[7] including the WB 100+ group stations, a joint Time Warner and Tribune Broadcasting entity, because of syndex rules the show aired one week later on Superstation WGN,^[8][9] and on the Space TV network in Canada.^[10][11] The series later aired in Europe on the SciFi Channel Europe.^[12] The series continued to be rerun in daily strip form in the United States on Time Warner owned TNT in the early morning hours Monday through Friday.^[13] Eventually the series was removed from the schedule after the DVD release in the United States by 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.

Plot

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

During their journey disaster strikes and their hot air balloon crashes in the uncharted Amazon jungle, where they end up on the prehistoric plateau. There they find themselves trapped and isolated in this dangerous land. 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 that became isolated and was then lost under mysterious circumstances. Together with a young woman from the future named Finn (Lara Cox), the group fights to survive against carnivorous dinosaurs, vicious Neanderthals, a race of lizardmen, and other perils as they search for a way to escape. The stories usually worked out that two separate adventures were going on at the same time.

In the later series, it is clear that they actually landed on the plateau in 1919.

Characters

• Professor George Edward Challenger (played by Peter McCauley) — The leader of the expedition, who hopes to prove his claims to the skeptical London Zoological Society.
• Professor Arthur Summerlee (played by Michael Sinelnikoff) — The elderly member of the band and a colleague to George Challenger, who initially does not believe Challenger's claims about a lost world. Although he is supposedly killed by Durek and washed down the waterfall at the end of Season One, Edward revealed to the group that Arthur is in a state where he is neither dead or alive upon being lifted from the dried-up waterfall as seen in "Man of Vision". If there was a Season 4, he would have been confirmed as officially alive.
• Marguerite Krux (played by Rachel Blakely) — The selfish financier of the expedition who goes along for her own reasons.
• Lord John Richard Roxton (played by William Snow) — The nobleman with vast hunting experience, who accidentally killed his brother while trying to save him from an ape. He serves as protector of the group.
• Edward "Ned" T. Malone (played by David Orth) — An American newspaper reporter, hoping to make a name for himself and impress his girl back home, if he survives the ordeal.
• Veronica Layton (played by Jennifer O'Dell) - A jungle girl whose parents disappeared eleven years prior to the series.
• Finn (played by Lara Cox) - A young woman from the year 2033 who debuts in the middle of Season 3.
• Tribune (played by Jerome Ehlers) - The leader of a race of lizard men.

Plateau Animals

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

• Ankylosaurus - Ankylosaurs appear in Cave of Fear, Blood Lust, and Paradise Found.
• Brontosaurus -
• Deinonychus -
• Giant Bee -
• Herrerasaurus - Herrerasaurs appear in Blood Lust, Out of Time, The Beast Within, Absolute Power, Time After Time, Prodigal Father, and The Chosen One. The Herrerasaurs are incorrectly shown as having double crests on their heads just like Dilophosaurs.
• Pachycephalosaurus - This was seen only in the book page in the original pilot.
• Parasaurolophus -
• Plesiosaurus - The Plesiosaurs are found in large bodies of water on a plateau.
• Pteranodon -
• Smilodon - Smilodon was originally supposed to have appeared as a recurring animal, but was cut from the finished programme.
• Triceratops -
• Troodon - The Troodon was to have debuted in Season 4 and with human like intelligence.
• Tyrannosaurus - Tyrannosaurs are recurring predators in the series, where each one tries unsuccessfully to catch and eat the main characters.

Episodes

Season 4 Information

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. 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, her ancestor whom came from "the line of Mordren;" they are the opposing forces against the Protectors. Marguerite as the "third power" within the Trion forces, was 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." Also, because of Marguerite's Celtic heritage within the line of Mordren whose presence is on the Plateau and Veronica's bloodline with 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"^[14] The series would have been resolved with Malone and Veronica getting married 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 welcomely greeted by the zoological society due to Malone having sent them a letter explaining when they would arrive.

Cast and crew

The list follows the credits order. The seasons during which each actor has been included in the main cast are marked in black. Note that the actors don't necessarily appear in every episode during their time as a main star.

When a starring actor also has appeared as a guest star during other seasons, this is marked in gray, with the number of guest appearances noted in italics. A wwite square means that the actor doesn't appear in that season at all.

International Distribution

In addition to the English language broadcasts in North America and Europe, the series has aired around the globe in other languages.

It is unknown if the series was ever broadcast to Australia and New Zealand.

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.^[15][16]

DVD Releases

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.^[27][28]

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

Trivia

• Lara Cox appeared in the second half of the third season as Finn, but was never given credit in the opening credits. In the 2nd season episode "Amazons", she had a guest appearance as the Amazon "Phoebe".
• William deVry played Ed Malone in the two-hour telefilm that preceded the series (the film was split into two episodes for syndication purposes). David Orth took over the role at the start of the series proper.
• The character of Arthur Summerlee, as portrayed by Michael Sinelnikoff, was killed off in the first season finale, but returned once as a ghost during Season 2. Prior to the pilot for this series, Sinelnikoff had also played the character of Summerlee in the 1998 cable TV movie version of The Lost World, in which Summerlee is killed by a T-Rex, and which otherwise had different actors, and with only those series characters which came from the book (Challenger, Roxton, Malone).
• During the third season, both David Orth and Jennifer O'Dell were absent from the series for several consecutive episodes, due in part to financial constraints.
• The show was primarily filmed on the Gold Coast, near Brisbane, Queensland on Australia's east coast.
• Several well-known Australian actors appeared as one off characters throughout the series, including Natalie Bassingthwaighte and Rebecca Gibney.
• Season 1 episode "Blood Lust" about vampires aired in syndication in the United States Halloween weekend 1999. In 2000, the season 2 episode "Stone Cold" was also promoted as a special Halloween themed episode.^[29]

References

External links

• "Official website (archived)". Archived from the original on 2002-08-11. Retrieved January 17, 2015. 
• The Lost World (TV movie/pilot) at the Internet Movie Database
• The Lost World (series) at the Internet Movie Database
• The Lost World (series) at TV.com
• The Lost World Fan Forum
• Plot Summary Season 4 + 5 with Conclusion of Season 3 Cliffhanger