Like many people in my age range, I grew up watching Land of the Lost on Saturday morning TV. For years, I had an occasional reminder about the show and wondered about it. Well, with the new Will Farrell rendition of Land of the Lost, there's been a lot of buzz about the show. I've gone back and looked at the tv.com pages on Land of the Lost (how did I totally miss the 1991 series that ran two seasons?), reviewed the "official" Land of the Lost web site, and of course watched the movie trailers and clips from the upcoming film.

Unfortunately, I don't have high expectations for the film. I'm not a huge Will Farrell fan, and, as I mentioned to my brother yesterday, the previews imply that the movie is basically Will Farrell trying to outrun the T-Rex. it might be an interesting gag, but I don't know that I'm up for 90 minutes of that.

While watching "10.5 Apocalypse" on SciFi last night (a guilty pleasure, watching B movies on Sci Fi occasionally), I saw a note that SciFi was running a Land of the Lost marathon on Memorial Day (today), so in a fit of giddy excitement, I set our DVR to record the episodes and planned to get up and start watching when the marathon started at 7am. I knew full well that in the 30+ years that have passed since the series ran, the special effects wouldn't be that great (compared to what's done regularly today) and that there would be a certain "camp" factor, but I was so enthralled with the show as a kid, I figured it would be an enjoyable trip down memory lane.

Sometimes the past is best left there.

I've been enjoying getting caught up with some old high school friends on Facebook lately, and it's made me a little nostalgic about my childhood. There are parts of my childhood that I've locked out of my memory and have no intentions to open up again, but getting to see how my old friends have changed over the years has been entertaining and enjoyable.

The same cannot be said for Land of the Lost, at least for me. OK, so I probably set my expectations a little higher than I should, and I can't say that watching the shows haven't been somewhat enjoyable, but the show just hasn't been able to stand the test of time. Sure, it was head and shoulders above other children's programming at the time, and certainly better than most children's programming today as well. But the special effects and other aspects of the show really detract from my fond memories of it. Don't get me wrong, it's not the absolute worst thing I've ever watched. I've seen far, far worse on Sci Fi and other places. I just really wanted to have this memory of the show be what I had hoped it was. In a way, I wonder if the memories I had of the show would have been better preserved if I hadn't watched the marathon.

Oh well, it wasn't like I was going to get any work done today anyway. It's just going to take a LOOOOOONG time to get that banjo out of my head...