Gerrold and Niven bring us the season one finale, and with it, a proper end to the series.  By the end, I was loving watching this show and couldn’t wait to see how they would wrap up the season, only to discover they wrapped up the show!  It all felt a bit like that Darth Vader line actually: “The Circle is now complete!”  Maybe he was a fan?  Do you think they got this series on the Death Star??

Enik has been trying to get back home but he can’t make it back.  Fortunately, he thinks he’s figured out why.  Something has broken time and the gateway keeps bringing him back to one moment: the opening of the series with Marshall, Will and Holly on a routine expedition, when the greatest earthquake ever known…. well, you know the song.  But the loop keeps pointing to that moment and it seems Enik can’t get home because the Marshall’s have become something of a Schrodinger’s cat: they are both alive and dead at the same time.  This final episode was trippy!

Loads to say so this might sound disjointed, but there’s a lot to cover.  First off, the fact that Holly has a bathing suit with her does not surprise me as the family was on a camping trip of sorts.  I also appreciated that the caves were cold, as one would expect.  I’ve been in caves and they do get pretty chilly.  This was a nice touch that could have been ignored but the writers wanted to create a genuine experience I suppose.  What actually did surprise me though was watching a Sleestak rise out of the water.  It’s head is turned away from us and the open slit in the back for the actor to get into the mask is open and the flaps look red, so the effect is a deeply disturbing, semi-bloody image of the creature rising from the water.  It was magnificent!  (The picture quality might not be great, but there it is…)

My big complaint after the recent episodes was that there’s speculation around the dormant season for the Sleestak.  First off, didn’t we just come off that?  And Rick seems to know about it in the earlier episodes but is less sure of it now.  Sure, it could have been speculation, but that was out of context.  Of course, there could be another explanation, but we have to get through this one first.  And you’d have to take a bit of a (David) Lynchian approach to it: how many Rick’s have we been following through the series?  

Enik identifies the “small problem” (what the hell does this guy consider a big problem, I wonder?) that the Marshall’s have to go back through the gateway to release the time doorway so he too can get home.  He says something of equal mass has to get through.  Well… there is a small problem with that.  They fell through with a raft and supplies.  An “equal mass” doesn’t go back through the doorway.  Now, I might accept that if it’s just impacting living tissue, but that’s never stated; probably good also that no one died or put on too much weight.  Maybe the raft isn’t going to affect history, but people will… I can get behind that, but it’s not in keeping with what Enik says. Furthermore, that’s assuming Enik isn’t just looking out for himself in the end. Based on Enik’s theory, the Marshall’s will go back to the raft during the fall to escape the pocket universe, but unless we ignore the obvious, it means they will likely fall to their deaths.  That’s one hell of a choice: stay trapped in purgatory or take a risk that has a very high probability of killing you.  But with that, we see the Marshall’s arrive in the land at the same moment they leave the land.  Does that mean they will be on a path through that loop forever.  Is there really a way out?  Will they eventually not make it? Or is it a hiccup in their personal timeline that always happens to them but they get back to the same moment they left with just a bit more wisdom?  We just get a chance to look in on that hiccup.

In some ways, this is a good thing for the second season because it could be that we are following the other version of the Marshall’s, post their escape but also before their escape?  Huh?  I mean, the ones who left did escape but we see a different outcome for the ones that just arrived. 

I think it would have been better had the writer of the “Beware the Sleestaks” sign in episode 2 been the Marshall’s themselves.  This would have been an earlier version and we’d realize we are not watching the first round through the “circle”.  This would also explain how the pulley system was in the cave, and who escaped the Sleestak god in The Hole.  But this is hardly a complaint.  This was still enough mind candy to give us mental diabetes!  

The episode does end on a bittersweet note though.  They may indeed be going off to die, but Holly kisses Enik and thanks him for getting them out of the Land of the Lost.  This is a beautiful moment; she sees him as a friend beyond his Altrusian appearance.  I love that.  As a thank you, he teaches her an important word from his language: Ganactic.  It’s a farewell and blessing all in one.  Whether the Marshalls survived or not, or whether they are just going back through the loop over and over, we may never know.  I barely made it through a viewing of season 2 and by season 3, any semblance of logic is lost when Rick vanishes and his brother takes his place.  It’s all so disappointing when we have something so amazing in the first season.  Was the ending appropriate for a children’s show?  Probably not.  It had more sophistication that even this adult can fully wrap his head around.  The series might have needed a bit more explanation in the end, but I was a fan of The Prisoner; how much more confusing was this?  Well, maybe a lot but I still felt this series ended very well and should be on people’s watch list.  Let’s face it, all 17 episodes would be just about 8 hours of television – there is a lot worse out there, believe me. 

This has been a delightfully fun trip down memory lane.  Thanks for joining me.  In the words of my favorite Altrusian, “Ganactic”.  ML